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Her belly did a somersault and she felt…well, she felt like her fingers and toes were tingly and in danger of going numb. What the hell was this feeling? It was like she was being socked in the stomach and sticking a fork in a light socket at the same time. She didn’t understand it because she hadn’t heard from Anton in two weeks.
Not since their elevator date talk. Not since ‘The Flirting,’ as she had begun to think of it. A lot likeThe Shining,but less bloody and more embarrassing.
So, okay, she did understand the crazy buzzing beneath her skin and feeling like she might hurl. It was nothing but pure, unadulterated, adrenaline. That sweet stimulant she only got when she pounded an energy drink or five, or got caught up in a really great K-Drama. Then there was also the feeling that hit her over the head when she talked to Anton—even in email form she was a mess of lust and hormones.
Even now, with her being pretty sure he regretted asking her out if the way he had vanished was anything to go on. He hadn’t even really answered their email logistics chain. The only replies to it had come from Mindy, his assistant, which Grace knew shouldn’t mean anything. It had been one flirt and one talk of a date.
That was it.
It’s not like…not like…she frowned and wrapped her arms around herself. Okay, she didn’t know what it wasn’t like, but she sure as hell knew what it was like to be ghosted, and she didn’t really like it coming from Anton.
And besides, the man could be busy. He was a big shot. Same as Lou, and the universe only knew how busy and overworked Lou was. Anton might be in some kind of science bender or…or…well, he had said there was a situation right before he’d hung up, hadn’t he? She bit her lip, because she knew he had. She’d gone over their conversation a thousand times since that morning.
There was a situation, and it was developing.
She knew that. She also knew he had said he’d handle it. And yet…and yet, she’d heard nothing from him. If you called someone ‘sweetheart’ and told them to think of a ‘quiet and fancy’ place for a date then shouldn’t you at least find 5 seconds in your schedule to email a girl?Wasn’t that just how things were done in the civilized world?
You didn’t let your assistant take over emails, right? Was this his old playboy ways resurfacing? What if he was still like that but he kept it hidden? What if he was on a date right now and not even thinking about-
Lou snapped her fingers at Grace. “Hey space cadet. What’s going on in that big beautiful brain?”
Grace blinked at the snap. She’d been spiraling. She couldn’t do that. Not now. If Anton was ghosting her, fine. He was here now.Double fine.
Both of those things could happen without her admitting she’d had a crush on him. She had to stay focused, especially with the way Lou was looking at her. Narrowed eyes and hands on her hips like she suspected something.
Grace was going to have to throw her off the scent if she wanted to make it through this morning without losing all of her dignity. Grace drew herself up and gave it her best shot.
“Nothing but the state of the economy, Lou. Were younot just listeningto my caterwauling?”
“No, not really, but speaking on ‘not paying attention to things,’ have you just not been reading the emails I forwarded to you? I sent them to you to read up on this weekend. I had all the info on Anton’s arrival in there. You know how much he’s been helping us get this project done, Gracie. This is important.”
Grace nodded, mind flying to the email she’d seen come from Lou that had Anton’s name flagged in them. She’d meant to read it; there was the fact that she still wasn’t sure if he was ghosting her or not, which had become a bigger possibility with each passing day of silence—so rather than reply, she’d simply...pushed it off to the side.
It wasn’t professional, but out of sight, out of mind, and all that.
“Yeah, about that…” she hedged, pulling at an imaginary collar that felt too snug under the shrewd gaze of her best friend. There was no getting out of this one with economic concerns. Not this time. And it’s not like she could tell Lou what had really happened. How could she bring up the maybe-date and possible ghosting to her best friend now? She hadn’t said anything because she knew how important the research and partnership with Anton was. She could stomach whatever happened so long as Lou kept her momentum. She wanted to tell Lou about it, but right now was a crap time to do it.
“What do you mean,about that?” Lou grabbed her elbow and started to march her across the lab. No doubt to meet Anton. It felt like being led to a firing squad to Grace, but she kept her head up.
“I-” Grace lifted one shoulder in a shrug, eyes sliding to the side. “Okay, it’s not that I didn’t read them, per se.” She made a show of looking at her nails as they walked.
“Anton Kovalev is one of the most brilliant astrophysicists of—oh, I don't know—forever,” Lou exploded, earning a feigned blank-eyed look from Grace. Of course she knew that, but she maintained her poker face as Lou huffed at her. Lou crossed her arms and tried again. “You love reality television and gossip rags, so let’s look at it this way. If the physics world did a30 under 30, he’d be on it.”
Grace unholstered not one, but two, finger guns and pointed them at her friend. “See, to me, that’s you. And besides, I know who he is. He’s my friend too, you know.” Her voice only warbled a little when she said that last part.
The other woman narrowed her eyes and smacked her fingers away, a treatment Grace endured because she didn't have the fortitude to admit the reason she hadn’t read the emails was because of an avoidance-related front-flip into a reality television binge session. She winced, thinking about how the only emails she had really read were from Mindy, Anton’s assistant, of all people.
“Stop buttering up to me to make me forget you didn’t read the emails I forwarded you.”
“Can’t blame me for trying.”
“Anyhow,” Lou said, giving her a withering look before continuing, “he’s amazing, not to mention the brain behind all the retrofitting we’ve been doing on the Beta telescope-”
“Her name is Betsy,” Grace said with an indignant sniff on behalf of the infrared telescope on which all their hopes and dreams rode.
Once an outdated piece of engineering, the old refractor telescope, the last of its kind, had been repurposed for Lou’s research. It was no small secret that the telescope’s leap to using cutting-edge technology was a wild card in Lou’s hand she’d leveraged to have free reign in her labs, and with CERN resources. Lou’s research was brilliant in how it examined black hole behavior and pulsar waves to tag gravitational anomalies, but that didn’t mean Lou would have been able to land her spot without a scientist like Anton Kovalev backing their research.
Grace’s mind strayed to that one time she’d glimpsed Anton in a pixelated and choppy video call on her way in and out of Lou’s office, when she’d forced the other woman to eat, as she so often had to do. She hadn’t Googled him. She didn’t need to be thinking of how he looked. She needed to be thinking of how to best integrate his team with hers. How she could help him settle in, and what kind of access to Betsy he was going to need.
