Dying Fire

Chapter 4 - How It Would Work

Crossing, her arms over her chest, Cat smiled looking down to her feet. "I think you need to lay off my love life there a little Mikey." 

Of course they were just messing with one another, but deep down Mike did honestly care about who got to mess around with his friend's heart. They were so close for a reason, and he didn't want to see her hurt in the end. 

Caleb was just a kid, and age wise- so was she. The guy had a lot to learn, and Cat was really experienced in life for her age. She knew how to take care of herself, and she knew how to take care of others too. That meant that because of her personality, work ethic, and smarts- she could do a lot better than some oil guy on an oil rig. 

"I just think that you could do better Cat." 

Chuckling, the woman stepped into the door he was holding open for her. Mr. Jimmy had broke off a while ago before they had the chance to approach the door. He had a few things to attend to, including their unwanted guest. 

As soon as they were off of the upper deck, her eyes took a second to adjust to the dark. "I wasn't going after anything and you know it. I barely know the guy." 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." They turned to their right and started descending down the long stairs. "That's how it starts." 

"Nothing is starting." 

"Sure. Look, Caleb is a good kid and all, but-" 

"Barely remembered his first name." She chimed in trying to cut him of. Inside, she remembered everything she had known about Caleb up to this point. Cat just didn't want to tell him that, otherwise she would never hear the end of it. 

"Anyway. Sometimes I just wish you weren't such a tease." 

By now, they were on even ground and moving towards a large wall of machines. "Yeah well, you and a lot of other people." 

This made Mike roll his eyes. Then, he crouched beneath a bunch of machinery and she followed. The entire rig tended to be packed together, so getting to what she needed to fix was going to be a little bit of a hassle- It always was. 

"I hate you." he chuckled. 

Laughing back, Cat looked around them to try and pick up on anything that looked damaged in any way. "So what exactly am I fixing down here?" 

"Jimmy said that the system keeps over heating. It shuts down our electrical, the pumps, everything that we need to do our damn job." 

Immediately she felt a little flustered. "Well that really narrows it down. That could mean anything, I'm going to have to check the entire system." 

Smartly, Mike turned around to give her a sassy grin. "Good thing you're here for the whole weekend then? Huh?" 

All she had in response was the middle finger. Then, seeing that they had stopped walking, Cat looked around the entire room around her. There were wires, piping, everything that you could possibly imagine that a team of engineers would need to inspect. Instead, it was just her. 

Letting out a long sigh, Cat nodded and put her hands on her hips. "Okay." 

"Okay?"

The woman smiled. "Okay." 

Mike patted her shoulder. "Jimmy already had the guys bring down your tools." He motioned over towards a red tool box. "Radio me if you need anything else, okay? I'll be back later tonight if you haven't gotten anything done." 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah- go watch your daily programs old man." She waved him off and immediately started getting to work. 

Mike would have gone back at her with some comeback, but he didn't want to. She was already in the zones of inspection now by the look on her face, and he didn't want to distract her with a petty fight that he knew she would probably win in the end anyway.