“Oh, you’re welcome. I was glad you came out. You’d been keeping to yourself. I was wondering if you were just not taking to Addis. I was happy to at least hear from Tsehay that you’ve been running with Elias in the mornings while you’re in the field.”

I immediately tensed at the second mention of Elias and me. I tried to figure out if I’d heard irony or suggestiveness in her tone, but she seemed to just be stating a fact.

“I’ve loved my time here so far.” Elias’s face immediately came to mind. And I knew then I would never be able to think about Ethiopia without thinking about him. “And I’ve been doing stuff. Yesterday I went to the pool at the Marquis with an old friend of my mom’s.”

It was dizzying to think it had only been a day since I’d been having dinner and flirting with Elias at Saba’s house.

She clicked her tongue at that. “I forget you have a long history with this place,” she said, looking at me closely as if trying to figure out if “my history” was getting to me.

I didn’t need to get into how I’d fucked one of my co-workers, and if given the chance would totally do it again, so I settled for a something vague. “It’s been good.”

She waved me off, apparently satisfied I wasn’t miserable, and I got out of the car with a promise to check in after we arrived at the site tomorrow.

I made myself wait until I was in my room to look at my phone for any messages from Elias. All night I’d been oscillating between telling myself not to give his silence so much weight to being convinced it was a sign I should give up this thing with him because his life was complicated enough already.

And really, what future could we possibly have?

Still, I told myself, we were friends. We could stay friends.

I checked as soon as I walked into my room, and my stomach dropped when I saw there were no messages on my phone. Immediately I started trying to convince myself it meant nothing. That he was probably scrambling to get ready for the long trip after dealing with a family emergency half the weekend. I’d get a report about his dad in person when I saw him tomorrow.

Chapter 18

I walked out into the cold pre-dawn Addis morning with an intense feeling of anticipation. After weeks of seeing Elias every day, yesterday had felt too long. And if I was honest, I needed the reassurance of seeing him after the stress of his dad’s illness over the weekend. It was like I needed him to be physically there for things to be normal again.