Miles and miles from home, that was all he wanted. Just a voice in his ear.
His phone seemed to taunt him as he picked it up, and it wasn’t the damn thing’s fault. He could call anyone he wanted—any of a dozen people who would actually pick up. But not the one person he wanted to.
In a brief second of clarity, he knew it wouldn’t change, and torturing himself like this was idiotic. Masochistic.
And that brief second was all it took.
In a burst, he unleashed all the strength he usually kept coiled so tight, and it felt good to just let it go.
He came back to himself with that intense kind of instant regret that only followed particularly stupid moves. But there were some things you couldn’t take back.
Cursing silently under his breath, he crouched and dropped his face into his hands. The shattered pieces of his phone glittered brightly against the gravel, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He dropped his ass to the ground and spread his legs out, shaking his head against the combined impulses.
He had insurance on the stupid thing. He’d get a ride into town as soon as he could, and he’d say he dropped it. From the top of the telescope apparently, but still. Just a fall. Not him spending all his useless anger in hurling his best connection to the rest of the world.
Not him leaving himself really and truly alone.
Chapter Five
It was a tribute to just how loudly Adam’s mom could scream that he could hear it even over e-mail. He winced as he scanned over the message again, then clicked REPLY with a mental hand held protectively over his balls.
Yes, he should be more careful with his possessions, and yes, he needed to get someone to take him into civilization to get his phone replaced, and yes, it had been four days, but seriously? It wasn’t as if there weren’t any other ways to get in touch with him, and he was at other people’s mercy here without his own ride. He’d already asked Lisa and P.J. and Roberto, so what more could he do?
Except, yeah, maybe remind one of them that they’d said they’d be happy to, any time.
Four days without his phone, and it had been… nice, actually. The constant itch to check the damn thing had persisted at first, but it kept getting easier and easier to ignore. He didn’t have to think about the calls he wasn’t getting or the texts that never arrived. He was exchanging actual¸ honest-to-goodness e-mails for the first time in years, most of them more than two sentences long, and from people he cared about, too. His parents and his brothers and a few of his friends from college. All it had taken was the message from him, letting everyone know he was without a phone for a little bit. All it had taken was him reaching out.
And the people who didn’t take advantage of the opportunity? Well, nothing he could do about that. Right?
He worried the inside of his cheek between his teeth and put the thought out of his mind. He finished the reply to his mom, assuring her he wasn’t dying of dysentery out in the middle of the jungle or anything, and hit SEND, then minimized the window to get back to his work.
He was just digging into the numbers Lisa had left for him to crunch when the lady herself wandered in, her research partner, Heather, on her heels. Heather, who was also Jo’s advisor. Great. After giving them each a quick wave, he observed general office-sharing protocol and buried his gaze in his screen. But before he could get too involved, Heather laughed and said, “At least your student leaves your office from time to time.”
His ears perked up, but he tried to ignore it.
“Yours one of the obsessive ones?” Lisa asked.
Jo? Obsessive? Ha.
“She’s fine. But it’s more work coming up with enough for her to do to keep her happy than I’d been counting on.” Heather’s voice had a shrug to it. “Anyway, she’s got her first observing run tomorrow night. Hopefully she’ll get some good stuff.”
“Oh, right! I was going to ask you if Adam shouldn’t sit in on that with her. The objects you’re looking at might overlap with some of the ones we’re investigating.”
At the sound of his name, Adam put off any pretense at obliviousness. He tugged his headphones off and twisted around in his seat. “I thought I wasn’t going to get to use her until next week.”
“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Lisa mused, cocking an eyebrow.
Heather held up one hand. “It’s fine by me. It’s my research assistant you’ll have to talk to about it.”
Adam’s stomach sank, and he couldn’t quite suppress his frown. “Oh.”
He’d barely seen Jo since the other night. She hadn’t been coming to meals with the rest of them, and he hadn’t been sitting out between their houses in the dark, waiting to catch a glimpse of her against the backdrop of the stars. The slow burn of hunger he got thinking about her hadn’t faded, but it was all twisted together with what she’d said about him. About him and Shannon. He didn’t know which way was up anymore, or how Jo got to him so much.
And now he had to ask her for a favor.
“Don’t look too excited,” Heather said, her tone amused.
Shit. He blanked his expression the best he could. This was personal, not professional, and he wasn’t going to let whatever was going on between him and Jo mess anything up. “No. I’ll… I’ll ask her.”
“You can’t be too intimidated by people like that. I promise you, her bark is worse than her bite.”
“I’m not intimidated.” He wasn’t. Not exactly. It was more complicated than that, the push-pull of want and anger, and the way she took him apart with her words and forced these awful statements out of him. The way she wormed her way into the thoughts he had when he was alone, in the dark, with the door closed, imagining her on top of him and under him and pressed against him… Heather and Lisa were both looking at him skeptically, and he leveled them with a glare, insisting, “I’m not.”
“If you say so,” Lisa said with a smirk. “Just ask her before tomorrow.”
“Sure.” He’d… get right on that.
Swiveling around in his chair again, ignoring the tittering he knew full well was going on behind his back, he focused on his computer screen.
He’d ask Jo. Have a civil, professional conversation with her—one where neither of them aimed for the jugular. One where neither of them ended up, physically or metaphorically, laid out flat on their backs, with their throats exposed.
He ducked his head. He just had to see to every single other item on his to-do list first.
He checked his e-mail one last time, then closed the window. He’d finished everything he had to for the day, and while there were a couple of items on his list he could get a jump on for tomorrow, even he could admit he was stalling.
Stop being such a fucking coward.
He put the computer to sleep for the night and rolled his chair out from under the desk, standing and stretching his arms overhead. Lisa was long gone for the evening—almost everyone was. If it were anybody but Jo, he’d worry she might’ve left by this point, too, but there was no way he’d be that lucky.
Turning off the light, he checked his pocket for his keys, ignoring the empty spot where his phone should be, then closed the door and headed down the hall. Scientists were a weird bunch, and even at half past eight, there were a few lights on in offices up and down the corridor. He nodded at anyone who happened to look up as he passed, but no one tried to stop him or draw him into a conversation.
Just outside the door to Jo and Heather’s office, he paused. Jo was sitting there, giant headphones over her ears, attention focused intently on the screen in front of her. No sign of Heather, of course, and that was good. He didn’t need her listening in or offering commentary the way she had that afternoon.