“Honestly, no. I’m on the verge of a huge breakthrough.” My voice holds awe I don’t mean for it to.
“Of course you are. You’ll get a Nobel. I know it. But Lo?” His tone is imploring. “It’s nearly nine here. You’ve been doing your thing for at least twelve hours. Even your brain needs a break to be at full strength.”
Pulling my phone from my ear, I look at the screen. It’s ten ’til eight. I’ve been at it for hours. And this data is too good to look at through muddy lenses.
“Good call. How do you always know?”
“I just do. Take care of yourself, Lo. It’s hard being so far away and unable to protect you. Even if it’s from yourself.”
“I’ve been gone for a decade, Strider. And you were gone long before that.”
“Not that gone. And not this far.”
“Love you, big brother. See you in a few weeks, okay?” I’m willing him to promise me. Somehow forty feels like the other side of a lethal journey, and I need the assurance.
“You know it. Love you too. Now, go home. Have a glass of wine. Watch some TV. Do normal girl shit.”
Yeah, right. “Whatever you say. Goodnight.”
“’Night.” He disconnects as I stare at the screen.
Normal girl shit? What is that? It doesn’t matter. I upload the data into our data vault, back it up to the cloud, and add a thumb drive I’ll lock in my desk for good measure. Medicine has waited a century for this kind of information. I’m not leaving it in one place.
Closing down procedures, locking up my lab, exiting the secure building, not to mention the thirty-minute commute means it’s after nine when I get home. Wine is out, and so is my typical female empowerment mood music since my neighbor’s lights are on.
Instead, I make a protein shake, since it’s too late to eat, and draw a bath. Cold, chalky protein with spinach is nowhere near as good as the lushness of good grapes, but the hot water and warm vanilla amber bubbles filling my senses will certainly do.
Yeah, wine would’ve been so much better. I plug my nose and drain the dregs of my smoothie. It’s wretched, but it’s nutritious and seeing as how I had a granola bar for lunch, I needed something with vitamins or minerals or whatever.
My mother would fuss. My father would worry. Strider would lecture. Sam— Well, she would smoke a joint and say I only get one life and whether that’s wine or a smoothie, so long as I enjoy it, that’s enough.
How my parents ended up with three polar opposites—is that a thing?—I have no idea. How they managed to raise us and support us with such vastly different interests and aptitudes is another.
My water has gone lukewarm. My mind has not calmed. I’m clean and antsy. Drying off, I slather shea butter into my skin. This dry weather is not what I’m used to. Winters in Illinois, sure. But all the time, not so much.
I polish my toenails and I pace.
All that data has my brain still hyped. Hearing from my brother and knowing his fortieth is just around the corner switches me tohyperdrive. Add to that the monsters who tried to violate me in my own home, the fact they know what I look like, where I live, and the layout of my place… and my brain isn’t going to rest anytime soon.
Liam
The banana muffins aren’t inedible exactly, but they should have been. The flavor is okay, but the texture is gritty, like she added sand out of spite. Maybe she did, though the anger seemed to emerge after she dropped them off. She was bouncy until that point.
I’m fairly certain she isn’t poisoning me. And only because I don’t think she’s a good enough cook to make that happen. It’s a good thing I’m not tempted by her baking.
The woman herself?
That’s a different story.
My dick took notice. I did too. It was hard not to. Not that she’s my type. I don’t have a type.
I have sex, but I can’t say—aside from the physical act of getting off and getting a woman off—that I’ve ever wanted dinner or breakfast on either end, much less both.
Yet, my mind is constantly tugged like a magnet pulling me toward the wall we share. Is it technicallyshitting where you liveif it’s next door?
I managed not to watch the cameras after she came home. Her car pulling into her garage set off my motion detectors, so I know when she arrived.
It’s not a late night by my standards anyway, but for a chemist, it seems odd. I’d assume those days would be very rigid and structured. Like seven-thirty to four-thirty working with men with four gray hairs atop a liver-spotted head who stare at the floor and mutter to themselves.
