Page 23 of Seeds of Christmas
“I like volcanoes.”
She says it simply, like that’s the whole story. But I catch something in her voice—something bigger she’s not saying.
“That’s it? You like volcanoes?”
“That’s it.”
Twenty minutes later,I’m mostly just holding equipment and trying not to feel useless.
Rhi moves through the site check like choreography—testing sensors, recording readings on her tablet, cross-referencing data, adjusting the solar panel angle.
The steam from the hot spring has made Rhi’s hair curl around her face in these soft waves that make me wish I knew how to paint.
Her cheeks are flushed pink from the heat and exertion. She’s crouched by the water, completely absorbed in her work, and there’s something incredibly attractive about how competent she is.
How her hands move with confidence. How she doesn’t need to check the manual because she’s done this so many times she just knows.
Intelligence is sexy as fuck.
I’ve always known that theoretically. But watching Rhi work—watching her be brilliant and focused and completely in her element—is doing things to me I wasn’t prepared for.
She looks up and catches me staring.
“What?” she asks, tucking a curl behind her ear self-consciously.
Everything, I think. You’re everything.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just impressed.”
She doesn’t need instructions. Doesn’t need to check the manual. She justknows.
“You’ve done this before,” I say.
“Forty-seven times.” She doesn’t look up. “This is site three. We hit it every two weeks during active monitoring periods.”
“Wait. You’ve been toallthese sites?”
“Not all, but the ones close by. Some of them in much worse weather than this.”
That’s nearly two years of fieldwork. While I was sleeping through lectures, she was out here collecting data.
“Bam said she was adding me to the trip,” I say slowly. “That means you were already going. You were doing this alone?”
“With Bam, usually. Or her grad students.” She finishes the sensor check and packs up her equipment with practiced efficiency. “But she’s got a new fiancé, and the grad students have their own fieldwork. So”—she shrugs—“lucky me. I got a partner.”
The way she saysluckymakes it crystal clear she doesn’t feel lucky at all.
“You didn’t want me here.”
It’s not a question. I already know the answer.
She hesitates, and for the first time, her polite mask slips. Just slightly. “It’s not personal.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I—” She shoulders her pack, still not meeting my eyes. “I’ve been working on this project for two years. I know the sites, the equipment, the protocols. I know how important this data is for the seasonal analysis. And then Bam tells me she’s adding someone who needs extra credit to pass her class, someone who’s been skipping lectures all semester, and I?—”
She stops. Forces a smile. “It’s fine. Really. I’m glad to have help.”
