Reproduction (Hypothesis #8 | Fundamentals of Biology #2)

Chapter 1 Endocrinology, Brain, and Pituitary Gland

ENDOCRINOLOGY, brAIN, AND PITUITARY GLAND

*Samantha*

Sunlight. Actual, golden, warm-on-my-face sunlight. My first coherent thought of the day was, So, this is what it’s like to sleep soundly through the night and wake up after sunrise. The next was, I feel fucking awesome.

For the first time in two years, I was well rested and not fighting a caffeine-withdrawal headache.

Maybe I’d died and this was the afterlife, a high-thread-count sheet, a cocoon of perfect warmth, and a brain empty of intrusive thoughts but full of serotonin, the type only made possible by an appropriate length and number of REM cycles.

I allowed myself the decadence of drifting there, savoring the delicate pressure of a memory-foam pillow against my temple, the gentle weight of a duvet across my hips, and the luxurious sense of not having a single place I needed to be.

I let myself enjoy this blissful state for exactly eight seconds before my limbs, traitorous as ever, craved movement.

So, I began to stretch, arching my toes.

But before I could fully commence a morning starfish, I froze.

Because my left hand was palming the undeniable reality of another human being.

There’s a microsecond between “that’s a person” and “which person” that, for most people, might be raw panic. For me, however, it was pure professionalism. I had a procedure for this.

Step one: Assess level of nudity. My left hand, still frozen mid-stretch, confirmed bare skin, but not below-the-waist bare. Chest, maybe? Arm, maybe? Stomach, definitely. And a muscly one.

Step two: Identify the person. Keeping my eyes closed, I mentally replayed the previous twelve hours. Had I gone out? No. Had I let anyone into the building? Also no. Had I, at any point, consumed more than the recommended daily allowance of alcohol? Negative.

So, no hookups. No midnight social calls. No one should be in my bed.

Yet, this warm body next to mine definitely existed. And this wasn’t a dream, I wasn’t asleep. Someone warm and solid and occupying a scandalous percentage of my mattress.

Step three: Confirm position. With the meticulousness of a bomb technician, I moved my fingertips.

Male, for sure. Hairless chest, ridged with muscle.

Not moving, which meant asleep or possibly dead.

Breath? Yes, regular, slow, and deep. So, not dead.

I could feel his chest rise and fall beneath the new position of my left hand.

Step four: Open eyes, assess the scene, and—oh my God!

This wasn’t the afterlife. This was a penthouse apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

And I was spooning Andreas Kristiansen.

Not just spooning, but aggressively spooning.

I was ladling him, as though sometime in the night I’d turned into an octopus and decided his body was my favorite rock to cling to.

My left leg hooked over both of his, my left arm splayed across his chest and under his shirt, and my face nestled in the crook of his neck like a needy baby possum.

My stomach folded itself into an origami crane. How did this happen?

Meanwhile, Andreas, for his part, either didn’t mind or hadn’t yet noticed.

He lay mostly on his back, turned slightly toward me, the soft sound of his breathing barely audible.

Shifting backward and reversing out of his neck, I tilted my head and readjusted my temple on the pillow.

His face was less than six inches from mine, so close I could see the individual eyelashes resting on his cheek, the faintest pink flush along his jaw.

Step five: Detach with minimal jostling.

I tried. I really, really tried to execute an elegant, silent disengagement.

What happened instead was I pulled my arm back, but in my haste, whacked him square in the solar plexus.

Andreas grunted and flinched, which caused me to overcompensate.

I attempted to roll away and simultaneously kick off the duvet, but gravity betrayed me. Damn gravity, always letting me down!

I tumbled off the edge of the mattress and landed on the carpet with a muffled thud.

For a moment, I just lay there, listening to the pounding of my heart in my ears, contemplating how in the heck we’d ended up in bed together.

Above me, I heard Andreas take a deep breath. A moment later, he peered over the edge of the bed. He blinked, hair sticking up in sleep-wild directions, and regarded me with what felt like cool, clinical detachment. “Are you injured?” he asked, voice husky from sleep.

I scrambled to an upright sitting position, heat flooding my cheeks. “No, I’m fine,” I lied, even as I clutched my tailbone, which would absolutely be bruised by lunch.

Andreas’s gaze did a quick vertical scan, pausing at my legs, then darting back to my face. “Good,” he said stiffly, an unmistakable yet faint blush blooming over his cheeks.

Is he embarrassed? Good! Who did he think he was? Climbing into bed with me?

I pushed my hair out of my face, indignance flaring in my chest. “I, uh—why are you in my bed?” I demanded.

Sitting up fully, Andreas righted his shirt in a way that felt oddly modest and careful, and then cleared his throat. “You are mistaken. This is my room.”

I looked around. Oh my God!

He was right. The massive window, the bare walls, the sheer size of the bed—I was in the main bedroom. His bedroom.

I pressed my palms to my eyes. “Oh fuck. I sleepwalked again.”

“Correct. You came in around three. You did not respond to verbal cues.”

Dropping my hands, I refused to feel mortified as I assessed the situation.

Yes, I’d sleepwalked into his room and climbed into his bed and ladled him aggressively, but he just stated that he’d been aware of my invasion for several hours, and was cognizant when it happened, and had done .

. . what? Anything? He just let me sleep with him?

“You tried to wake me up?” I squinted at him.

He nodded, still stiff and serious. “Only at first. Then I remembered your roommate said you were a sleepwalker, and you told me yourself you have insomnia. It can be dangerous to wake a sleepwalker, so I let you sleep.”

Hmm. There was some logic there. And yet—

“So, your solution was to let me”—I gestured, indicating the proximity of our bodies—“occupy your personal space all night?”

The pink on his cheeks burned brighter and he cleared his throat again, saying with a hint of defensiveness, “It seemed to work. You slept well.”

I stared at him, noticing, to my utter incredulity, how this expression he currently wore made him look ridiculously adorable. What is he thinking? What is this expression?

Not quite embarrassed, but something like it. Not regretful. Definitely not ashamed. More like . . . bashful?

That’s it.

Huffing a short laugh, I rolled my eyes at myself, even as my lungs burned with confusion. I didn’t understand him. Why would he be shy about it? Wasn’t he the one who let me sleep in his bed? WHATEVER!

Since I was still on the floor, I checked to ensure my oversized T-shirt covered me to mid-thigh and did my best to ignore my lack of pants.

“Well, then”—I forced a calm confidence into my voice I didn’t quite feel—“I apologize for sleepwalking into your bedroom last night. I will barricade my door from the inside to keep it from happening again.”

“Is that safe?” Andreas stood, tugging on the front of his button-up, long-sleeve pajama shirt.

I noted against my will that Andreas wore a dashing matching blue-and-white pin-striped pajama set.

You know, the ones with the mother-of-pearl buttons, piping at the wrists, and a pocket at the left breast. Basically, they were the pajama equivalent of an expensive suit.

In that moment, the stark dichotomy between us struck me. Andreas in his suit of fancy pajamas, likely costing more than my entire wardrobe, and me in my oversized, four-dollar cotton T-shirt. The last fifteen years had taken us on completely contrasting paths. We were not the same.

Andreas reached for his phone while I mused over our surface level differences, but also the invisible ones.

Our upbringing, education, and life experiences.

Suddenly, I felt immensely curious about him, where in the world he’d been, what he’d been doing, who he’d met, who his friends were. Had he gone to college? I had no idea.

I could look it up online, but I didn’t want to read about Andreas. I wanted to know about his past from him.

I was so busy with my own thoughts that I didn’t notice he’d extended his hand to me until he said, “Do you need help standing?”

“Um—” I didn’t need a hand, but his hand was so nice. Therefore I did what any self-respecting hand aficionado would do. I accepted his fingers.

He hauled me up, steady and effortlessly. But instead of releasing me, he held on. “Are you sure you are not hurt?” he asked, voice suddenly softer.

My brain short-circuiting on the gentleness of his tone, I blinked at him dumbly for several seconds. But then I caught my reflection in the mirror behind him and my hair was in a full-blown Einstein-on-MDMA situation. Yeesh.

Extracting myself from his grip, I crossed my arms and backed up a step. “I’m fine. And I think I’m late for work.”

His eyes flicked down to my legs, then back up, and he straightened his spine before speaking. “You have to work today?”

“Yes.”

Andreas’s eyes narrowed. “Today is Sunday.”

Aw crap.

“That—that’s right.” I spoke and nodded haltingly while fumbling with improvised bravado. “But for a PhD student who has to fight for lab time, there is no such thing as a weekend. So, I better get to it.”

I marched around him, but then spun in the doorway, remembering something I’d meant to ask yesterday. “Oh, so. Andreas. Was the adoption paperwork filed? When will it be final?” For good measure, I tacked on some humor. “Just want to know when to start addressing you as father dearest.”