Fallout (23 page)

Sambit couldn’t remember the last time he’d had someone pay as much attention to his needs as Derek had done in the shower. He’d been completely gutted by his orgasm, and the one in the shower a few minutes ago, after talking to Derek on the phone, had been almost as powerful. He knew they’d fight sometimes, but he didn’t think it would be over anything important. In a bubble, he and Derek could work quite well as a couple. If only they didn’t have to deal with all the outside stuff.

“What are you brooding about?” Lyrica demanded.

“All the reasons any relationship is a bad idea for me,” Sambit admitted. “I’m not out at work or at temple or anywhere really. I don’t need to be when I’m single. The aunties all shake their heads and cluck their tongues over the fact that I still haven’t found some nice girl to take care of me, but they leave me alone after that. My colleagues don’t blink when I show up at department functions alone because I’ve never brought anyone with me to events. I’ve never had anyone I cared to bring. It keeps things simple.”

“Really, Sambit?” Lyrica said. “That’s the best you can do? This isn’t the Stone Age. Your colleagues won’t care. The aunties might blink a few times, but if they say something, you tell them it’s none of their business, or you find a different temple where they will accept you. Hell, Derek will probably charm them all right out of their disapproval if you let him.”

He probably would at that.
“I can’t do anything about it from here anyway,” Sambit said. “We’ll see what happens when I leave. If Derek is still interested, maybe I’ll see where it goes, but for now, it’s better not to make promises he might not want me to keep.”

“Just don’t push him away in the meantime. You don’t want to end up spending your life alone.”

“Where’s your partner?” Sambit countered.

“Believe me,” Lyrica said. “If I’ve learned something from being here, it’s that I don’t want to have no one to miss me if I didn’t come home. I’ll be doing some reevaluating as soon as I’m safely out of here.”

“And you think I should do the same.”

“Yes, I do.”

Chapter 15

“I
HEARD
from my boss today. He said they have clearance for people to come back to work as soon as they can,” Derek said.

Sambit nodded, the webcam allowing Derek to see his gestures as well as hear his voice. “So when will you go back?”

“Tomorrow,” Derek said. “There’s no reason to wait. I can get there safely. I checked that out a couple of days ago. I’ve been helping with the National Guard because every pair of hands helps, but I’m not critical personnel. They won’t miss me if I go back to work, and my project does have a deadline, even if it’s still a while off.”

“You don’t have to justify your decision to me,” Sambit reminded him. “I was curious, nothing more.” He was nervous, but he wasn’t going to tell Derek that. Tomorrow would mean the end of their steady stream of texts during the day and the e-mail from Derek waiting for him when he got off his shift tomorrow evening. It would mean a return to Derek’s normal routine and the beginning of the end of his interest in Sambit, but he didn’t say any of that. Derek would deny it, and Sambit couldn’t bear to hear promises he knew couldn’t be kept.

“What about you?” Derek asked. “Any word on the FEMA trailers?”

“They’re supposed to get here tomorrow, the next day at the latest,” Sambit said. “I’m ready. I swear this cot gets more uncomfortable every night. I don’t know how soldiers in the field do it.”

“The same way you are,” Derek replied. “They bitch and moan about it and keep going because that’s what they do. I’m hearing the same complaints from the National Guard that I am from you about the cots, the weather, the gear they have to carry, and everything else.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure. I’ll never complain about a lumpy mattress again. After three weeks on this cot, any mattress would be welcome.”

“You can share mine anytime,” Derek offered with a cheeky grin. Sambit couldn’t help returning the smile. If Derek kept his promise and came to see Sambit after Sambit went home, that would be almost inevitable given the tension simmering beneath the surface every time they talked or texted. The e-mails were different, though. Not that Derek didn’t sometimes flirt in those too, because he did, quite a bit at times, but he also shared sides of himself Sambit rarely saw anywhere else. Sambit had seen more kindness, more vulnerability, in Derek’s e-mails than he would have believed possible given the façade Derek had adopted when they’d first met. He held on to those hints with both hands because they gave him the courage to keep answering the texts and to keep looking past the casual, or not so casual, flirting when they talked. Derek had trusted him enough to show hints of the man beneath the mask. Sambit nurtured a faint hope that the mask would someday fall completely.

Sambit half expected Derek to push Sambit for an answer, to turn the conversation into cybersex, but Derek let it go after that one brief comment, making Sambit fear he was already losing interest. Instead he talked about work, about the project he’d be going back to and the exploration his robot would eventually get to do on Mars and how maybe Venus was next and wouldn’t it be amazing if they could eventually get a manned spacecraft to either planet.

It was an interesting discussion, the kind Sambit had often relished with his colleagues at Texas A&M, but it wasn’t the kind of conversation he was used to having with Derek. He might not have minded if he hadn’t needed the reassurance of Derek’s continued interest, but tonight it only highlighted Sambit’s fears. By the time they said good night, Sambit had given up hope of keeping Derek’s interest for much longer.

T
HE
next day passed pretty much as Sambit had predicted. He got a short text from Derek a little after noon saying he was on his lunch break, but by the time Sambit got a break himself to be able to answer, Derek had gone back to work and didn’t reply until much later, by which point Sambit was busy again. The resulting lack of real contact left Sambit more than a little grumpy by the end of his shift.

“Did you and Derek have a fight?” Lyrica asked as they heated up dinner.

“No, he just went back to work today,” Sambit explained.

“You should be excited for him,” Lyrica said. “It had to be grating on him not to be busy.”

“He was busy. He was helping with the recovery efforts,” Sambit said, “but he sounded happy to be going back to work when we talked last night.”

“Of course he’s happy to be back at work,” Lyrica said. “Won’t you be happy to go back to teaching after this?”

“Actually I was thinking teaching might be kind of boring after all the hands-on work I’ve done here with you,” Sambit said. “I wonder if it might be time to look for a job in industry instead of education. Not this semester certainly, and maybe not even until next summer, but I could start looking anyway.”

“I’ll gladly write a recommendation for you,” Lyrica offered. “Tucker won’t, but he’s an idiot anyway. I talked to the plant owners today, and they’re going to appeal to the NRC for a different representative. Maybe we’ll get someone reasonable this time.”

“Thank you,” Sambit said, summoning a smile. She didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his bad mood. “I’ll keep that in mind if I decide to go through with it.”

“So what time are you going to call Derek?”

“I wasn’t planning on calling him,” Sambit said.

“Sambit, he just went back to work. You have to call and ask him how it went. You don’t want him to think you’re a bad boyfriend,” Lyrica scolded.

“I’m not his boyfriend.”

“Oh, really?” Lyrica said. “You haven’t spent the past two weeks texting and e-mailing him on a regular basis, talking to him almost every night on the phone, and who knows what else? I’d say that constitutes boyfriends. Or have you forgotten about whatever happened in the shower?”

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Sambit said, feeling his face heat at the memory of Derek’s hands on him and of jerking off in the shower after they’d had phone sex. “That doesn’t make us boyfriends.”

“So what would?” Lyrica asked. “Seriously, what would make you a couple?”

Sambit hesitated, realizing he didn’t actually have an answer to her question. “Um….”

“Maybe you should think about that,” she said, “instead of telling yourself he’ll never be interested in you. Figure out what you’d want a relationship with him to look like. Obviously there are limits because you’re still stuck here, but this won’t go on forever. What would you want when you leave?”

“I’ll think about it,” Sambit promised, taking his food from the microwave. “I’m going to eat in my room. I need some quiet for a bit.”

“Eat wherever you want,” Lyrica replied, “but call Derek.”

“All right,” Sambit said. “I will, but don’t get your hopes up for the results.”

Lyrica shook her head at him, but she didn’t say anything else.

Sambit carried his plate of microwaved lasagna down to the office he used as a bedroom and sat down on the cot to eat. Or, more honestly, to push his food around the tray while he pondered Lyrica’s insistence that he and Derek were already a couple despite Sambit’s doubts.

They weren’t in the same place at the moment, but other than that, when he thought about his parents and their relationship or the relationships of any of his friends, he couldn’t think of a single thing other than sharing a bed at night that they did that he and Derek weren’t already doing, and Sambit suspected that if Derek were still here, they’d even be doing that. The only thing missing was a stated commitment to the relationship, and that was only missing on Sambit’s part. Derek had said multiple times that he wanted to see Sambit again, that he wanted to find a way to make things work between them even with the distance and everything else. It was more a matter of logistics than commitment according to Derek.

So now Sambit had to find a way to believe Derek’s words.

Before he could follow that train of thought any further, his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Sam. How was your day?”

“Hi, Derek. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

“I’m sorry I kept missing you today. It was a little crazy getting back to work after being off for so long.”

“It’s fine,” Sambit said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you even the little bit I did.”

“Then I’m glad I could surprise you,” Derek replied. “You didn’t answer my question. How was your day?”

“Tucker was his usual stupid self, but Lyrica said the plant bosses were going to call the NRC, so that’s good news,” Sambit said. “And we got confirmation that the FEMA trailers will arrive tomorrow along with some additional staff.”

“Wonderful!” Derek said. “You’ll have a little more comfort and a little more privacy once that happens. And maybe even shorter shifts.”

“I’ll be glad not to work twelve-hour shifts anymore,” Sambit agreed. “It’s okay for a few days, but I’m worn out.”

“You should be,” Derek agreed. “But things should get easier tomorrow. Are the robots still holding up okay?”

“Mostly,” Sambit said. “One of them has started having problems with one of its rollers. I sprayed it down with WD-40 like you said I might have to do, and that seems to have helped. I don’t really want to have to take it apart and put it back together again. I’m not sure I’m that good.”

“Yeah, those robots weren’t designed for industrial use,” Derek said. “I tweaked them as much as I could with the parts I had, but the grit from being outside and climbing over rocks will gum up the gears. Maybe they’ll have someone in the new staff who has some experience with robots. If not, this weekend when I’m not working, we’ll get on the webcam and I’ll talk you through taking it apart to clean it out.”

“That would be great,” Sambit said. It wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted Derek there to help him with it, or even better, to do it himself so Sambit didn’t have to worry about screwing it up, but it was better than nothing. Remembering Lyrica’s admonitions, he changed the subject. “How was
your
day? Glad to be back at work?”

“It was a mess,” Derek said. “Despite all the precautions, parts of the building flooded and are still closed off because they’re worried about mold. Half of my tools are in the quarantined section of the building. They’re bringing things out slowly, but everything has to be sanitized and certified as safe to use again, which takes for-fucking-ever. Sorry about the language, but there’s really no other way to describe it. So there I was trying to do my job and get back up to speed on my project with only half the things I would usually have at my disposal. I told Kenneth I was taking a cab tomorrow so I could bring my personal equipment and sending him the bill.”

“What did he say to that?” Sambit asked, grinning at the idea of Derek handing his boss a cab bill.

“He told me to buy a car like a sane person.”

“And?” Derek would never have let his boss have the last word.

“I offered to send him the bill for that instead.”

Sambit laughed. “Did he agree to pay for the cab fare?”

“No, but he did say he’d pick me up in the morning.”