I yank it closed behind me before she can follow and do any more damage.
I cross to the sink, roll up my sleeves, start the timer, and begin washing my hands up to my elbows.
When the timer goes off three minutes later, I turn to find her gone.
Thank God.
I sag against the counter, suddenly unsure what to do next.
Twenty minutes ago, my day was perfectly planned. And then she walked in.
I should have been at the computer analyzing the results that came in overnight. Instead, I’m standing here ready to walk into the clean room, except I don’t have any work to do in there.
Worse still, when I glance down, I realize I’m standing here in my socks.
They’re a pair of blue socks with eyes on them. I don’t even recognize them. It isn’t surprising given my sister, Tavey, buys me most of my socks and it amuses her to mess with me like that. The eyes stare up at me, like they’re judging me.
Yeah. Judgy socks.
Guess I had that coming.
Even by my standards, I’ve been a colossal ass.
Worse, Holly Dolinsky distracted me to the point that I walked into the foyer of the clean room without putting on my lab shoes and sterile booties. I also neglected to put on a clean lab jacket. Which means the foyer will have to be sterilized before anyone can do any work in there.
Fuck.
Last semester, I fired a grad student for doing almost the exact same thing. I kicked the guy out the program. I made him cry.
I wish I could slam the door on the way out of the foyer, but I don’t. Instead, I sit down on the bench, put my damn shoes back on, and roll down my sleeves.
Back at my computer, I type up an email to my lab assistant Gwen asking her to come in and sterilize the foyer.
She’s the only one in the department I trust to do it right. Gwen is competent, attentive, and nearly as smart as I am. And she doesn’t smell like lemon pancakes.
Probably because when I hired her, I forbade her wearing scented anything since I hate those kinds of distractions.
Holly Dolinsky is just one distraction piled on top of another.
The only good thing about her is that I will never have to see her again.
Chapter 2
Holly
Dick.
Asshole.
Douche canoe.
Monster.
Those were just some of the ways people had described Max Ramsey to me.
Had I believed them?
No.
