He backed away, and before turning up the path, he looked up, a stricken expression on his face. “I hope you get some rest, then. We leave at 7 a.m.”

The next day was…the worst. Elias was clearly uncomfortable, and I tried to overcompensate by being too enthusiastic about everything. By the time we were headed back to the hotel, I was mentally wrung out and so jumpy I had to grip the edge of my seat to keep from yelping any time we hit a dip in the road. Yohannes and Abraham had asked us to drop them off in the center of town so they could do some shopping, leaving Elias and me alone in the Cruiser. I looked at him as he drove, his face stark and unhappy. He’d been giving bemused looks all day, and barely spoke to me as we drove through the villages we were surveying.

I couldn’t blame him for looking confused. I hardly knew what I was doing, and kept behaving like an asshole. He’d told me he would back off, gave me what I wanted, and that only made me even more miserable. Every cordial word he directed my way, every respectful question put me on edge, but now that I’d started this I didn’t know how to take it all back. And what was more, I still thought it was for the best, no matter how fucked-up it made me feel.

I took a deep breath as we drove and decided I was going to make conversation like a fucking human being, because I was sick of this shit. “Saba asked me to tell you she wants to get your opinion about her new project.”

He gave me a startled look, his eyes widening in disbelief. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I’ll send you her number. That way you can contact her directly.”

“Thank you.” He looked over at me, his handsome face tense, but didn’t say more.

I scrambled for other things to talk about, trying to ward off the awkward silences that kept sucking the oxygen from the space between us. “Did you get a chance to rest before you had to drive down here?”

He shrugged but kept looking at the road. “Yes. The last day I was there, my dad was better and my mom was home, so I slept. It was nice having time at home with her. Family’s hard sometimes, but they’re my people.” He sighed then, and it sounded so heavy. I wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but when he did speak it was like he was talking to my soul. “It’s hard to know sometimes where their expectations end, and my own happiness begins.”