Chapter 5
Chapter five
Ash was absolutely not obsessing over how Luke looked in a lab coat.
They were not admiring how his hair fell in curls over his safety glasses.
They definitely did not note his scent every time he walked past. Working with Luke, while a great idea for science, was a bad idea for Ash’s heart.
They hadn’t realized how hard it would be to work so closely with Luke; inside, they were regretting everything they said last week.
“How’s it going over there?” Luke asked, looking up from his pipette.
Ash let out a groan. “I’m having trouble with this one. The structures available for me to use aren’t the best. I’m considering building the molecules myself, but I don’t quite remember how to do that. So, I’m watching a YouTube video of my professor as a refresher.”
Luke looked at Ash with something like shock. Or maybe it was surprise. Or even… He was impressed. Was that it? Ash felt a swell of pride in their chest as Luke spoke.
“That’s brilliant. You know how to do that?”
“Not well. But, yeah.”
A slow smile spread across Luke’s lips. “Thank you. For agreeing to work with me. I think this is going to be a great collaboration.”
Ash finally looked up at Luke and met his gaze.
The way Luke looked at them… It was devastating.
Ash could stay under Luke’s gaze forever.
If he kept looking at Ash like that…no. They couldn’t.
The very idea of jumping Luke’s bones in the lab disgusted Ash.
This wasn’t some damn book. Labs were disgusting, and Ash was not going to have sex with Luke in the lab, or any other place.
The last week had been great. Ash and Luke had read through each other’s dissertations.
Luke walked Ash through what he needed them to do, where he hoped the research was going.
Ash was more than happy to oblige. They had been thinking about what they wanted to research once they started teaching, and while they wanted to continue their PhD research, they knew it would be more time-consuming than they would have liked.
After their cousin had passed from thyroid cancer when Ash was a teen, they were set on finding a cure.
But then chemistry called their name. While they couldn’t do as much for oncology research as a chemist, there was still something Ash could do.
So, when they got this offer from Luke, Ash couldn’t refuse.
They would be doing what they had set out to do in the first place.
The first week of classes went well. Ash successfully enraptured their students with their animated presentation skills and the different examples they pulled in class.
They even used their own p-chem notes from when they were in undergrad, which their students found just as interesting as Ash had.
A few students had even started coming to their office hours every week.
One girl, Maeve, a short, spunky, blue-haired girl, just wanted to talk about chemistry because she was thinking about getting her PhD and wanted to know what Ash’s experience was like.
She was graduating in the spring, and to her, a PhD was the next logical step.
Ash talked to her about their dissertation, their time in graduate school, and how they wouldn’t go back to change their decision because Ash made the choice that was right for them.
Maeve didn’t want to be a professor; she wanted to work in industry.
Ash didn’t know much about the industry, but they helped Maeve look at jobs.
They found that Maeve could obtain a high-level research position at any pharmaceutical company with a PhD.
Ash realized this was the part of teaching they loved.
While they didn’t know everything, they loved sitting with their students to discuss career paths.
Ash remembered having this conversation with their p-chem teacher, and then their dissertation advisor.
In truth, Ash hadn’t wanted to be a professor until the opportunity presented itself.
They wanted to have a direct impact on people’s lives by doing research at an oncology company.
But, as Ash sat with their students, they realized they were directly helping people’s lives.
Not in the same manner, but in an equally important way.
After a few more minutes of looking, Ash resigned themselves to building their own molecules.
Something just wasn’t fitting. They linked the carbons, nitrogens, and oxygens.
Flooded the molecule with hydrogens. Tried very hard to make a molecule that looked as close to Gal-3 as they could muster.
After nearly four hours of struggling, Ash had a molecule they could work with.
It wasn’t perfect, but as long as the binding site was right, they could model the reaction.
Ash pulled the two molecules into the program and allowed it to run.
Ash leaned back in their chair and surveyed Luke.
He was bent over the lab bench, a pipette in his left hand and a plate in his right.
He pipetted some reagent into the plate, disposed of his tip, grabbed a new one, and started again.
Ash had never loved bench science. They loved the computational and theoretical side of things.
While holding a pipette was fun occasionally, they didn’t want to do it every day.
As they sat behind a desk with molecular interaction software running and watching Luke do all the wet science, they realized this was perfect for them.
Immediately after graduation, Ash didn’t know if they were going to be happy staying in Binghamton.
They didn’t know if they would find joy, pride, or even solace in what they were doing.
But between the interactions with their students and the research with Luke, Ash realized this was the right decision.
They could make Binghamton their home. Even if they just stayed friends with Luke, that was good enough for Ash.
After a few minutes, the program stopped running and shot out some results at Ash. They skimmed the results, searching for the interaction. They read pages and pages of data, hoping they would find what they were looking for.
After the sixteenth page of data, Ash slammed their laptop closed, stood, and loudly announced, “I’m going for a walk.”
Ash didn’t wait for Luke to respond before they walked from the room, letting the door slam behind them.
Ash made a beeline for the stairs and immediately ran outside.
The humid summer air filled their lungs, which didn’t make them feel any better about the failure of their model.
The two molecules didn’t bind together; something was wrong with the design.
Ash wasn’t sure where they went wrong; they’d have to take a closer look at the data later.
But after four hours of frustration, this was all they could take.
Failure was something that never came easily to Ash.
Whenever they came to a problem during their dissertation, they would set it aside for a few days, only to come back even more stressed because they wasted time.
But what killed Ash wasn’t that they failed; no, they felt they were letting Luke and their cousin down.
If they couldn’t do this, the research would fail.
They couldn’t help people, and Ash would feel like Luke chose the wrong person.
Ash was a new chemist. They were good, but maybe Luke would have been better off choosing a more experienced one.
Suddenly, Ash’s heart sank to their stomach as they wondered why Luke had chosen them.
Was it just because they slept together?
Did Luke feel like he owed Ash something because Ash didn’t want to pursue a relationship?
Had Luke really been thinking about this since they met?
And what if Luke had never met Ash again?
It was fate that they were teaching and doing research at the same university.
As Ash wandered the campus, they didn’t acknowledge the students who talked and laughed with their friends.
They didn’t stop to admire the beautiful fountain that ran down the sidewalk.
They didn’t even look up at the library, towering thirty stories into the air.
Instead, they made their way around the campus border, known as the brain.
Ash didn’t think the oval campus with a road coming out of it looked like a brain, though if you really squinted from an aerial view, it sort of looked like a brain and a brain stem.
As they approached the halfway mark of the campus, Ash finally observed their surroundings.
A lot had changed since they started undergrad.
There were originally only four science buildings.
The gym had been renovated, not that Ash ever went inside save for the one required physical education class they were forced to take.
The Hinman dorms were finally getting their much-needed upgrade, which included overhead lighting and air conditioning.
Even the dining hall was renovated; although, they removed the Starbucks, which Ash swore would be their villain origin story.
They lived in that Starbucks with the comfy chairs and bright lighting during grad school.
By the time Ash made it back to the science buildings, they were feeling less frustrated with their failed work.
When they re-entered the lab, Luke looked up at them; Ash nodded their head slightly, and Luke returned the gesture in silent understanding.
Ash sat back down behind the computer, saved the results as model one, and got back to designing.
Several hours and a Red Bull later, Ash was exhausted, and by the look of it, Luke was too.
He stood from his seat behind the lab bench, linked his hands behind his back, and stretched.
With his height, Ash wondered why they hadn’t set up a better bench for Luke.
Luke was at least six-foot-two, and the bench barely reached his hips.
He was nearly bent over if he had to take a closer look at something.
The bench would have been perfect for Ash at their height of five-foot-five, but there was something almost comical about how small it was compared to Luke.
“I could sleep for a week,” Ash said, standing from behind their computer. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Ash,” Luke said.
“Don’t stay too late.” Ash slung their backpack over their right shoulder and left the lab, not taking a second look at Luke.
They could do this. They could work with Luke and shove their feelings down. It was all in the name of science. Which was, after all, why Ash was there in the first place.