The 90-Day Experiment (The Expiry Date Diaries #1)

Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Emerson

I circled the building, parking around the corner, mostly out of sight, though I could still see the front door. My eyes kept darting to the entrance, like they were magnetically pulled that way.

Every second dragged on until Liam finally strolled out, and I forgot how to breathe.

His broad shoulders stretched his shirt to the limit, the fabric hugging his muscles in a way that made my pulse quicken. His hair had that perfect just-rolled-out-of-bed look, tousled and begging to be touched.

I remembered the way his lips felt against my skin, soft but demanding, leaving a trail of heat. The way he pulled me close, his breath hot against my ear as he whispered "Doc" in a low, husky sound that sent thrills through me. His hands exploring every inch of my body with tenderness and urgency, leaving me trembling and lost in the moment.

Watching him walk away, all those memories surged back.

I wanted to feel his touch again, to lose myself in that pleasure and connection only he could provide. My body ached to be close to him, to feel his skin against mine.

I sighed as he disappeared from view, knowing sleep would be impossible. Especially with the memory of his touch, his voice, his presence haunting my thoughts.

Once he had driven away and was out of sight, I got out of my car and headed back into the lab. The quiet hum of the machines greeted me, familiar and oddly comforting.

The lab felt different at night—colder, more sterile, stripped of the warmth Liam always brought to the place. I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake off the chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

For hours, my fingers flew across the keyboard, each keystroke a desperate attempt to drown out thoughts of him. The familiar rhythm of data entry should have been soothing—it always had been before. Before him. Before everything.

3:47 AM. The timestamp in the corner of my screen barely registered.

Time had become fluid, measured only in datasets and coffee cups. Four empty mugs lined my desk, testament to my determination to stay focused, to stay here, to not think about?—

No. Back to the numbers. Numbers were safe. Numbers didn't have eyes that crinkled at the corners when they smiled. Numbers didn't leave your skin burning with phantom touches hours after they'd gone.

I blinked hard, forcing my eyes to focus on the spreadsheet.

My back was sore from hunching over the computer, but the discomfort was almost welcome. It gave me something else to focus on besides the hollow ache in my chest.

The rows of data blurred together, then suddenly snapped into sharp focus. I leaned closer to the screen, my heart beginning to race.

"This can't be right." The words escaped in a whisper, hanging in the empty lab. My hands started to shake as I scrolled through the results again. And again.

When Liam first joined the lab, he’d insisted we incorporate simultaneous fMRI and high-density EEG measurements into our study. He’d recently delved into research on neural synchronization and believed it would deepen our understanding.

I was skeptical, thinking it would be a colossal waste of time and resources.

I'd been so damn sure of myself.

Now the evidence stared back at me from the screen, each data point a direct challenge to everything I'd dismissed. The correlation was undeniable—far beyond statistical significance.

My chest felt tight, like the air in the lab had suddenly gotten thinner.

I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to steady myself. The implications were staggering. If these results were right—and the rational, scientific part of my brain knew they were—then everything I'd built my research on…

My heart slammed against my ribs, each beat a reminder of what I'd been running from. Of who I'd been running from.

I'd been wrong. Completely, utterly wrong.

And I had the data to prove it.

In couples who reported being in love, we saw a consistent pattern: a sustained increase in oxytocin and dopamine levels, just as we had expected.

But there was something more.

The fMRI scans revealed heightened activity in regions associated with empathy and emotional processing, perfectly synchronized with the chemical changes. Even more intriguing, the EEG data showed a remarkable level of neural synchronization between partners’ brains, particularly in the gamma frequency band.

It was a discovery that could only shatter my belief that love was purely a biochemical process. This was… a groundbreaking revelation.

Even more surprising was the stark contrast with our control groups—individuals who engaged in casual flings.

They showed the same short-term chemical reactions during their hookups. However, they lacked the sustained brain activity patterns and interbrain synchronization observed in the couples who were in love—like their neural pathways had literally grown in sync with each other.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered, barely audible. They were the only words that seemed to fit.

I had never bothered to look at this data because, to be honest, I was only humoring Liam’s theory—never once thought it held any legitimate promise. It wasn’t part of the original study, and I believed I had more pressing things to work on.

But staring at these results, my heart did a weird flip-flop.

I had been so spectacularly wrong.

Liam’s stubbornness—his determination—paid off big time. His idea uncovered something I didn’t see coming.

The data was right there, practically screaming at me, and I’d ignored it like a bad Tinder date. I was so focused on the short-term stuff—dopamine hits, oxytocin bursts, the usual suspects—that I missed the bigger picture.

I was the scientific equivalent of a dog chasing its own fucking tail.

With what I could only describe as unwelcome curiosity, I dove back into the data. Reanalyzing everything, cross-referencing our findings with existing literature, looking for any sign that I might have miscalculated or misinterpreted something. But the evidence was solid.

This wasn’t a fluke or a glitch in our methodology.

My long-held theory—that love was just a fancy term for basic biological processes—was crumbling right before my eyes.

Instead of proving that love was unmeasurable, our findings pointed to something far more complex—a multi-level neurobiological and psychological process, yes, but also this... resonance.

Two people's biological systems syncing like perfectly tuned instruments, responding to each other across impossible distances. The kind of connection that made my logical brain short-circuit—because how do you quantify something that acts like a wireless network between souls? Like consciousness itself, it seemed to operate in that frustrating grey area where science meets mystery.

I leaned back in my chair. My mind was racing. This was big. The kind of discovery that could shake up the scientific community.

Here I was, the woman who set out to debunk love as a real thing, now standing on shaky ground with evidence suggesting love might indeed be rooted in the brain... but in ways we could never understand with today’s science.

As I thought about the findings, a wave of excitement and humility washed over me. We’d made a breakthrough, sure, but not the one I was hoping for.

Love, it seemed, was determined to stay complex and messy, defying simple explanation or easy dismissal. It felt like the universe had just handed me a big, fat slice of humble pie, and I had no choice but to choke it down.

Liam. He always insisted that love was more than just chemicals and neurons firing. “It’s a connection that goes beyond the physical,” he'd said, and past me had probably rolled her eyes so hard they nearly got stuck.

Now here I was, about to draft a presentation for Jasper like I was writing my own professional obituary.

My hands were shaking as I typed, probably because my body had decided to dump enough adrenaline in my system to fuel a small marathon. Each PowerPoint slide felt like another shovel of dirt on the grave of my reputation.

I was terrified that presenting these findings would not only end my research funding but also solidify that I had lost Liam forever. The thought of him slipping through my fingers because of my arrogance made my stomach churn.

“I can’t believe I was such a fucking idiot,” I muttered to myself.

Needing a break from the suffocating tension, I stepped outside the lab for some fresh air. Leaning against the building, I closed my eyes and took deep breaths.

“What the fuck have I done?” I whispered as a tear rolled down my cheek.

The memory of our first date came flooding back—the way he made me laugh until my sides hurt, how his eyes sparkled under the carnival lights, and the way he held my hand on the roller coaster like he never wanted to let go.

I went back in, back to my presentation, pouring my best effort into it. This wasn’t just about my career anymore—it was about facing the truth.

I crafted a story that highlighted the importance of emotional connection in love and the limits of looking at it purely through a scientific lens. My fingers were on fire on that keyboard, driven by desperation.

As the sun started to rise, casting yawning shadows across the lab, I sat back and stared at the screen. The data was clear, the implications undeniable—but at what cost?

Curiosity crept in, and I decided to check the data I’d been collecting throughout my time with Liam, pulling up our file and scrolling through the results.

My heart nearly stopped when I saw it—the love anomaly. The same neural growth patterns we’d observed in couples deeply in love were there, clear as day, in my own data. And in Liam’s.

“Fuck,” I whispered, as if I hadn’t already known.

There was no denying it. It was all there, a digital confession of the feelings I’d been trying so hard to ignore.

The weight of it all crashed down on me. Our findings would change everything we thought we knew about love and attraction. And in chasing after the science, I’d pushed away the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Liam, with his goofy jokes and his kind eyes. The way he always seemed to know exactly what I needed, whether it was a hug or a kick in the ass.

I’d let him slip through my fingers because I was too scared of… everything. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. I had the truth now, backed up by cold, hard data.

As I saved the presentation and shut down my computer, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was any way to fix things with Liam.

Or if, like my career, it was beyond repair.