“I want to say yes,” Ash whispered. “But I can’t.”
Luke pulled away immediately and toyed with his sleeves. “Can I ask why?”
“The employee handbook,” Ash explained. They told Luke what they read this morning. “I can’t jeopardize this job, Luke. We’re adults and wouldn’t let it get in the way. But…I can’t hurt my career in any way before it even starts. I’m sorry.”
“No, I understand. You have nothing to apologize for.” Luke refused to meet Ash’s gaze.
“You have no idea how much I wish I hadn’t read the handbook.” Ash’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I had a great time with you.”
“If we don’t pursue anything, that’s fine. But that night… I haven’t had that much fun with someone in a long time. And…I need a chemist for my research. Will you help me?” Luke’s icy stare finally met Ash’s. They could see the desperation in his eyes.
“What are you working on?” Ash asked.
“After we talked in the bar about our dissertations, I started thinking about my research. I’m trying to discover novel methods of detection for thyroid cancer. I thought of a new method, but I have no idea how to model the interaction. I read your dissertation—I think we could fill the gaps in our knowledge well if we work together.”
Ash mulled the idea over. Could they work with Luke and shove their feelings away? The research was intriguing; it was what Ash hoped to achieve with their dissertation, but they were missing sequencing experience. Working together, they could achieve results faster. In the name of science, Ash had to put their feelings aside. After all, they had chosen this topic because they couldn’t watch anotherperson they loved die of cancer. If they worked with Luke, it was one step closer to ensuring that didn’t happen.
“Okay,” Ash said. “I’d love to work together.”
Chapter five
Ash was absolutely not obsessing over how Luke looked in a lab coat. They were not admiring how his hair fell in curls over his safety glasses. They definitely did not note his scent every time he walked past. Working with Luke, while a great idea for science, was a bad idea for Ash’s heart. They hadn’t realized how hard it would be to work so closely with Luke; inside, they were regretting everything they said last week.
Ash sat behind their computer, one hand on their mouse, the other typing furiously, trying to bind the interaction between Thyroglobulin and Gal-3. Ash read through Luke’s research notes and was blown away by the novel ideas. Luke was right—he needed a chemist. He didn’t know about computational and physical chemistry or binding interactions. He wasn’t an expert in molecular symmetry. What he needed to know was how these two molecules interact. It was incredibly invigorating research, and it was unrealistically invigorating being in the same room as Luke, talking about science. There was nothing that turned Ash on more than talking about science.
“How’s it going over there?” Luke asked, looking up from his pipette.
Ash let out a groan. “I’m having trouble with this one. The structures available for me to use aren’t the best. I’m considering building the molecules myself, but I don’t quite remember how to do that. So, I’m watching a YouTube video of my professor as a refresher.”
Luke looked at Ash with something like shock. Or maybe it was surprise. Or even… He was impressed. Was that it? Ash felt a swell of pride in their chest as Luke spoke.
“That’s brilliant. You know how to do that?”
“Not well. But, yeah.”
A slow smile spread across Luke’s lips. “Thank you. For agreeing to work with me. I think this is going to be a great collaboration.”
Ash finally looked up at Luke and met his gaze. The way Luke looked at them… It was devastating. Ash could stay under Luke’s gaze forever. If he kept looking at Ash like that…no. They couldn’t. The very idea of jumping Luke’s bones in the lab disgusted Ash. This wasn’t some damn book. Labs were disgusting, and Ash was not going to have sex with Luke in the lab, or any other place.
The last week had been great. Ash and Luke had read through each other’s dissertations. Luke walked Ash through what he needed them to do, where he hoped the research was going. Ash was more than happy to oblige. They had been thinking about what they wanted to research once they started teaching, and while they wanted to continue their PhD research, they knew it would be more time-consuming than they would have liked. After their cousin had passed from thyroid cancer when Ash was a teen, they were set on finding a cure. But then chemistry called their name. While they couldn’t do as much for oncology research as a chemist, there was still something Ash coulddo. So, when they got this offer from Luke, Ash couldn’t refuse. They would be doing what they had set out to do in the first place.
The first week of classes went well. Ash successfully enraptured their students with their animated presentation skills and the different examples they pulled in class. They even used their own p-chem notes from when they were in undergrad, which their students found just as interesting as Ash had. A few students had even started coming to their office hours every week. One girl, Maeve, a short, spunky, blue-haired girl, just wanted to talk about chemistry because she was thinking about getting her PhD and wanted to know what Ash’s experience was like. She was graduating in the spring, and to her, a PhD was the next logical step. Ash talked to her about their dissertation, their time in graduate school, and how they wouldn’t go back to change their decision because Ash made the choice that was right for them.
Maeve didn’t want to be a professor; she wanted to work in industry. Ash didn’t know much about the industry, but they helped Maeve look at jobs. They found that Maeve could obtain a high-level research position at any pharmaceutical company with a PhD. Ash realized this was the part of teaching they loved. While they didn’t know everything, they loved sitting with their students to discuss career paths. Ash remembered having this conversation with their p-chem teacher, and then their dissertation advisor. In truth, Ash hadn’t wanted to be a professor until the opportunity presented itself. They wanted to have a direct impact on people’s lives by doing research at an oncology company. But, as Ash sat with their students, they realized they were directly helping people’s lives. Not in the same manner, but in an equally important way.
After a few more minutes of looking, Ash resigned themselves to building their own molecules. Something just wasn’t fitting. They linked the carbons, nitrogens, and oxygens. Flooded the molecule withhydrogens. Tried very hard to make a molecule that looked as close to Gal-3 as they could muster. After nearly four hours of struggling, Ash had a molecule they could work with. It wasn’t perfect, but as long as the binding site was right, they could model the reaction.
Ash pulled the two molecules into the program and allowed it to run. Ash leaned back in their chair and surveyed Luke. He was bent over the lab bench, a pipette in his left hand and a plate in his right. He pipetted some reagent into the plate, disposed of his tip, grabbed a new one, and started again. Ash had never loved bench science. They loved the computational and theoretical side of things. While holding a pipette was fun occasionally, they didn’t want to do it every day.
As they sat behind a desk with molecular interaction software running and watching Luke do all the wet science, they realized this was perfect for them. Immediately after graduation, Ash didn’t know if they were going to be happy staying in Binghamton. They didn’t know if they would find joy, pride, or even solace in what they were doing. But between the interactions with their students and the research with Luke, Ash realized this was the right decision. They could make Binghamton their home. Even if they just stayed friends with Luke, that was good enough for Ash.
After a few minutes, the program stopped running and shot out some results at Ash. They skimmed the results, searching for the interaction. They read pages and pages of data, hoping they would find what they were looking for.
After the sixteenth page of data, Ash slammed their laptop closed, stood, and loudly announced, “I’m going for a walk.”
Ash didn’t wait for Luke to respond before they walked from the room, letting the door slam behind them. Ash made a beeline for the stairs and immediately ran outside. The humid summer air filled their lungs, which didn’t make them feel any better about the failure oftheir model. The two molecules didn’t bind together; something was wrong with the design. Ash wasn’t sure where they went wrong; they’d have to take a closer look at the data later. But after four hours of frustration, this was all they could take.
Failure was something that never came easily to Ash. Whenever they came to a problem during their dissertation, they would set it aside for a few days, only to come back even more stressed because they wasted time. But what killed Ash wasn’t that they failed; no, they felt they were letting Luke and their cousin down. If they couldn’t do this, the research would fail. They couldn’t help people, and Ash would feel like Luke chose the wrong person. Ash was a new chemist. They were good, but maybe Luke would have been better off choosing a more experienced one. Suddenly, Ash’s heart sank to their stomach as they wondered why Luke had chosen them. Was it just because they slept together? Did Luke feel like he owed Ash something because Ash didn’t want to pursue a relationship? Had Luke really been thinking about this since they met? And what if Luke had never met Ash again? It was fate that they were teaching and doing research at the same university.
