I’d deal with it myself.
I wasn’t exactly proud of that. But the woman made me crazy. I considered myself a reasonable guy, but every time I was near her, reasonableness went right out the window, replaced by that potent mix of hate-lust I couldn’t seem to shake.
Case in point, I couldn’t stop thinking about how good she smelled, even though the sound of her writing notes was driving me nuts. She smelled like vanilla frosting and it was stupidly delicious.
“What are you doing over there? Writing another dissertation?”
“No. I’m working on an initial draft of the pre-study questionnaire. We’ll need to collect a variety of information on the test subjects.”
I grumbled something incoherent. She was right, we did need to do that, and it was good she was being proactive about getting it ready.
She was quiet for a long moment. Not even her pen made a sound. “Would you like to see what I have so far?”
I turned my chair around. “Sure.”
She ripped off a piece of paper and handed it to me. I recognized the same messy handwriting I’d seen on her lunch bag. I could read it, but only just. It was a little bit gratifying to know she wasn’t perfect.
I scanned down her list of questions. She’d covered just about everything. “This is good. Did you add anything in here about their relationship status? That might be something we’ll need to know.”
She wrote on a fresh sheet of paper. “Of course. What’s yours?”
“My what?”
Her voice was matter of fact. “Relationship status.”
“Why?”
She looked up, blinking as if something had surprised her. “I don’t know.”
Was she really asking me if I was dating someone? That was weird. But there wasn’t any harm answering. “It’s fine, it’s not like I keep it a secret. I just don’t know why you asked.”
“No reason,” she said quickly. “I was just writing down the words relationship status and it occurred to me that I don’t know very much about you on a personal level, including whether or not you’re in a relationship. So, I asked.”
“I’m single.”
“Oh.” She gave a little nod and wrote something else on her notepad. “So am I.”
I chewed the inside of my lip and shifted uncomfortably in my chair. The impulse to analyze every detail of what she’d just said—from her body language to her tone of voice—sent my brain running in multiple directions. Was she making idle conversation? Was she trying to get information out of me? Had she offered the fact that she was single as a signal?
I hated it when I did this. It reminded me of the insecure shy kid I’d been in high school and how much time I’d spent over-analyzing my interactions with girls—especially Paisley Hayes. Whenever she’d been at our house to hang out with Molly, I’d looked for hidden meaning in every word she said to me. Not that she spoke to me very much. But that hadn’t stopped me from wondering if I could find a hint that she liked me.
She hadn’t liked me. She’d mostly ignored me, or rolled her eyes at me. And all these years later, I still felt like an idiot for how much time I’d spent looking for clues that she had a secret crush on her best friend’s brother. They hadn’t been there. It had all been wishful thinking.
What was I wishing for with Hazel, anyway? That this attraction that made no sense wasn’t one-sided? Regardless of the way I reacted to her physically, we didn’t like each other. Pondering what her comments meant was a waste of energy.
“Corban?”
I startled, my attention coming back to reality. Damn, I hadn’t been listening. What had she just said? “Sorry, what?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, fine I was just thinking about…” I paused, searching for a believable topic. “Data collection techniques.”
She eyed me for a second, her pen hovering above her notepad. “Okay.”
As we got deeper into the logistics of running the next phase of the study, my brain stopped circling around Hazel and focused. We didn’t argue over any of the details. Just got to work, both of us bringing our experience and expertise to the table. We divided up areas of responsibility, at least enough to get us started, and set preliminary goals and deadlines.
I tried not to dwell on it, but I didn’t hate working with Hazel. She was organized, intelligent, and passionate about her work. So passionate, it made me wonder what else she had going on in her life.
She tapped her pen against