Fast & Wet (The Fast 2)

There are very few problems in life that I have not been able to solve through science and data. But with a spreadsheet before me outlining the pros and cons of accepting the job at Imperium, I’m stuck at the concept that things aren’t always so cut and dry.

The pro-Imperium column is extensive:

The most incredible labs I have ever seen.

Opportunities for advancement in materials science that could revolutionize the auto industry and lead to road safety and green Eco-solutions.

Travel the world.

Absurd salary package they inexplicably agreed to.

PhD reimbursement.

Work Visa, would not have to return to the US and do not want to deal with Dad.

One of the most innovative companies in the UK, future opportunities endless.

Klara could quit the cafe.

And then there’s the cons column:

Cole Ballentine.

I spent all day running a dozen different types of charts and models issuing scores and giving weight to specific priorities, but if there’s one thing I hate in science, it’s bias.

No matter how hard I try, I am looking for data that proves what I want it to, not the truth.

And after Friday, after seeing him in person for the first time in almost six years, the only truth I know is that I am not over Cole Ballentine.

I don’t know how to assign him a score for the impact he has had on my life. It would surely be biased.

Part of me hoped when we’d see each other again, I would snap out of it. Nothing would happen, I’d feel nothing, and I’d realize I was only a naive teenager back then. I would hop and skip away, and the rest of my life would be rainbows and unicorns.

But I didn’t imagine the chemistry we’ve always had. I wasn’t overblowing the way he makes my organs somersault or my brain misfire. Time has changed nothing. If anything, it’s magnified the intensity of all the emotions swirling around inside my chest.

Now, I’ve been reminded that they’re all still there. All the feelings, the anger, the hurt, feeling like a piece of me is missing, and I will never be whole or structurally sound without it—all still there.

It was all I could do to plaster the fake smile and confidence over myself while he stood tall before me, cool as a cucumber, and dared to tell me we were just kids having fun.

It wasn’t fun when I was heartbroken, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and was ready to give up going to college to follow him to Europe. It was not fun when my life went to hell in a handbasket, not

fun at all.

I felt like a fool when he said that. I wore a new skirt and heels and walked into that building with my shoulders back, ready to face my demons. Ready to take my life back and get over this shit.

That lasted all of fifteen minutes.

Seeing him online, in photos, or on TV did not do him justice. How unfair that men never fail to get more attractive as they get older. The tall, lean eighteen-year-old I last saw has turned into a broad-shouldered, muscular man with a chiseled jaw and the confidence of a reigning king.

His neck and traps doubled in size since he was karting in Florida. The results of his F1 training to withstand extreme g-forces now rise out of his green and black Imperium tee-shirt. His forearms were thick, corded, and developed. It was hard not to stare at either when I saw the muscles flexing in the hallway.

I used to be able to tell when Cole was stressed or upset by watching his neck muscles tense. But cornered in the hallway with him, I was too afraid to gawk the way I wanted to. I’ve always been a ‘neck girl’ and a part of me, a part I am very disappointed in, wanted to lick and bite that neck again.

I hate that what I really wanted was for him to throw me over his shoulder and drag me back to his lair. Even after everything.

Weak, weak, weak, Emily.

His brilliant blue eyes are the same, though.