It’d been a few days since the night I’d fallen asleep with Gray, but neither of us had discussed it. It was as if it’d never happened. He was back to his snarky ways and whatever crumb of vulnerability had shone through had well and truly evaporated. And I was grateful. Whatever laid between Gray and I was uncomplicated and that was how it needed to stay.
Not that there was anything between us.
I had split my time between the lab and with Sloan, Erik, and Cato. Babies weren’t really my thing, but he was cute as a button and generally well behaved. His development was much quicker than an average human baby, and at a cellular level, it was fascinating to observe. The question was what mechanisms were behind the rapid growth that then stalled entirely to make them immortal. Several papers on telomeres littered the office and the house, but I was struggling to find an answer that related to these deities.
That was the question that fuelled my curiosity so much so that I was starting to lose track of time in the lab. My starts became earlier and my finishes were past five o’clock, but I didn’t complain because this was what I loved beyond anything else.
So when Gray turned up at the door of the tissue culture lab, I jumped.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“If you put a lab coat on.”
He abided by the rule and shrugged on a coat, walking into the room. “We have a meeting.”
I didn’t look at him but returned my focus to my work. The flasks were stacked to the left, all of them with Cato’s cells in. Six needed a media change, and another three needed to be emptied and cryopreserved. Well plates were set up earlier in the day for scratch tests tomorrow and I felt on top of everything for the first time in weeks.
“What time is it?” I asked him distractedly.
“Nine.”
That got my attention. “It’s nine already? Shit.”
He took the seat next to me.
“Why have you got a meeting this late?” I asked, trying to pick up the pace.
“Hunter’s request, since it concerns us returning to Elysia,” Gray explained, and I almost dropped the flask in my hand.
“You’re going back?”
There was a small knot of panic in me, and I couldn’t figure out why. The past three months, I’d grown accustomed to having Gray around, and I guessed I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready to go back to living on my own again.
“For Cato’s gifting ceremony,” Gray clarified.
The knot eased, and I continued with my work. “Why aren’t you at the meeting?”
“Gareth asked me to come and get you.”
“Why?”
“How would I know?”
I placed everything down and looked at him. “Because I know you and I would bet money that you had a look at his thoughts.”
“This constant character assassination is very damaging to my ego. Now say something nice about me.”
“There’s nothing nice to say.”
A wicked glint came to his eye. “We both know that’s not true.”
I grabbed the flasks out of the hood and put them back in the incubator. I could finish this after the meeting. Diving back into the hood, I capped the bottle of medium and dropped it in the water bath.
“Are you going to tell me what he wants?” I asked, snapping off the gloves and putting them in the bin. Hanging up the lab coat, I washed my hands, with Gray mimicking my actions.
“He’s coming with us,” Gray said.
“Wait, what? He’s going with you? To Elysia?”
