“Come on… Murph? Is that what I heard you call yourself?”
The blood drained from my face.
Crap.
He thought my name was freaking Murph.
IDIOT!
“N-no… Milo. Milo Murphy.”
I winced, waiting for the inevitable flash of amusement that tended to cross people’s faces when I told them my name.
Instead, his expression softened.
“Milo,” he hummed.
He said it slowly, breaking out each syllable like he was savoring them as my name rolled off his tongue.
My-loh.
Oh my god.
My name coming out of his mouth should not have sounded as hot as it did.
Jeebus.
What the heck was this day?
“Nice to meet you, Milo,” he said in that soft, velvety tone that was making me worry I might pop the most inappropriate boner of all time.
Think of vomit. Chunky, disgusting, smelly vomit… Oh no.
I’d scrunched my nose like I smelled something bad.
Dangit! Now I probably just looked deranged.
I tried to school my expression as I waited for him to introduce himself, but he didn’t. He just cocked his head in the direction of the path that apparently led to my destination.
“Let’s get you to orientation.”
“Uhm. Okay,” I mumbled, scrambling to catch up as he turned away, that amused smirk still playing on his full lips.
We arrived at the meeting spot for orientation. It was in the center of the Nexus Campus next to a massive contemporary art piece that doubled as a fountain. I stared up at it, amazed by the moving chrome sculpture depicting the human brain. Water flowed over the smooth, fleshy ripples as the brain morphed and rearranged before us like a Rubik’s Cube, showing how all the different pieces of the human psyche could be rearranged and moulded to fit a new purpose.
“Cool, huh?” my smoking hot travel companion asked, his lip quirking at my obvious awe of the kinetic art piece.
“Uhm. Yeah. So cool,” I agreed, and he smiled.
More people had begun to gather at the meeting point, and my impromptu guide checked his watch as the crowd grew.
“Alright, let’s get started,” he said, and to my astonishment, he moved to the front of the crowd and grinned at us.
“Hey, everyone. Welcome to orientation. My name is Jay Reynolds, and I head up the Memory Therapy Research Department. If you couldall check in to the event on your Nexus app so I can make sure we have everyone, we’ll get going in a few minutes.”
My mouth dropped, and Jay met my gaze, giving me a playful wink.
Oh my freaking god.
