Chapter 9 #4
I survey Applegate’s face, surprised that he'd just confess that out loud when usually he's very professional.
'He screw you out of grant money too?' I sneer.
Applegate doesn't answer right away. He walks to his window, looking out over the campus. 'He was always an asshole. Even when we were kids, always hanging around with April, pissed that Mark got there first, pissed that Mark won, like it was some twisted game.'
'But weren't April and him already engaged?' I ask.
He rolls his eyes. 'It was a family thing, she said. She didn't want to be. She married Mark, and her family cut her off. Then John bought the company we were working for. Me and Mark. Made things difficult for us, cut our funding.'
He shakes his head. 'I shouldn't be telling you all this. Jesus.'
He rubs his temples. 'But when the fire happened here, it just brought it all back up, you know?
That night ten years ago, the night that Mark was killed…
The suppression systems were down. Broken.
We didn't know. We never should have been in that lab. Afterward, they covered it up. No comp. They made me sign an NDA or I’d never work again, they said. '
I sit back down, wondering how much Applegate knows about what happened back then. It seems to be more than what we do.
'April. She had a different name at school,' I say, grimacing a little bit because the tone that I thought would come out nonchalant, is definitely not indifferent in any way, shape, or form.
Applegate’s eyes narrow a little but he answers.
'Yeah. She went by Carmichael. The Winters were her parents.’
‘Why?’
‘There was…' He shakes his head. 'Some scandal.
I never knew what. I wasn't really from those circles.
I was at Birchwood on a scholarship. But it was something big.
So, she didn't like using the Winters name. We talked on the phone sometimes, up until a few months after Mark’s death, but she was cagey about where she was living, how Marguerite was, and then the number was disconnected.
I figured she wanted to move on. I was sick around then.
Cancer. I was pretty out of it for a long time.
I didn't know she married John until years later when I took the position here and I saw them at some glitzy party. '
He turns back to me. 'I wish things were different, son,' he says, 'but there's nothing that we can do. My advice to you is to get through the year. Graduate. I’ll make sure you get good recommendations to any post grad programs you want to go on. This isn't the end. It's just a delay.'
'Yeah,' I mutter, trying for a wan smile. 'Thanks, Professor.’
I leave Applegate's office in a bit of a haze, wondering if I can even get into the lab. I need to. There’s no way I’m leaving my work here on the servers for the post-grads to steal.
I walk back to the bank of elevators and go down to the lab. I use my key card, half afraid that it's not going to let me in, but, miraculously, the door opens. They haven’t rescinded my clearance yet.
I spend the next two hours copying all of my data from the lab’s servers, deleting everything off of them afterward, and making sure it's all really gone, so that no one can get their hands on the work we’ve done over the past two years.
The rest of the day is taken up with my classes and then I just sit in the library and stare out into space, basically just wanting this day to end.
I get back to the hotel in the evening and sink down on the couch of the penthouse.
I look around. There's no one else in the room. Daisy’s in the hotel somewhere, of course, probably in the lab.
I glance at my phone and see that Blake has turned his off.
He’s MIA again. Shade is at the club, seeing what's been accomplished and how close we are to opening back up again. I know I should go too, see Dom like I said I would, but I just don’t have it in me today.
Instead, I send him some bullshit excuse, hoping he accepts it.
I pour myself a large glass of whiskey and sit in the living room by the window, nursing it and staring out at Richmond as the light wanes.
And that's where Daisy finds me an hour or so later. She enters the penthouse with a blank expression and stops short when she sees me, looking a little panicked. Then she sees the glass in my hand and raises a brow, I guess because I don't usually drink.
'Everything okay?' she asks.
Her tone is careful. Controlled. Lacking in intonation.
I frown at her, forgetting about my own problems for the moment. Something’s wrong.
‘Yeah. I mean, it’s not really but…it’s not the end of the world.’
Yes it is.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
I watch her as she turns away. She walks quickly to the bedroom and closes the door.
I stare at it. Daisy keeps a lot close to her chest, but I know when she’s not herself, and there’s definitely something not right.
Plus, she just went in there like she was trying to escape me. There’s not much that upsets our girl, but I’d put money on whatever it is being something emotional in nature. She doesn’t like it when things get intense.
She’s avoiding me. Avoiding us.
Is it because I’ve been spending so much time at the lab over the past couple of weeks?
I put down my glass, wanting a clear head to figure this out because she isn’t going to tell me. She might not even have the words to let me know how she’s feeling.
Shade has barely been here either, and Blake is in his own little world right now which means he’s probably dealing with some shit with Kormak again.
Last night we were all here, though, I reason. We made sure she came multiple times.
But Blake left right after. Shade was buried in his phone.
I was doing lab stuff, a part of me even hoping that one of the others would handle the after-sex cuddles she likes.
I close my eyes for a moment. I was relieved when she just went into the bathroom afterward and then told me she was going to the lab.
I was too busy doing shit that could have waited to give her what she needed. Because she needs more than sex. She needs connection. She needs us to bridge the gap because she sometimes finds it so hard to.
We never did do anything for Valentine’s Day, either.
Fuck!
I’m an asshole, and so are Blake and Shade.
‘Fuck,’ I mutter aloud, remembering how she was before our sexcapades.
She was on edge, seemed almost robotic, practiced.
Like she wanted something, and was going to get it no matter what.
Did she even eat? I know we got her something from the burger place last night.
What even was it? I didn’t order it. Frowning, I get up and go to the trash, but housekeeping would have come hours ago, so it’s empty.
I recall the way she stripped for us, almost angrily, but I didn’t notice in the moment because… I wish I could say it was because she was stripping, but it’s not. I was thinking about the tests I wanted to run today.
And I’ll bet Shade was preoccupied with his family stuff. And Blake, who knows? I take out my phone and message both Shade and Blake.
Come to the hotel. I think we have a problem.