Chapter 4 Sexual Differentiation #3
Uncertain how to respond to Kaitlyn, I placed my phone back on the nightstand and surveyed the damage in the bedroom.
My sleepwalking self had been busy last night.
The bin I’d just kicked was one of four that I’d stacked against the door, a barricade I vaguely remembered constructing before going to bed in order to keep myself from leaving the room.
All four bins were now strewn around the room, the door wide open.
My suitcase, which I’d propped as an additional security measure, now sat upright and open, clothes spilling out.
I was impressed. My subconscious had the strength and determination of a bison. For the record, I would take any opportunity to compare myself to a bison. Theirs is the most delicious of the red meats. Also, they are freaking majestic animals. So much more majestic than a cow or a yak.
While I ranked the majesticness of hooved animals, Andreas appeared in the doorway. He now wore a plush, navy blue bathrobe that looked like he’d stolen it from a five-star hotel, and man-slippers. You know, the tan ones with a wool-lined interior.
He peered around at the chaos in my room, then at me while I worked to quell the fluttering in my stomach. That same stupid electric hyperawareness returned.
“You really did try to barricade yourself last night.” His voice held unadulterated awe.
“I said I did.” Not knowing what to do with my hands, I set them on my hips. “I honestly don’t want to keep bothering you.”
Ignoring this, he asked, “Where is dinner on Wednesday? I need to let the security team know.”
“A place called Smokin Greens BBQ. My old roommate Kendra works there. It’s vegan barbecue. Even the sauces. But you really don’t have to—”
“Is it the one with the meditating, neon dinosaur in the window?”
“Yes.” I sucked in a deep breath, wishing this awareness of him would disappear just as quickly as it had appeared. “Have you been there?”
“I have not. But Elio swears it is the best vegan barbecue in New York. Possibly the world.”
“Good to know. I guess we’ll find out on Wednesday.”
He nodded but didn’t leave. Instead, he lingered, surveying the wreckage of my barricade.
I tried to ignore the butterflies that hatched in my stomach as I watched him. He looked both cute and sexy standing there in my doorway. The bathrobe giving him both a boyish and grandpa-ish aura, which shouldn’t have been both adorable and sexy but—God help me—it totally was.
“Do you need something else?” I asked, knowing it was best that he leave so I could quash the butterflies.
“Thursday is Thanksgiving. Do you have plans?”
I hesitated. Did I want Andreas to meet Kaitlyn? She and baby Joey were the two most important people in my life. Did I want Andreas to know them?
When I said nothing, Andreas prompted, “Your grandfather is still alive, is he not? Do you—”
“No. We don’t speak.” I turned my back on Andreas. The butterflies had evaporated at the mention of my grandfather.
My mom’s dad was the only biological family left to me, which had certainly simplified my decision to allow the adoption with Andreas and therefore cut all legal ties with my biological family.
He still reached out to me every so often, but I just couldn’t bring myself to return his calls and letters. He’d left my grandmother three years after my mom died, the month she was diagnosed with cancer. I simply couldn’t forgive him for that.
“I see,” he said from someplace behind me. “So, you have no plans? If so, I thought—”
“Uh, I do have plans. I usually spend holidays with my best—um, my roommate from college.” Rubbing my forehead, I spun in a circle, looking for something to do, and nearly tripped over one of the bins I’d strewn about the room while sleepwalking.
“You two are close?”
Picking up the bin I’d almost tripped over, I placed it against the wall and then moved to pick up another bin to place on top of it. “We are close. Really close.”
Stop overthinking and just tell him. Invite him. Have him come if he wants. It’ll be worth it to watch Andreas beat Martin at chess.
“And you should come!” I straightened, suddenly decided. There was no reason for Andreas not to come. He’d been invited. Plus, watching Martin get absolutely destroyed at chess would pay the mortgage on any regret I might feel later.
Andreas had placed his hands in the pockets of his bathrobe, his usual mask of detachment in place. “I do not wish to—”
“She invited you, actually.” I crossed my arms, like the matter was settled.
A crack appeared in his facade of indifference, his eyes widening just a tad. “She did? Your friend did?”
“She did. She saw a photo of us online, from the night of our engagement, and she said you’re invited. So”—I lifted my hands in the air and then let them drop against my thighs—“you’re invited. And if you don’t have any plans, we’ll go. But I have to make cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.”
He nodded, still inspecting me. “Then I am very happy to come with you, if you do not mind.”
I felt warmth crawl up my neck. “I don’t mind at all. And they have a cute baby.”
His mouth twitched at the corners, his eyes growing again for a split second. “They have a baby?”
Inwardly, I groaned. Outwardly, I asked, “Don’t tell me, you like babies?”
He looked abashed, scratching the back of his neck. “Of course. Who doesn’t like babies?”
The butterflies re-alived themselves and performed a synchronized routine, then collapsed in a heap. For reasons I didn’t want to examine, the fact that Andreas liked babies made me feel gooey and hot in equal measure.
A slightly hysterical laugh tumbled out of me at the whiplash of my own emotions. Enough. I needed to get ready for work. That wasn’t an excuse.
“Okay, I have to clean this up and then get to work. Out.” I gathered an armful of clothes from the floor in front of my suitcase and gestured toward the door.
He didn’t move. Instead, he reached forward and caught my hand, pulling me up as I tried to shoo him away, his grip surprisingly gentle. I felt immobilized by the shock of warmth traveling up my arm at the contact.
“Do not worry about the bins. I will take care of it. But, what I wanted to tell you, I should let you know, I have to leave Thursday night for a trip.”
This news broke through the haze. “What? Why?”
He still held my hand, his thumb tracing a slow arc across my knuckles. “I have a tournament in London. I have to fly out a few days before it starts to acclimate to the time change.”
“Oh.” I was surprised at how disappointed I sounded. My chest felt empty but tight, airy but hot.
“I will be gone just over two weeks.”
The disappointment dug in deeper. “That’s . . . obviously fine. Thanks for letting me know.”
His gaze moved over my face and he licked his lips before asking, “Do you want to come?”
The question blindsided me. For a moment, I imagined myself in London—watching Andreas play chess, wandering city streets, eating scones and clotted cream, and perhaps wearing a bowler hat for some reason. The fantasy was so vivid I almost said yes.
But then reality swooped in. “I can’t. I have too much to do, especially with my switch in PIs.” With as much gentleness as he’d reached for me, I pulled my hand away. Going to London and playing house with Andreas wasn’t an option.
Andreas leaned against the doorjamb, his features giving away none of his thoughts. “PIs?”
“Principal investigators,” I explained. “Remember when Tobias came to my office and threatened to get me expelled from my program? Well, it appears he called in a favor and I had to switch PIs because Dr. Hauser—my original PI—her funding was frozen.”
His face darkened and his eyes lost focus, presumably his thoughts turning inward. “I see . . .”
I shrugged and went to my suitcase, rifling through it for pants. “My new PI is—well, he seems okay now.”
“This new PI, does he treat you well?” Andreas’s voice sounded careful.
“Since I’ve been reporting to him, he’s been fine.” I tried to come across as confident, as if the whole thing was an upgrade and not a shakedown.
I felt Andreas’s eyes on me as I gathered my stuff, then he said, “You have to tell me if he mistreats you.”
I chuckled. “Why? What will you do? Challenge him to a duel?”
“Something like that,” he said, his eyes flicking away. And his expression was strange.
Peering at him, I decided this was weird. He was suddenly acting weird. That statement from him, it was weird. He almost sounded like Tobias. And what could he do in reality if my PI was a dickhead? Stare at him with those judgy little eyes?
Crossing to the bed, clothes in hand, I said, “Okay. I’m getting dressed. So, unless you want a free show, close the door.”
His eyebrows shot up abruptly—comically, actually—and he grabbed for the doorknob, stuttering, “Of course—sorry. I apolo—sorry, yes. Sorry.”
As soon as the door clicked shut, I shook my head at his gentlemanly bashfulness. My opinion of him improved by at least twelve points this morning. Seriously, he needed to start spouting ignoramus opinions about the polio vaccine. And soon.
Just as I’d pulled off my sleep shirt, Andreas’s voice drifted back from beyond the door. “Can I make you something for breakfast?”
My spine stiffening with the knowledge that he was on the other side of the door and I was both shirtless and braless, I called back, “I’ll have whatever you’re having. I’m not picky.”
A pause. “I bought you eggs. How do you like your eggs?”
Distracted, I rushed to put on a bra. “I don’t care. Whatever is easiest.”
A longer pause. “But you must have a preference. Scrambled? I can make an omelet.”
Glancing up at the ceiling, I called back, “I honestly have no preference.”
It was quiet for a moment, then he said, “Do you like omelets?”
Why was he was so fixated on eggs? “Sure. I like omelets. But that seems like a lot of work. Hard-boiled is fine.”
“I’ll make you a spinach, tomato, and goat cheese omelet,” he said, as though that were a perfectly reasonable way to start the day.
My mouth immediately watered. I had to swallow before responding, “Thank you. That sounds good.”
I heard his footsteps pad away and I clutched my forehead in my hands. How did he know Florentine omelets were my favorite omelet? There was no way he could know that. It must’ve been a lucky guess.
Shaking out my limbs of nerves, I dressed, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and decided not to think about how I’d sleepwalked into Andreas’s lap last night, or how I’d slept in his bed the night before, or how his cheeks had turned pink both times, or how I felt when he held my hand just now and his thumb had rubbed over the back of my knuckles so tenderly.
I decided I would save all these fluttery feelings and this hyperawareness for later. Much later. After I inherited Genetix.
And hopefully by then, it would all have stopped for good.