Applied Electromagnetism Read online

  “You okay there, Woerner? You’re looking a little shell-shocked.” Adam’s expression was so smirky it made her insides burn. If her arms had been long enough, she’d have reached across the table and slapped it right off his face.

  And then immediately be fired.

  She breathed out through her nostrils for a count of three while she tried to come up with a retort that wouldn’t be reportable to human resources. When that failed, she elected to take the high road, getting to her feet and walking out without a word.

  If this was a preview of what the rest of the week would be like, she would need every ounce of patience she could muster just to keep herself from murdering him and hiding his body in a cow pasture.

  Chapter Three

  LAX on a weekday morning was a special kind of hell. LAX at any time was a hellscape, but apparently every business traveler in the greater Los Angeles metro area was flying on this particular Tuesday morning.

  Olivia was glad she’d gotten there early. She always liked to get to the airport early to head off any unanticipated problems, like extra-long security lines or broken check-in computers—both of which had been in play this morning.

  But she had successfully navigated the airport gauntlet with time to spare, and was through security and waiting at her gate forty-five minutes before boarding. She’d even had time to stock up on snacks and water in one of the airport shops.

  Adam, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. Not that she was eager to spend time with him or awkwardly attempt to make small talk and pretend she could stand the sight of him. But as the minutes ticked toward their scheduled boarding time, Olivia grew increasingly worried.

  She couldn’t do any of this without him, and the schedule was already so tight they couldn’t afford any delays. Once they got to Austin, they’d have to rent a car and drive another seventy miles to Fayette County, where the plant was located, before they could get started on the integration. If Adam missed this flight it would throw off everything. Even a few lost hours could mean the difference between success or failure with a schedule this tight.

  And Olivia needed this assignment to be a success. It would bolster her application to the leadership program. Not to mention, if she botched her very first field assignment, she probably wouldn’t be given a second one. She’d carry this failure with her for as long as she stayed on her current team.

  That was why she was so pissed about having her concerns dismissed. No, they weren’t even dismissed—she hadn’t been allowed to voice them at all. You couldn’t dismiss something until you’d actually heard it. She’d just been silenced.

  Olivia had a bad feeling this assignment was doomed from the get-go, and she was pissed about it. It was fine for Adam. He’d done enough of these and pulled enough unlikely wins out of his ass that he was golden no matter what. One little failure amidst a long string of successes wouldn’t tarnish his reputation. But if this went south, Olivia’s official record would be zero for one.

  Adam was the control in this experiment, so it couldn’t possibly be his fault. She was the variable, so everyone would assume she couldn’t carry her weight, that she wasn’t up to the challenge. And there would go all her hopes of being a future leader, or getting any other plum assignments.

  Five minutes to boarding now, and still no Adam. Their plane was at the gate, the previous flight’s passengers had exited, and the cleaning crew was making their pass. All signs pointed to an on-time boarding and departure.

  Olivia stared at her phone, wondering if she should try calling Adam. Was that what a future leader would do? Or would it make her seem like a Nervous Nellie?

  Damn Adam for getting her into this situation. And for being late to the airport. But most of all damn him for making her doubt herself. She’d trusted her instincts before he’d come along and punctured her confidence. Now she was second-guessing everything.

  Screw him; he was on his own. She wasn’t his mother. If he’d overslept or broken down on his way to the airport, or whatever had happened, it was his problem. She was here on time, dammit.

  “Hey, Woerner,” Adam said, elbowing his way through the crowd beside her at exactly one minute to boarding. He was wearing faded jeans and a soft chambray shirt that made Olivia feel overdressed in her stretchy dress pants and blouse.

  “Hey.” She tried to offer him a smile, but it came out thin. “I was starting to wonder if you were going to make it.” Dammit, now she sounded passive aggressive.

  He shrugged as he glanced around the terminal. “They never start boarding on time.” His eyes landed on her with a smug glint. “Let me guess: you got here seven hours ago, just to be safe.”

  “No.” Only two, which was the amount recommended on the airport website. Seven hours was crazy. The earliest she’d ever arrived for a flight was four hours in advance—but in her defense it was an international flight at Christmastime.

  “I wasn’t going to miss the plane, if that’s what you were nervous about.”

  “I wasn’t nervous,” Olivia lied, feeling her irritation rise.

  He nodded like he didn’t believe her. “I made it in plenty of time, so all that negative energy you expended fretting about it was wasted.”

  “I said I wasn’t nervous.”

  “But you were though. I can see it on your face.”

  “You don’t know anything about my face. Maybe I’m just annoyed about spending an entire week in your company.”

  Was that amusement that she detected in his expression? It couldn’t be, because Adam didn’t smile, ever, and he certainly wouldn’t be smiling at her.

  His eyes fell on her large black purse. “Are you sure that bag’s going to fit under the seat in front of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s practically bursting at the seams. What the hell’s in there?”

  “Just some essentials.” Olivia’s fingers tightened around the shoulder strap as she stared at the gate agent, telepathically willing her to start the boarding process. What she wouldn’t give for Professor Xavier’s mind control powers right now. She could get on the plane and make Adam stop talking. Forever.

  “What kind of essentials?” Adam leaned closer like he was trying to look inside her bag.

  “Essentials,” she repeated through gritted teeth as she shifted her purse to her other shoulder, away from his nosy peeping. Why was he so interested in her goddamn purse, anyway? Why was he talking to her at all when he didn’t have to? He never talked this much at work. “Just basic stuff like my laptop, phone charger, a bottle of water, some snacks for the plane, my knitting—”

  His eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, your what?”

  “Knitting.”

  “Are you an eighty-year-old grandmother?” That was definitely amusement on his face now—at her expense—and it made her teeth clench.

  “Plenty of young people knit. It’s a very popular hobby. Uma Thurman knits.”

  “Uma Thurman is old enough to be a grandmother. She may actually be a grandmother.”

  “She’s not even fifty. Anyway, Demi Lovato knits. So does Cara Delevingne. Plenty of men knit too. Ryan Gosling knits, did you know that?”

  Adam put his hands up in an exaggerated gesture of surrender. “Okay. Forget I said anything.”

  If only that were possible.

  They’d been in each other’s company for all of five minutes, and she was already exhausted. How was she going to survive an entire week of this? Interacting with Adam was burning through all her energy reserves.

  “I notice they’re not boarding yet,” he pointed out in a self-congratulatory tone.

  Christ on a Cheez-It, how had she ever found this smug asshole attractive? “Do you always have to be right about everything?” Olivia asked wearily.

  “Do you?”

  “Only when I am right.”

  He gazed at her, the corner of his mouth curving in what was definitely almost a smile. “Funny, I always thought you were nicer.”

 
“I am nice.”

  “I’m not complaining. I like you better when you’re not trying so hard to be nice.”

  She looked away, flustered that he’d sussed out her secret—that the sunny, friendly demeanor she adopted at work was just an act. Underneath it she was snarky and cynical and not nearly as nice as she pretended to be.

  Adam glanced over at the gate, but when he saw that boarding still wasn’t imminent, he returned his focus to Olivia. “Seriously though, why do you carry so much stuff with you?”

  “In case I need it.”

  “Doesn’t it get old, dragging that heavy bag everywhere you go? I’ve seen you lugging that thing around the office. I’m surprised you haven’t developed a shoulder impingement.”

  “It’s not that heavy. And I like to be prepared.”

  “For what?”

  “Emergencies.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What kind of emergencies do you expect to happen around the office?”

  “That’s the thing about emergencies: you never expect them. And then boom, you spill marinara on your shirt and wish you had a Shout wipe. Or the button pops off your pants and you need to sew it back on.”

  “So not really emergencies so much as minor inconveniences.”

  “Well, yeah, I’m not some crazy end-of-the-world prepper carrying around iodine tablets and gas masks.”

  “So you’re just an over-planner, is what you’re saying.”

  She felt her face redden, not from embarrassment, but irritation—not that anyone would be able to tell the difference by looking at her pink cheeks. “I don’t think I’m an over-planner. I take an appropriate amount of precautions.”

  “I have literally never needed a sewing kit at the office in my life. It would be a ridiculous waste of energy to carry one around every day for years on the infinitesimal chance I might one day need one.”

  Honest to Christ, did this tool belt ever let up? The urge to punch him square in the dick was growing exponentially with every second she spent in his company.

  “Well, I actually have needed a sewing kit,” she replied, struggling to keep her voice level, “and I was glad I had it. And other people have needed one and I was glad to be able to offer one to them as well.”

  “So you’re carrying this stuff around for other people who can’t be bothered to carry it themselves?”

  “No, I’m carrying it for myself. But it’s nice to be able to help people occasionally.”

  “I think people should fend for themselves. If they don’t care enough to carry something, you shouldn’t be carrying it for them.”

  “If that’s how you feel, don’t come crying to me when we get stuck on the tarmac for hours with no food or water.”

  “That won’t be a problem because I’m in first class, so I’ll be served regardless.”

  “How did you swing that?” She knew for a fact the company would only pay for C-levels to fly first class on domestic flights. She knew this because she’d reviewed the company policy thoroughly before booking her own travel.

  “I upgraded with my miles.”

  Right. Of course he had. He spent almost half his time in the field, so he probably had millions of miles racked up. In fact, he probably had so many extra miles that he could have upgraded her too without even missing them.

  The thought of him stretching out in first class, enjoying hot towels and a three-course meal while she was crammed into coach eating granola bars out of her purse, made Olivia unreasonably resentful. But she was also relieved to know there’d be a curtain between them for the next three hours. At least it would give her a brief respite from his sparkling conversation before they were stuck with each other for the entire rest of the week.

  “Speaking of being in first class,” Adam said. “I’d better go line up with the other one percent.”

  “What’s your hurry? They never board on time, right?”

  The gate agent was conferring with another gate agent now, and neither of them looked like they were about to start boarding.

  Adam smirked. “Don’t tell me you’re going to miss my company, Woerner. We’ll have plenty of quality time together over the next five days.” They were staying through Sunday, so they could keep an eye on things after the changeover, just in case there were any problems.

  “Be still my heart,” Olivia muttered under her breath.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “What was that?”

  She was saved the trouble of answering by the announcement that their airplane was having mechanical issues and there would be a two-hour delay while they brought in a replacement.

  “Two hours?” Adam said irritably as everyone around them let out a collective groan. “Where are they bringing the new plane from? Mars?”

  Olivia’s shoulders sagged in despair. “You know if they say two hours, it’ll probably be more like three or four.”

  The crowd around the gate began to dissipate as their fellow travelers staked out seats or headed for one of the terminal’s several bars and restaurants to pass the delay. Olivia gazed longingly toward a nearby Chili’s, wondering if it was too early in the morning for a margarita, but Adam made a beeline for a pair of seats by the gate. She trailed behind him disconsolately.

  “This is not good.” He parked his roller suitcase in front of an empty chair, but didn’t sit down, choosing instead to pace out his frustration. “We can’t afford to waste half the day sitting around an airport.”

  Olivia sank into a chair and glared up at him. “If the time frame’s that tight, why did you say we could do it?”

  “Because it’s totally possible, as long as nothing goes wrong.”

  “But something always goes wrong. Usually multiple somethings. You have to leave a buffer for unexpected problems to crop up.”

  He shook his head, still pacing. “It’ll be fine, as long as we get started at the plant today. There’s got to be another flight we can get on.” He was already swiping through his phone to call the airline.

  “To Austin?” she said. “Not likely.”

  It wasn’t a major hub, and there was a lot of business traffic back and forth to LA, so any flights between the two cities had almost certainly been booked to capacity.

  “I’ve got to try. It’s better than sitting around doing nothing.” He walked a few steps away as he put the phone to his ear. “You should call too,” he threw over his shoulder at her. “Maybe you’ll get through to someone before me.”

  Grudgingly, Olivia took out her phone and pulled up the number for the airline. While she waited on hold for an agent, she dug through her purse for a granola bar. She’d almost finished it by the time Adam got an airline representative on the phone. She could hear him talking in a clipped, irritable tone. After a minute of back and forth, he was put on hold again.

  Olivia got out her earbuds and switched her phone to hands-free so she could knit while she waited on hold. She was knitting a shawl for Penny’s birthday, which had seemed like a good idea at the time, but it meant she couldn’t work on it around Penny unless she wanted to ruin the surprise. She was hoping to get a lot done on it during this trip—or a least during the travel legs of the trip. Once they actually got to the plant there wouldn’t be a lot of downtime.

  As she knitted and waited on hold, Adam’s representative came back on the line. Olivia could only hear his side of the conversation, but it didn’t sound like it was going well. He grew increasingly terse, eventually hanging up with a muttered, “Thanks for nothing.”

  “That seemed to go well,” Olivia commented without looking up from her knitting.

  “Really? Because I didn’t think it went well at all.” His refusal to acknowledge sarcasm was one of the less appealing aspects of his personality.

  “No luck, then?”

  “We’re stuck. The guy claimed the earliest flight he could get us on doesn’t leave until four o’clock.” He shoved his phone into the front pocket of his jeans, exposing a patch of flat stomach when he flipped up the hem
of his shirt.

  Olivia tried not to look, she really did, but he was flashing his torso right at her eye level, and even though her eyes remained on her knitting, she couldn’t help catching a tantalizing glimpse of brown skin in her peripheral vision.

  No, not tantalizing. She didn’t like him anymore. His sexy muscled stomach wasn’t the slightest bit tantalizing.

  “You might as well hang up,” Adam said. “They’re just going to tell you the same thing.”

  Olivia was about to tell him that she still intended to try, thank you very much, when she finally got a representative on the line. Putting on her sweetest voice and letting a little of her native Texas drawl seep through, she very politely explained their problem, addressing the customer service agent—who’d introduced himself as Lamar—by name and asking if there was anything at all he could do to help her out. After a few minutes of investigation, Lamar regretfully confirmed that there were no earlier flights to Austin he could get them on.

  “What about a flight to Houston?” Olivia asked, and Adam’s head snapped around.

  “Now that, I might be able to swing,” Lamar replied, and put her on hold again.

  “Houston?” Adam said, frowning. “How far is that from Fayette County?”

  “Maybe an hour or two farther than Austin, depending on the traffic getting out of the city. And Houston’s a hub, so hopefully there’ll be more flights going there.”

  Lamar came back on the line a few minutes later, and triumphantly reported that he could get them on a flight to Houston that was due to start boarding in just over an hour.

  It was a tossup whether that would actually get them there faster than their current flight. If the new plane actually arrived when it was supposed to, it would be a wash. But if the new plane took longer than expected—and when didn’t something like that take longer than expected?—it would save them time.

  “Do it,” Adam said, pulling out his phone again. “I’ll call and change our rental car reservation.”

  “Do you want these two seats together?” Lamar asked.

  “No,” Olivia told him. “Definitely not.”