by M. S. Parker
Besides, filling out the paperwork would take a couple hours at least, and I’d rather spend the time talking to my new intern about her paper and my experiment. I couldn’t wait to see what that brain of hers could do.
Six
Addison
Breathe.
Breathe.
Inhaling and exhaling was one of those things that people learned at birth, but I was twenty-two. I should know how to do this, but now, I was feeling fortunate to be able to put one foot in front of the other without making a fool out of myself. Again.
Cai Hunter.
I was going to lunch with Cai Hunter.
I had just told Cai Hunter about my thesis, and he sounded quite interested.
I’d also spilled coffee all over him and then babbled on about the most, inane things, including the damn zombie apocalypse.
I was mortified.
But I was also elated.
Because even though I’d made a complete ass of myself, he still wanted to talk to me.
Cai Hunter wanted to talk to me.
I kept repeating the sentence as I walked down the hall in search of the room with clean clothes. I kept repeating it as I changed, and as I went back to the front door, but I still couldn’t believe it.
I’d been practically worshipping him since I was thirteen-years-old and first saw him on the cover of some science magazine at school. I’d followed his career ever since, digging for every bit of information I could find, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing him in the flesh.
And what magnificent flesh it was too. I wasn’t the sort of woman who drooled over every cute guy, but Dr. Hunter – Cai – was far beyond cute. He was gorgeous.
As I approached I slowed my steps, so I could take him in, hoping that by the time I reached him, I would somehow be immune to whatever it was about him that turned me into a jabbering idiot.
“I see you found a nice shirt in our stash.”
He gestured to the rather garish, long-sleeved yellow blouse I was now wearing.
“It was the only thing in my size,” I said. “When you’re all arms and legs, like me, clothes are a pain in the ass to find.”
Shit. That hadn’t been professional.
“I know the feeling,” he said with a smile.
“Of course, you do,” I said. “You’re what, six-five?”
He nodded. “Good guess.”
I didn’t tell him that I’d read a profile on him three years ago. He’d think I was a stalker or something. If I told him I just had a good memory, he might think I was bragging.
I should’ve just kept my mouth shut.
“Looks like it’s raining. Do you want to drive separately, or are you okay riding with me?”
“I don’t know my way around,” I admitted. “I just moved to Atlanta on Saturday.”
“Then you’ll ride with me.” He started walking toward the parking garage. “Where are you from?”
“Minnesota.”
It was strangely easy to talk to him, and the silence between us was comfortable too. The best part was that the whole car smelled like him too. Some sort of softly-scented soap and a hint of something more primal that I suspected was his natural scent.
As he drove us to our destination, he pointed out various parts of the city, much like a tour guide. But instead of giving me a history lesson or explaining the architecture, he always had some scientific bit of information. If I hadn’t been able to see the sincere expression on his face, I would’ve thought he was making things up.
He surprised me as he pulled into a place called Amalfi Pizza. I’d had him pegged as a health nut, the sort of person who ate things like wheat grass and flaxseed. Gourmet pizza was not what I’d been thinking. My bank account probably wouldn’t like this much, but it was just one meal.
And it was with Cai Hunter.
We were seated across from each other at a table small enough that my knees kept brushing his. We probably should’ve asked for a bigger table, but I was glad he hadn’t. I knew this was one hundred percent work-related, but I planned on enjoying every minute of the one-on-one time I got to spend with him.
“You said that your thesis was about genetics and infection?” he asked after we gave the waiter our orders.
“Yes.” I spread a napkin on my lap, fidgeting with the corner of the cloth. “I have this theory about how, if we better understood a link between genetics and infection, we could focus on correcting the genes rather than trying to eliminate the viruses. Gene therapy could be the new vaccine. Manipulate the genetic code in a baby, and they’d never get sick. Do it right, and they could pass the genes on to their descendants. It could eventually lead to an elimination of all illness. Of course, we’d have to factor in for mutations and a percentage of the population who either can’t or won’t consent to the gene therapy–”
My thought trailed off when I realized he was staring at me with something that looked a lot like fascination on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a half-smile. “I’ve just never heard anyone talk like that before.”
Heat flooded my face, and I reached for my water, fingers bumping against the cold glass. I stopped myself before I knocked it over.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I tend to talk a lot when–”
“When you’re nervous,” he finished with a kind smile. “There’s no need to be anxious. I believe that we’ll work well together. I don’t have interns working for me often because I have high intellectual standards. I won’t send you out on pointless errands, but I will expect contributions. You’ve already proven that you see far-reaching effects rather than just an immediate resolution. From what I’ve seen so far, you have one of the most amazing minds I’ve ever encountered.”
“I have?” The compliment made me catch my breath. I knew I was smart but hearing it from someone like him…it would’ve had me babbling again if the waiter hadn’t come back with our drinks, breaking the moment.
And it was a good thing too, because whatever had been thickening the air between us hadn’t been professional, and I needed us to be professional.
No matter how gorgeous he was.
Seven
Cai
I peered through the lens of the microscope and jotted down my findings on my notepad. Some of the other doctors liked to dictate their notes, but I’d never liked the sound of my own voice. Besides, it was a lot quicker to use the shorthand I created in college to take my own notes this way. My handwriting sucked, but I typed out my own notes, so no one complained about them.
“I finished transcribing your notes.”
I jerked my head up. Addison had been here for five days now, and I still sometimes forgot she was here.
Except that wasn’t entirely accurate. While my mind might’ve been focused on my work, some part of me was always aware of her presence. When she wasn’t anxious she was quiet, which meant she could – and often did – show up at my side, startling me in the process.
I frowned, what she’d said finally registering. “What was that?”
She gave me a sheepish smile that I was starting to understand meant that she’d taken a bit of liberty with the freedom I gave her, but now she wasn’t so sure whatever it was she’d done wouldn’t get her into trouble.
“I finished transcribing your notes from this week,” she repeated, her eyes darting around, landing on everything except me.
I turned around until I was facing her and crossed my arms, more curious than annoyed. Part of her contract included a non-disclosure agreement regarding anything she might see or hear during her internship, so I didn’t need to worry about that.
“How did you do that?” I asked, studying her closely. “I created my own shorthand in college. No one else uses it because I’ve never told anyone else how to read it.”
She reached up and tugged at a curl. “I might’ve cracked your code.”
Now, I was intrigued. I stood up, grimacing at how stiff my legs were. I really should g
et up and stretch more often. “How did you manage that? I don’t have a cipher written out anywhere.”
She shuffled her feet, clasped her hands behind her back, and flicked a quick glance up at me.
Fuck.
She looked so submissive just then. Her posture, the way she dipped her head. All of it screamed at me to step into her personal space, to push back those sunset-curls, and tell her to tip her head back…
“I remember everything I see,” she explained. “It can make my head really crowded. When I was a kid, I created my own sort of mental shorthand. Like compressing files on a computer. I can access them, when they aren’t all pushing to the front.”
“Interesting, but I don’t understand how that translates into you figuring out in a week how to read something that I spent six months developing.”
“In an interview with Science Today, you mentioned your shorthand,” she continued. “And there was a picture of something you’d written during the interview. When I was straightening your desk on Monday, I saw a few pages of your handwritten notes. On Tuesday, you had one of the transcribed files pulled up on your computer, and I saw it when I came up to ask you something. Once I had that in my head, connecting the dots wasn’t difficult.”
I crossed the space between us until barely a foot remained. “I knew you were brilliant from the first moment you started speaking, but this is beyond anything I could have predicted.”
Her cheeks flushed, and I knew I’d embarrassed her. She deserved the compliment though. I’d done well academically, augmenting natural intelligence with hard work, but I didn’t have a mind like hers.
“It was all your work,” she said. “I mean, all I did was crack the code. You actually created it.”
I reached out and hooked a finger under her chin, raising her face until she looked directly at me. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
The moment held, froze…and then shattered.
I dropped my hand and took a step back. What was it about this young woman that made me not only enjoy spending time in her presence but wanting to touch her? Innocent touches, like a brush of my fingers across her cheek, or putting my hand on her arm. I’d never been the sort of person who sought out physical contact, but with her, it was a fight to keep my hands to myself.
I didn’t want to have sex with her. That would be far too cliché. The doctor sleeping with his intern. Even if it hadn’t been cliché, I couldn’t do it. She was even younger than I originally thought. Most people working on their doctorate were in their mid-twenties, but this child prodigy was only twenty-two. A college senior when she was just sixteen, she completed her graduate degree in only eighteen months before plowing through her doctoral program in near record time.
Twenty-two. Damn.
Too young for me.
Even though I knew there were plenty of couples with that age gap or more.
Not that I was looking to be part of a couple.
Shit.
I turned away, shuffling things on my table even though I had no real need. My thoughts had simply taken a train of thought too far. It happened sometimes. I’d be thinking about the way an epidemic spread, and instead of mentally picturing a week of an exponential spread, I’d have the whole mathematical equation worked out until the entire country was infected.
I’d learned to rein in those trails that served only to distract me. I could do the same now with my thoughts about Addison. Because that’s all they were, a distraction from the real work here.
“Are you getting settled in?” I asked, the question practically bursting out of me.
“I am.” Her voice was nice and even, like she hadn’t noticed anything odd about my behavior. “My roommate is great. I’ll admit, I was nervous about living with someone I’d never met, but we get along really well.”
“How are your parents adjusting to your move?”
Why did I keep asking her personal questions? They weren’t overtly personal, I knew, but they weren’t helping my mind pack away the distractions. I should’ve stuck with discussions about viruses and anti-virals and cluster outbreaks.
Still, I waited for her answer, more curious than I wanted to admit.
“Well, I haven’t spoken to my dad in a year, and before that, there’d only been calls on Christmas and birthdays, if he remembered.”
I glanced over at her, but she was checking a few cultures I had growing.
“My mom didn’t want me to leave, of course, but I think part of it was that she didn’t want to lose her free babysitter.” She said the words without rancor, but I heard a trace of sadness beneath them.
I turned around, then told myself that I didn’t need to comfort her. I shouldn’t comfort her. I was her supervisor, not her friend. Certainly not anything else.
“Sorry,” she said, giving me a grim smile. “I love my family, but I don’t always like them very much.”
The admission made me chuckle.
She gave me a questioning look. “That’s funny?”
“It is. Trust me, if you met my brothers, you’d be laughing too.”
“Why’s that?”
Now, she was the one asking personal questions. I needed to put a stop to this.
“I have three of them,” I said, avoiding her question. “One older, and two younger.”
“Do they still live in Boston?”
I raised an eyebrow.
She tapped her temple with her index finger. “Eidetic memory, remember? There’s more than one article about you where it’s mentioned that you grew up in Boston.”
“My older brother, Jax, does. Slade lives in Texas, and Blake lives in Wyoming.”
“Is it hard, being away from them?” she asked. “My sisters and brothers could be a pain in my ass, but I love them, you know?”
“My brothers and I…we get along better the farther we are apart.”
She came over to stand near me, her head cocked to one side like she was trying to figure me out. “When was the last time you saw them?”
“Last week,” I said, my jaw tightening at the memory. “Our grandfather died.”
She reached out this time and put her hand on my arm. “I’m so sorry. I remember reading that he’d raised you after your parents passed.”
“He did.” I didn’t shake off her hand even though the logical part of my brain told me to shut this down. Now.
She squeezed my arm. “It’s never easy to lose someone.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything else. I didn’t like this, talking about my family, about my feelings. I couldn’t think straight when things were like this. I needed to take control again, get things back to the way they had been. I’d barely spoken to Grandfather in three years. The fact that he was no longer here for me to call or visit shouldn’t have bothered me. He’d been no part of my life here in Atlanta, so now that I was back, things should’ve been able to go back to normal.
Except, now, as I looked at the concern on Addison’s face, I began to wonder if my life would ever be normal again.
Eight
Addison
Things had gotten, um, strange at work today. Not uncomfortable or inappropriate, I didn’t think. The things we’d talked about hadn’t been anything I wouldn’t have talked about with co-workers in the past. Okay, technically, he was my supervisor, but people talked to their bosses about things all the time.
Except I wasn’t sure that the same questions would’ve felt the same with someone else. I wasn’t the sort of person who talked about how things made me feel, but with Cai…I couldn’t seem to separate my thoughts from my feelings around him.
Which meant I needed something to distract me.
Fortunately, the moment I walked into the apartment, I knew distraction was exactly what was going to happen.
Dorly sat on the sofa with her girlfriend, Codie Siko, but as soon as they saw me, both of their faces lit up in a way that made me second-guess my desire for distraction. I’d met Codie on Sunday, and I’d liked her as immedi
ately as I had Dorly even though the two of them were as different as night and day. Where Dorly was blunt and didn’t take shit from anyone, Codie was quiet and sweet, the type of person that automatically made others want to protect her. She had delicate features and a petite build, as well as a soft way of smiling that added to her fragile appearance.
It hadn’t taken me long to realize that Codie wasn’t a pushover though. She and Dorly balanced each other perfectly. If I’d wanted to be in a relationship, I’d want something like what they had.
But I didn’t want romance or love or a commitment. Recently, I’d been thinking about the physical side of things more often, but I wasn’t sure where to go with that, so I’d just left things where they were. Buying batteries for my vibrator was a whole lot cheaper than dating, and there’d never be a chance at hurt feelings.
“We’re going out,” Dorly announced. She gave me a once-over. “Go get changed.”
“Where are we going?” I asked as I headed toward my bedroom.
“A club,” she called after me.
“Shower first, then.” I went into the bathroom instead. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen, but I’d learned that it was better to be prepared and not need something than it was to be caught off-guard.
“Can I pick out your clothes?” Codie asked, raising her voice to be heard over the water.
“Sure.” She had better fashion sense than I did anyway. I tended to find something I liked and stick with it for as long as possible. I thought about telling her I didn’t want anything too revealing but decided it wasn’t necessary. I didn’t own anything that I wasn’t comfortable wearing.
“What the hell, Codie?” I stared at the mirror, not recognizing the woman looking back at me.
