Nerdy Little Secret

by Aarons, Carrie

  It means a lot that she says that about Mick and me.

  It also means that my stubborn mind is in very deep trouble, because my heart has completely fallen for him.

  29

  Mick

  “You really didn’t have to come with me.”

  My hand holds onto Jolie’s as we push through the doors of the medical school, our coffees steaming in our other fists. It’s early, earlier than I normally go in to do some of the data entry work I have to do for the trial.

  When I woke up in her bed this morning, I was just going to do my usual kiss to her forehead and quietly exit the house so I could get to my internship. But she’d been up with me and asked if she could come see where I work. Normally, I’d be completely opposed. Before I met Jolie, I knew I worked best alone, and that I’d never break the rules and bring someone unauthorized into the lab.

  But the egotistical part of me wanted to show her what I was working on, even if I still hadn’t told her why I was doing it. Each time I thought about bringing up my dad, like when I had a bad phone call with one of his therapists or just a tough exchange with my mom, I stopped myself. I want to lean on her for it, I do, but I know that it’s my last line of defense. Once she knows about this, I’ll be all in. She’ll know all of my vulnerable secrets, the things I haven’t allowed anyone else to see. I’m just about ready to take the plunge, but something is holding me back.

  “Here’s the grand operation.” The lights flick on in the lab, and slowly everything seems to come to life.

  It’s a large room, separated by what is essentially a computer room and then a sealed off chamber for testing and specimen research. That room is almost all glass, so you can see into it, but I won’t be taking Jolie in there today. On one side of the computer room is a bank of high-tech computers, microscopes, filing cabinets, and a bookcase of research textbooks. On the other side is a giant white board, which contains all sorts of scribbles and theories that any number of us throw up there throughout the days spent in here.

  “Wow, it’s not what I expected.” She looks around.

  “Is that good or bad?” I ask, setting my backpack and coffee down at the station I usually work at in the morning.

  She shrugs, her hair piled on top of her head. She looks beautiful in the morning, all natural and fresh-faced. I prefer her like this, with no makeup in her sweats, I feel like I’m the only guy who gets to see her this way.

  “For some reason, I was thinking it was going to look like a spaceship in here or something. I mean, it’s impressive, but looks like an upgraded exam room at my doctor’s office.”

  I snort. “Well, glad we can lower your expectations.”

  Jolie holds up her hands. “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. Honestly, I think it’s ridiculously intimidating that you’re a junior undergrad working on a medical trial. You’re way smarter than I’ll ever be, or probably anyone I’ll ever know.”

  Firing up the bank of computers, I call her over. “Let me show you the latest discovery we think we found in DNA to possibly detect ALS.”

  As my computer gets up and running, I open a slide I’m really not supposed to be showing anyone who isn’t involved in the trial, but it’s just Jolie. It’s not like she’s going to tell anyone, much less care enough to understand all the jargon I’m about to throw at her.

  I explain about the DNA sequence and a little about what the trial will involve for patients when it, eventually years down the line, gets approved by the CDC. She listens intently, and I know it’s a lot to process, but I think I explain it well enough. I try to keep myself from getting too pumped up, because each time I think about it, I have to remind myself of the reality.

  Dad could never get into this trial. It could not work for him, or a lot of patients like him. It could be years, which I don’t know that we have with Dad.

  When I tell her I need to answer some emails, Jolie wanders off, looking around the room.

  She’s across the room, examining something on one of the posters on the wall, when she clears her throat and catches my attention.

  “This reminds me of our camp days, sneaking off to places we could almost get caught in.” Jolie’s smirk is erotic as she peeks through the curtain of her hair.

  I know that look, the one that gets my blood heating and my cock stiffening. “Jolie, not in here …”

  But she’s not listening. She merely bends at the waist more, showing me the curve of her ass in those dangerous black yoga leggings.

  This is exactly what I’m talking about. Before this girl, I would never be caught dead breaking a rule of any kind. I would strictly adhere to work and school standards and keep to myself above all that threatened to derail my goals or future.

  But now she was in my life, and she’d painted it colors I never knew existed. It was as if she’d summoned my right brain out of its shell, eclipsing the rational left brain in me. And I just couldn’t resist her, rationality be damned.

  “Pull them down,” I command, walking over to her.

  Jolie’s expression goes from playful to lust in two seconds flat.

  “We don’t really have to do this Mick, I was just kidding …” She hesitates, and I’m almost over to the counter space she’s leaning on.

  “I said, pull them down.” My face is deadly serious. “We have about thirty minutes before people start showing up for work, and I want you right here.”

  One of those fantasies I’ve had while choking the chicken, as Paul says, is having sex in the hospital I work in, or at work in general. Nudity under lab coats have been involved in these scenarios, but I don’t have one and neither does she, so this will have to do.

  Jolie doesn’t think twice. In one fell swoop, she yanks down her leggings, underwear going with them, and then she’s bare assed in front of me. Her spectacular, perky cheeks quiver under my gaze, and between her legs, I can see the glisten of how wet she already is.

  When I reach her, I don’t do more than pull my pants to my knees, leaving everything else in place. There is something dirtier about having sex with clothes on, something rushed and passionate about not having time to undress.

  I’ve learned from numerous months with Jolie, not to mention the summer, to always carry a condom on me. You never know when we’re going to try to go at it. Rolling it on hastily, I grab her hips and line myself up to her slit.

  Fisting myself, I run my cock up and down her wet lips. “So ready for me. Is this why you wanted to come to work with me?”

  My breath is on her ear and I feel the shiver go all the way down her spine. “Yes. I wanted you to fuck me in here.”

  The curse makes my nostrils flair, and I wrap her long brown hair around my hand, pulling it slightly. And before she can swallow the moan that elicits, I push in deep, sliding all the way into her slick heat.

  “Oh my God …” The plea comes out of her mouth, and I drive even deeper inside her.

  This is what she does to me, makes me unravel, lose control. Except, in the strangest way, I feel more myself right now than I’ve ever felt.

  Jolie doesn’t fight me, in fact, she covers one of the hands gripping her hip with her own fingers, silently asking me to dig my digits in more. She juts up against me as I pull out slowly and then slam back into her.

  All I want to do is destroy her, to act out every fantasy I’ve ever had about her, or fucking in the workplace.

  I pummel my cock into her, over and over again. I hear myself snarling, and Jolie is matching me thrust for thrust.

  Her head is thrown back, long brunette locks spilling down her back. The noises she’s making are turning me into a wild animal, and if we’re not careful, we’re going to ruin highly pricey machines and computers. Her knuckles are white as she grips the counter with one hand.

  I tear one hand off her hip, keeping my relentless, pounding pace into her, and reach up inside her long sleeve, to her bra. My finger find their way inside, tweaking at the perfectly budded nipples that I know are rosy
pink whenever I blow on them. She gives a sharp cry.

  “That’s what you like, huh? This is what you wanted?” I taunt her.

  I’m so close that it feels like my cock might break with all the pressure it’s experiencing. “Come for me, Jolie. Come right here in this lab so I can think about it every time I step foot in this room.”

  “Mick!” she screams my name, and I clamp my hand over her mouth to stifle the shout.

  When her pussy grips me hard with the first wave of her orgasm, I see white. I slam inside of her, just one hard, punishing thrust, and then I’m coming. I nearly black out from the bliss and hold on to Jolie like she’s the last piece of shiplap from my sunken boat.

  We’ve had some wild sex in some very kinky places, but I think this one takes the cake. I don’t know how the hell she convinced the devil in me, the one only she seems to be able to summon to do this, but …

  I don’t know how I’ll ever work normally in this laboratory again.

  30

  Mick

  That’s the second time, I think to myself as I stare down at the screen of my phone.

  Usually, I never send my mom to voicemail. Ninety percent of the time, our calls are just the regular family catchups with a few of Dad’s checkups or therapies relayed to me over the phone.

  But as I sit here next to Jolie in the library, and my phone is buzzing against my leg for the second time in two minutes, I know something is wrong. I have to answer it, but she’s sitting right here.

  “Can you excuse me for a minute?” I tell her.

  Her head comes up slightly from where it was bent, focusing on her biology notebook. Her final is in less than two weeks, and we’re in the home stretch. She’s almost there, going to get through this first semester with passing grades, and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

  Her expression is puzzled, but she says, “Sure.”

  I stand up quickly, trying to weave my way through the second floor to a quiet nook.

  “Mom?” I answer the phone quietly.

  “Oh God, thank God, Mick. I thought you might be at the internship or class, I was panicking.” My mom sounds frazzled.

  “Is something wrong with Dad?” My stomach drops, waiting for her to confirm all of my worst nightmares.

  “He’s okay, for now. I’m calling because the insurance company won’t cover that one medication again. They’re fighting it, even with the doctor’s note, prescription, and explanation. I don’t know what to do. He’s been on it for a while now, and I don’t know the side effects of him going cold turkey. Or what it will do to his progress, he’s had so much the past few months. I don’t know what to do!”

  Her voice is near hysteria, and I know the mental pain she’s feeling right now. Dealing with the insurance companies has been one of the biggest pains in the ass with Dad’s disease. They try to skirt out of paying for things that are clearly covered under our plan by using loopholes, percentages, making the doctors get ridiculous amounts of paperwork on why he needs a certain test or prescription …

  Anything under the sun they can do not to pay for things, they’ll find it.

  “Mom, okay, calm down. You’re going to call Patricia over at the billing department of his neurologist. She knows exactly what is going on, because they’ve done this before. Then you’re going to call Michael at the insurance company. Both of their numbers are in the drawer by the fridge. He’s going to walk you through the proper steps you need to take, he knows our situation. I know this is frustrating, and if they say they can’t get the prescription to the pharmacy for a couple of days, remind them of the detriment that could cause on Dad’s state. They don’t want their names in the papers, or worse, a lawsuit.”

  After dealing with some of the most malicious insurance agents and supervisors over the years, I’ve grown a thick skin when it comes to them. I know how to grease their wheels, push where I need to, and I’ve rigged the system to get my father what he needs. It blows my mind that the healthcare industry in this country actively wants to deny healing people.

  Mom lets out a hiccupping sigh. “Okay, thank you. Thanks for calming me down, buddy. I just … it’s been hard without you here. We’re the only two who have been in the trenches, you know?”

  It might not be a typical thing a mother would say to her son, but I’d been more adult than a lot of people, including my mom, since a young age. And I know what she means.

  “I know, Mom. I’m still here fighting alongside you, just in a different way now.”

  “Love you, Mick. Let me go call these people.”

  I tell her I love her, then we hang up. Leaning against a bookshelf in the dimmed corner of the library, I take a minute to control my emotions. I feel like I could lose it if I walk up to Jolie right now at that table, and I need to push the feelings down.

  With each step I take back to the table, I feel the weight of my dad’s illness and everything that comes with it like a boulder on my back. It’s about to pin me to the ground, and Jolie must see it written all over my face when I sit down.

  “What’s wrong?” She reaches for my hand, concern marring her expression.

  My gaze is focused down on the table, because this is new territory for me. I’ve never unloaded my family situation, or the burden it brings, on anyone else. I’ve kept these feelings locked inside, not even telling my parents how I feel most times because it would only make it harder on them.

  “That was my mom. Um … I’ve never really talked about this, so …” I don’t know where to start here.

  Jolie squeezes my hand. “You can tell me anything. Please, Mick, I’ve never seen you this upset.”

  I take a deep breath before I step over the cliff.

  “My dad was diagnosed with ALS six years ago. You know what that is?”

  Jolie nods. “I sort of do. I mean, I know generally what it is, but not the full diagnosis of it. I’m so sorry, Mick.”

  She scoots her chair closer so that our knees touch; I have to swallow the lump of emotion that congeals in my throat.

  “He’s only gotten worse as time goes on. First, it was his ability to pick things up, simple things like a basketball or playing board games with my mom or me. His coordination began to slip, and then he started to limp. The muscles in his legs were weakening because of the disease, and within a year, he was walking with canes. Year two brought the wheelchair, and he couldn’t walk anymore. That meant he couldn’t drive a car, and then everything just got harder from there. Now he’s bound to the chair, can’t grab things with his hands, slurs his speech to the point where it’s unintelligible, and can’t even feed himself.”

  Jolie’s eyes are misty as I talk, and I can tell she wants to hug me, but I have to get it all out.

  “That’s the reason I went to community college. I could have gone to my top choice, but the financial burden this is putting on my mom means she has to work so many jobs. My dad’s disability and medical subsidies only pay for so much, and we couldn’t get a full-time care nurse for him until this year. So I was his caretaker, and giving that up, even for my dream of college and medical school, has been extremely difficult. Especially when I can’t be there if Mom has to take him to the doctor for an emergency. Or like right now, when the insurance company is denying a crucial medication and I can’t be there to fight it with her.”

  “Jesus, Mick, I had no idea. I’m so sorry, you are and have taken on so much more than is ever asked of a normal college student.” Jolie moves in to wrap her arms around me, and I let my head drop to her shoulder. “But you care, you want so fiercely to protect your dad and help your mom. That kind of love and loyalty is all they can ask for. I know you want to heal him, to make this all go away. I wish it could.”

  She just holds me for a while, in the middle of the quiet library. It’s oddly comforting, when I didn’t think I could ever feel relief telling anyone this enormous secret I’d been holding in.

  “That’s why you’re working on the trial with Dr. Richards,�
�� Jolie murmurs to herself.

  My eyes can’t seem to meet hers, and I loll my head back down on her shoulder. “I begged to get on it when I got here. Dr. Richards is part of the reason I even came to Salem Walsh. I knew it was the best place to someday find a cure. I’m hoping to get into the medical school a year early.”

  “Mick, I … I don’t even have words. Your selflessness, your drive to try and help your family? You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known. Probably the best. I’m so sorry. It doesn’t seem fair that you or your father have to go through this.”

  It doesn’t much matter what her words are at this moment, it’s just that she’s here. I’ve never had another person, outside of my family, experience this struggle with me. I feared for a long time that if I showed how scared it really made me, people would turn away. I’d seen it many times with doctors, nurses, physical therapists … they clammed up if something was going wrong with Dad.

  Jolie and I sit interconnected for a long time, and just having her touch makes my breath return to its normal rhythm, and the fear in my stomach go from panic level to its normal state of healthy concern.

  Now that this barrier is down, that there is nothing between us, I feel like I could fall endlessly into this woman.

  31

  Jolie

  The secretary gives me a nod and says, “He’ll see you now,” before I’m rising to my feet.

  When I got an email that the dean of Salem Walsh University wanted a meeting with me, I was equal parts scared and curious.

  This could be about how well I’ve been doing, an update, if you will, on how my suspension is progressing. Or he could be throwing me out of the university altogether. I’ve stayed up nights worrying about this, and my hands begin to sweat as I press them into the professional black skirt I chose for this meeting.