Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DAKOTA
Quinn was already sitting at one of the round tables in the basement of Stanton when I arrived, her hair pulled back in a low bun and her hardhat sitting on the table with her safety glasses.
She was wearing a purple long sleeve shirt with some club or group or event name printed across the chest, and it made me realize how little I knew about her.
It also served as a reminder that while I was sinking and letting life pass me by, my peers were out doing things. Building up their resumes. Making connections. Meeting other people.
I gave her a little wave and set down my bag before pivoting to go to my locker. My fingers spun the dial on the lock without much conscious input from my brain. The fact that this would be my last week of Unit Ops lab ever hadn’t really hit me until now.
It was extremely bittersweet.
Since this was a class split across two semesters, it took up more space in my brain. It would always be one of my main memories from my chemical engineering degree—whether or not Micah had ever been my professor. The structure was different. More interesting, more real than most other classes.
I breathed out a long exhale, then shut my locker and rejoined Quinn at the table as I took out my earbuds.
I’d been listening to Natural Born Losers by Nicole Dollanganger, mostly because I wasn’t doing well mentally and that album made me nostalgic.
My misery craved company. Mean was one of my most listened-to songs ever.
That probably said something bad about me.
“Hey,” I said. “Last week of lab.”
“Yeah.” She gave a dry laugh and nodded. “It’s crazy. I never thought I would be sad about something from this hellish degree ending, but here I am.”
“It also sucks that we’re first in the rotation,” I added. Other groups would continue to have their turn in the lab over the coming weeks, but we’d be done after this one. “At least we still have Thursday.”
“Right. Thursday will be ten times rougher than today.” Quinn laughed again, and then we both faded into silence.
There wasn’t much else to say. We sat next to each other without speaking until the boys arrived, at which point it was time to enter the lab space.
Today was the first day of the Gas-Solid-Liquid Fluidization Column lab.
Our TA for this one was named Anna, and she seemed nice as she started explaining the different parts of the column to us.
The recycle stream line, the manometer bank, the glass beads sitting at the bottom of the water-filled column.
Quinn and I decided to do the porosity measurements for the beads while the boys started up the column with our TA.
“Did you want to do the dry method or the wet method?” Quinn asked, scrolling through the procedure file on her iPad.
“I thought the wet method made more sense to me—I don’t know where the bead density measurement for the dry method is,” I responded as I laid my printed packet down flat on the table, scanning the instructions. “It shouldn’t take us too long.”
“Agreed. We have to do it three times, right?”
“Yeah.”
Quinn and I worked to measure out some beads in a graduated cylinder, then took the mass before filling the cylinder with water up to the level of the beads and getting the mass again.
That way we could figure out the volume of the void spaces between beads—which would be filled by the water.
Then dividing the volume of the void space by the total volume gave us the porosity.
We repeated the process three times and averaged our values, then rejoined Nate and Jackson back at the column.
Bubbles trickled up through the water in the column, making me think of…other things.
Even though I’d washed my hair twice, I swore I could still smell the chlorine.
I took a steadying breath.
When the door to the lab opened, my head whipped in the direction of the noise.
Dr. Killshaw.
I could feel him in my head right when he entered the room, which gave me peace. It was very subtle, but over the past few months, I’d learned to recognize the sensation. Being able to sense it soothed some of my anxieties around him.
He wasn’t doing anything to my emotions other than feeling for them, and I was perfectly aware of what he’d find in my skull. Raging, suffocating, all-consuming, lustful need for him.
He arched an eyebrow.
I could’ve melted into the floor at that expression.
“How’s the GSL lab treating you all?” he asked as he approached, inspecting the column, his eyes skimming over our notes and devices to work out what stage we were at, what we’d completed so far.
“It’s good!” Anna, the TA, answered. “Quinn and Dakota calculated our porosity and we’re just getting started with the column over here. Recycle valve is closed.”
I was staring at Micah blatantly now, and my nerves were making my pulse wild.
He looked especially good today, and I was beginning to feel more desperate to soak up every single second with him as my professor.
My cheeks were probably flushed, and I was probably being completely obvious.
Every time his eyes caught on mine, it sparked a physical reaction in my body.
By the way his brows pushed together, he could tell.
“Have you done any runs yet?”
“Just zero and fifty so far.”
By zero and fifty, she meant zero and fifty standard cubic feet of air per hour.
We had to collect data with the recycle valve closed for values between zero SCFH and two-hundred fifty SCFH.
The data we were collecting came from the manometer bank on the column, which we would eventually compare to sensor data in later trials.
We’d use the liquid heights measured from the manometers to calculate pressure readings at different flow rates.
This lab had a ton of graphs we would produce for our report at the end.
“That’s good. Can someone—other than Anna—confirm what type of bubble flow we’re witnessing now?” Micah asked. If I was normal, I would’ve tried to answer the question. But I never spoke, and it would be strange to start now.
Quinn answered instead. “Dispersed bubble flow.”
“Correct. We’re only using three types of bubble regimes to categorize column behavior.
Dispersed, coalesced, and slugging. The others you see in the experiment procedure—discrete, churn, annular, and bridging—are just for your knowledge.
It’s not easy to tell the difference between all of them in a column like this. ”
Our whole group nodded.
After another minute of engineering discussion, Quinn and I went up to the manometer bank to take measurements while Nate and Jackson worked with Micah and the TA to change the volumetric air flow rate.
My eyes kept lingering on Micah’s muscular back flexing under his shirt, and I was already staring at him every time he turned around, lower lip trapped between my teeth.
It’s the last lab.
Literally who cares.
Not like he’s going to fuck me anyway.
Micah made his way over to where Quinn and I were working once we got the data for our next run. “You two did the porosity measurements?”
“Yes,” Quinn affirmed.
“The faucet is still dripping. Could one of you turn it off?”
“Oh, shit. Sorry. I will go do it!” Quinn darted away to turn the faucet off—which I knew I’d turned off earlier. Micah must’ve turned it back on himself. It was an excuse to get me alone.
Micah dropped his voice low, low enough that only I could hear it as he reached past me to pretend he was adjusting something on the manometer bank. “Fix your fucking face.”
The heat of his body brushed mine for just an instant before he was gone, walking back over towards the TA.
My cheeks were hot when Quinn returned.
I ducked my head, willing myself to focus on the lab instead of replaying Micah’s reprimand in his low voice over and over. It was humiliating how easily he unraveled me. One quiet command, one fleeting moment with him standing close enough to steal the air from my lungs, and I was a total mess.
━━━━━
The rest of lab was uneventful, and Micah left only a few minutes after telling me I needed to quit looking at him like I wanted him to fuck me. My group successfully collected the rest of our data with the recycle valve closed, and were able to leave before the lab period was technically over.
I lingered at my locker until everyone else had left, then darted through the hall and around the corner towards Micah’s lab.
The door was unlocked when I arrived, and he glanced up upon my entrance.
Before I could process, he was on me, pushing the door shut and locking it.
“Dakota Masters,” he scolded, pinning me against the door with a hand on my throat.
“I—I’m sorry…”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he murmured, dragging his mouth along my jaw, one large hand going between my legs to cup me. “You need it that bad?”
“Yes…” I tilted my head back. For a second, I thought he was actually going to give me what I wanted.
“Little slut, so desperate to get her pussy filled. Doesn’t even care who sees.”
“I just needed—
“He doesn’t make you come like I make you come,” Micah cut me off, not needing to further specify who he was talking about. Mason. “I know he doesn’t. That’s why you’re so needy. He doesn’t know how to take care of this pussy like I do.”
I honestly thought Micah could make me come without even touching me, just the force of his gaze on my bare body, his kapnos infiltrating my senses, his voice telling me when and how to breathe. I shivered at the thought.
“Then take care of it,” I whimpered, clutching his shoulders, trying not to grind on his palm. Take care of me.
“Do you think you deserve that?”
I forced myself to look him in the eye, and we were standing so close now, all our breaths shared, that I swore I could almost see past the steel blue of his irises.
If I stared long enough or hard enough, maybe he’d give me some piece of himself.
Maybe I’d learn one of the corners of his maze—a way out or a way in, I wasn’t sure.