I beeped through the door and joined Anvi in the clean room where she was doing viability checks. I used the time scrubbing my hands and donning my PPE to take a few more deep breaths. My reaction to Andrew was alarming, to say the least, and I dreaded seeing him again in two weeks, even as my traitorous body longed for another hit of his scent.
“How did it go?” Anvi asked when I joined her at the other incubator. I started doing visual checks of the culture medium, looking for cloudiness or patches of fungi. Everything looked good.
“Weird,” I said, trying to dispel the lingering tingles on my palm from where we’d shaken hands. The familiar hum of the equipment was helping center me. “I don’t understand why they want us to meet with him, but it’s fine. It might even beinteresting to get firsthand insight into how the treatments are going.”
“I Googled him. Is he, like, that hot in real life? I might have to watch tennis now,” Anvi whispered.
Another bolt of lightning went through my stomach at the thought of his long, lean form. “He’s a subject. What he looks like doesn’t matter.”
Anvi laughed brightly. “So, that’s a yes. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you’re ogling the subjects.”
I shook my head, smiling. “Finish the checks, Anvi.”
I could examine my reaction to Andrew St. James later.
Chapter 4 - Nathan
Bridget Crawford had quickly become the bane of my existence, yet again.
As if the year in Dr. Nielsen’s lab hadn’t been bad enough, she had reentered my life, but this time with no convenient end date in sight.
I woke much too early on Friday, inconveniently hard after yet another vivid dream about her. The clock read 4:25, but I wouldn’t fall back to sleep. Ever since I’d finally caught a hint of Bridget’s scent — something floral and sweet that reminded me of a sun-soaked garden — my dreams had developed another layer of sensuality. And now that I knew she was unbonded, my inner Alpha was insistent that she belonged to me, even though the idea was absurd.
I’d never cared about her being an Omega before, but now I couldn’t stop imagining the impact of her unadulterated perfume. I tossed and turned for another hour, then finally gave up and got out of bed.
Focus on the science, I told myself as I slipped out of the apartment and headed to the twenty-four-hour gym down the block. The streets were quiet in the pre-dawn light of the orange streetlamps, and I shivered under my coat.
I pushed myself harder than usual to work the pent up energy from my limbs. It helped a bit, but left me exhausted.
The sun still hadn’t risen by the time I left the gym, but there were more people out and about. After I showered and dressed, I applied a healthy layer of descenter. I’d gotten into the habit while working in the university lab, which encouraged a “pheromone-free environment.” It also conveniently helped mask my attraction to my coworker.
We’d be receiving blood samples from the study subjects today, looking for any sign of immune responses. I mapped out the day’s work in my head, mentally dividing the tasks to keep myself as far away from Bridget as possible.
Sometimes I couldn’t resist seeking her out, spending a few moments just the two of us. Every time I slipped up, I felt guiltier.
Bridget was off-limits. I was her boss. No matter how beautiful she was, how brilliant, passionate, and driven, there was no world in which our relationship would ever be anything but professional.
If only I could convince my body of that fact.
Victor, my Beta roommate, was already in the kitchen when I emerged from my room. He was a physicist I’d met at a university event a few years before. After completing his Ph.D., he’d gotten a teaching job. We’d bonded over being Filipino first-born sons pressured into STEM careers and lived in relative harmony. Victor’s one fatal flaw was that he was a complete slob.
“Morning,” he said through a mouthful of cereal. I winced as a fleck of milk-soaked mush landed on the countertop.
“Good morning.” I made a mental note to wipe down the counters when I got home. He’d get offended if I did it before I left.
“Krystal is coming over tonight. That okay?” he asked, referencing his longtime girlfriend. I wasn’t sure why they hadn’t moved in together, but I didn’t complain. I couldn’t afford the rent on my own.
“Of course.” I checked my watch to see if it was an acceptable time to leave for the lab.
“Thanks, man. Just, fair warning, she’s got a friend she wants to set you up with.” Victor sounded apologetic.
I’d endured two of Krystal’s matchmaking attempts. The first had been one of her friends from yoga, a woman named Birch, who told me my aura was oppressive and walked out before we could order drinks. The second hadn’t been as disastrous. June and I spent a nice, polite dinner talking about our favorite books. She had been kind and beautiful. The real issue was she wasn’t Bridget.
Instead of going on dates like a normal person, I spent my evenings watching any movies she mentioned to Anvi that I hadn’t seen before, and fantasized about telling her I also lovedThe Princess Brideand could quote most of it from memory.
But that was, alas, inconceivable.
“Thank you for the heads up,” I said.
