AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jack nodded. “I’ll write the observations and you put out each one as I go. Be careful not to get burned,” he murmured, taking notes on the first flame, and I felt myself flush with pleasure at his concern.
I was still pondering the dynamic between me and Jack, when I saw Addison sidle up to our work station, a small smile on her face. “Hey, Jack, you going to Rico’s party?” She looked more animated than I’d ever seen her, her blue-gray eyes sparkling as she swished her dark brown pony tail. Hannah had already invited me to Rico’s party with her and Nikolai. Mike Crenshaw also mentioned it, but I wasn’t taking his invitation seriously. Was Jack going?
Jack shot her a glance and continued writing. “Probably.” I hated the zing of excitement that spiked through me.
“Oh, cool, I was wondering if you could give me a lift. My car is in the shop and since you and Shelby broke up,” Jack rolled his eyes at that, “I don’t think she’d mind us going together.”
I couldn’t help but bang the beaker down over the first flame with much more force than was necessary. My aggression earned a dirty look from Addison and a speculative one from Jack. I needed to pull it together.
“Why don’t you go with Shelby or Casey?” Jack dodged, and I let out a silent sigh of relief at his deflection.
“Oh, Shelby has been a nightmare lately, you know how she is,” Addison responded, laying her hand on Jack’s arm.
Jack grunted and pulled his arm away to continue writing results down on the second flame.
“So, since we’re practically neighbors and lifelong friends, would you mind driving me to the party?”
“I’m done, you can put it out,” he said, ignoring Addison’s manipulative entreaty and nodding to the flame.
“Jack?” Addison prompted insistently. I felt my teeth grind and started tapping on the beaker in irritation.
Jack shot me another assessing look, then turned to Addison. “I guess–”
I slammed the beaker down again, but this time the beaker didn’t survive. It shattered all over the work station like a glass-filled rain shower. I yelped as glass shards sliced into my fingertips, watching as beads of blood welled up and dripped down my two forefingers and thumb.
“Ah, shit!” I cried, searching my hand for more cuts.
Jack sprang into action—dropping the notebook and grabbing nearby paper towels. “Jesus Christ, Ava, are you okay?”
I nodded mutely, still in shock as he wrapped my hand in the towel.
“What the hell, Ava?” screeched Addison. “You did that on–”
“Addison, go back to your station,” admonished Mr. Perkins.
“But–”
“You should be helping your partner, not distracting another group.”
Addison shot me another dirty look and stomped back to her partner.
“Here you go, Ava,” Mr. Perkins said almost absently as he dropped a small pile of Band-Aids on our lab bench. I guess chemistry-related injuries were commonplace.
“Here, let’s run the cuts under water in case there’s any glass in them,” Jack directed.
“What about the experiment?” I asked, nodding toward the four still-lit flames.
“Shit, I’ll put them out, then I’ll take care of your fingers.”
“Wait, did you take notes?” I asked, blowing on my throbbing finger.
Jack snorted. “Ava, ten other groups in this class did the experiment. I’m sure we can use someone else’s notes,” he replied as he placed a beaker carefully over each flame then cast the beaker aside.
“I’ll clean up the glass after I deal with your hand.” He pulled me to the sink nearest our lab station and ran my left hand under the water. As Jack gently took ahold of my hand and carefully inspected each cut, I found myself hypnotized by his comprehensive caretaking. The concerned look on his face and the warmth of his hands as he delicately maneuvered my fingers filled my chest with a heaviness that made it hard to breathe.
“I can’t believe I did this, I feel so dumb.” If ever there was a sentence with a double meaning, it was that one. It could be used to summarize how I felt about getting involved with Jack.
Jack grinned, moving my hand under the running water, like it was a two-person job. “Ah, don’t worry about it. I’m sure it happens all the time. We can add something to our lab report about how sodium chloride flames interact with glass particles and get extra credit.”
