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“I wouldn’t know. I don’t leave the labs,” she replied in a tone that was all business, and she hoped made her sound like she was busy working, but in reality she was swiping across the app to paint little smiley faces here and there. A little something to brighten up her day, with Anton now here.
“You leave plenty. You were telling me about that hike and your big night out last time we talked.”
Her finger jerked across the tablet screen, a misplaced line appearing across her picture. She took a step back and raised her eyes to glare at him.
“What do you know about my big night out?”
“I know you had too many G&Ts that night.”
“Lucky guess,” she shot back. “Anyone and everyone does that. Why are you even talking to me?”
“I know you called me after.”
“So what? I was being proficient by returning your call, with the time difference.”
“Pretty sure work wasn’t on your mind when you called me, Grace.”
Her heart started pounding at the memory of how much she had enjoyed hearing his voice. That call had been on the borderline of something...something bigger, and hotter, and definitely not work appropriate.
“Yeah, well you called me too,” she pointed out.
Anton gave her a nod. “I did. Asked you out too.” He said it so casually Grace staggered back a step and forgot about her doodle app. She hadn’t expected him to say that. “And you said yes.”
“That’s supposition,” she huffed, trying to regroup before she looked back down at her tablet and scribbled some spaghetti hair on a smiley face. “Anyways, what’s with the ‘hey’?”
He rubbed a hand along his jaw and fixed her with a soulful look he had no right wielding. She was certain it had been calibrated to weaken a woman’s strength of will. Or at least she guessed it was. She wouldn’t know, because the second his dark eyes hit hers and made her feel even a milligram of anything but annoyance she decided to offer the most grown-up response to Anton’s unwavering attention: she refused to look at him.
“That’s generally what you do when you see a friend,” he told her. “You greet them.”
“We aren’t friends,” she said, redoubling her efforts to avoid his gaze. “Hay is for horses,” she added just because she could.
Anton sighed. A long suffering sigh at that, and she glared at him. How dare the man make that noise?
“Grace…”
She lost her battle with herself and looked up at him. The crack in her chest where he’d hurt her opened up and she glared at him.
“What? We are not friends. We were, but-”
“But what?” he asked, closing the distance between them with shocking speed. She was surprised to see a pained look on his face. There was an intensity to him that she hadn’t expected. She knew he was focused and unwavering in his devotion to his work, yes.
But intense? That was new.
She moved away from him, matching him step for step and backed up. She kept going until she bumped into a case of beer with an “oof”. He reached out a hand to steady her.
“But nothing,” she insisted, righting herself and jumping away from his outstretched hand. “We are not friends. Period. End of story.”
“It doesn't have to be that way. We were friends. Wearefriends,Grace.”
She shook her head so hard her hair whipped into her face. “Friends don’t talk to each other the way you did to me yesterday.” She paused and then said, “And we were on our way to something more than friends. We both know it.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. “Grace, look, that wasn’t the best way to meet, but I didn’t know it was you.”
“That’s not the point, Anton. I don’t care if you knew it was me or not—you don’t treat people like that. You were insufferable.” She punctuated the last word with another tap of her finger to the tablet, which added a kitten sticker to the crude technicolor drawing. “Beyond spoiled. A nightmare.”
“I know I was, but things were tense with me coming to Geneva.”
Her mouth twisted in a frown. “Why? Because you lost your tech? That doesn't give you the right to talk to people the way you did to me. Besides, don’t think I didn’t smell the booze on you. You smelled like a dive bar.”
