Page 55 of The Spark Between Us

Chapter Twenty

Sarah

I spentthe beginning of my week sort of paying attention at work and sort of lost in an elated dream state—Braden’s hot mouth and hands all over me, all the time. I barely saw him but the memory of the night we spent together eclipsed other thoughts.

Metals and their atomic structure could wait.

Eventually, my attention turned back to physics, and strangely, I felt more focused and invigorated than I had since I’d arrived. That ticked one more box in the column of reasons to deviate occasionally from science and well-thought-out plans.

My team and I were already making progress calibrating the lasers to work on several types of metals that we’d never had success welding before—iron ore, aluminum, and steel. I couldn’t have asked for better results after such a short time.

Everything was on track to progress toward all the milestones we’d devised at the outset, and for only a couple weeks’ worth of work, we’d done better than expected.

By Friday, I was thrilled about the work but barely standing from exhaustion. I’d put in three twelve-hour days over the week. The one thing that still had me going was a text Braden had sent me a couple hours earlier.

Braden: Meet me in front of the lab at 7, Damsel.

Me: Done.

When I emerged from the double doors to see Braden leaning against his truck, his muscled arms crossed in front of him, I couldn’t stop the giant smile of anticipation from spreading across my face.

I’d missed seeing him all week, and this time I felt no guilt whatsoever about him going out of his way to pick me up. Seeing him standing there—the highlights in his hair kissed by the sun, his gorgeous smile aimed at me—reminded me of the end of the movie Sixteen Candles which my sisters and I watched on repeat when we were young.

“Are you by any chance a John Hughes fan?” I asked, wondering if tough guy firefighters watched those kinds of movies at the station.

He cocked his head. “You mean the movies?”

“Yeah. Have you seen Sixteen Candles?”

He looked down at himself and up at me. “You’re suggesting I’m channeling Jake Ryan?”

I flew at him. “You do know! Have you been doing that on purpose, the whole car leaning thing?”

He smiled. “I admit nothing. And his car was red.” He stared at the secretive campus just beyond the gate I’d exited and looked a little wistful.

It gave me an idea. “Have you ever gone on a tour of the lab?” I asked.

“Never. Lived here a long time, but I’ve never been inside. I guess I wasn’t that curious before.”

“And now?”

“Everything you’ve told me about what you’re doing sounds fascinating. So now I’m curious.”

I nodded at him. I could do something about that.

* * *

Twenty minutes later,Braden had received clearance to come inside. I could only show him the parts of the lab that were open to visitors, but there were tours of the National Ignition Facility several times a week and I knew the drill. I’d taken a tour the first time I’d been here after my interview.

“Are you sure this is allowed? Aren’t there nuclear secrets at this place that I need some kind of top government clearance for?” Braden hesitated in the lobby of the lab, where I got him a visitor badge. “Or genius physicists who are very protective of their patented inventions?”

“Not where we’re going. Don’t worry.”

Still, his eyes darted around and he crossed his arms as we walked. Here was this six-foot-two-inch tall man with enough brains to reimagine fire shed areas and enough muscle tone to defy gravity, and he looked nervous walking into a building filled with what were essentially really well-funded science experiments. Yes, some were used for national defense, but still, science projects.

“Did your school have a science fair?” I asked him.

“Um, yeah. I made a solar oven out of tin foil. It took twelve hours to dry out a slice of white bread.”

---