Chapter 7
It was a perfectly normal morning… at first.
The grandfather clock in Yasmine’s living room struck six as she padded in, groggily dragging her slippers across the hardwood. Rays of sunlight were rolling through the floor-to-ceiling glass, and she basked in the slight burn of it on her skin as she fell onto the couch.
Sun used to give her lava-red hives; now, it just felt tingly. Such were the perks of living a thousand years: it was plenty of time to get over an allergy.
A stack of ungraded exams was waiting for her on the coffee table.
She’d successfully put them off for a couple days, but then the emails started piling up, and there was hardly anything more annoying than a desperate student.
The first email was always cordial, then the second was like a diary entry.
Sick grandparent. Credit card debt. A hundred reasons why Yasmine needed to give them a chance to redo an exam that hadn’t even been graded yet.
Groaning, she snatched them from the table and lowered her reading glasses over her eyes. She began to skim the answers, a frown carving deeper into her features with each subsequent test question she read.
Yasmine went into every semester open to the possibility that she might find a student fit to join her lab, but judging by these exams, it seemed that America’s literacy crisis had finally breached the walls of her classroom.
None of these graduate students would be touching her research with a ten foot pole.
Speaking of a ten foot pole— “You finally giving in?”
Yasmine’s eyes flicked up, and her cheeks burned.
Ah, yes. There went her naive sense of normalcy.
She’d nearly forgotten about her barista turned colleague turned roommate.
Her unnaturally tall and grossly beautiful roommate, who was wearing a long New York Yankees shirt, Lululemon leggings, and holding two mugs of steaming coffee.
“Yes, unfortunately,” Yasmine said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in her own home. “I thought you’d be at work already.”
It had been two weeks since Yasmine made the wonderful decision to invite her somewhat-homeless coworker to live with her, and she’d mostly managed to avoid the consequences so far.
They had vastly different seminar schedules, and Bella liked to be out the door early so she could change at the office, so the two avoided each other very well.
Until today, apparently.
“I brought some of my clothes back here, so I have some more time today,” Bella said with a shrug, then gestured to the couch. “Mind if I join you?”
Yasmine shifted her gaze to the left, at the side of the couch that never saw any use. Almost all of Yasmine’s furniture was antique, designed during a time when people were smaller and houses less spacious, so it was quite cozy for two people.
“The armchair is very comfortable,” Yasmine offered, pointing across the table. A beautiful mahogany leather chair stood in complete disuse. “These couch cushions sink like the Titanic when two people are on it. I don’t want to crowd you.”
Bella laughed. This information was meant to deter her. It failed.
“Let me take a look at those exams,” Bella said instead, setting the coffee on the table and then falling right next to Yasmine.
Predictably, the cushions sank, and Bella was practically pressed flush to Yasmine’s side. Yasmine’s chest tightened at the contact; Bella didn’t seem to care. She just reached over Yasmine’s arm and plucked the stapled sheets of paper out of her hand.
Bella’s eyes studied the text, and Yasmine found herself, in absence of anything else to do, studying Bella.
Unsurprisingly, she was a fascinating subject.
Despite the fact that she’d clearly just woken up, all her jewelry was already in: small silver studs on her earlobes, two rings on each finger, a half-moon necklace dangling over defined collarbones.
Her makeup was already dutifully applied, too: foundation, mascara, that damn lipstick.
She clearly takes her appearance very seriously. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her barefaced.
Yasmine thought back to that nightmare. The gowns in the closet. Those were ballgowns. Very few families in America would own those in this day and age. Was she from the South? Had she been one of those rich debutante girls?
Stylistically, it made sense. She could see Bella twirling around in a white dress with some cookie cutter 2.1 GPA business student by her side.
But everything she’d alluded to about her home life pointed towards a childhood on the poverty line. Lower middle class at best.
Maybe they used to be rich, then had a fall from grace?
Yasmine’s skin was starting to itch.
She’d been polite long enough, she decided.
Bella turned the page, and let out a shock of laughter. “Wow. These exams are catastrophically bad.”
“I know,” Yasmine said, then licked her lips. “Question. Are you American?”
Bella’s eyebrows rose, and the exam packet fell into her lap. Yasmine had asked Bella where she was from before, back at the Nightingale, but she’d dutifully avoided the question.
She seemed intent on doing the same now, as she kept her eyes fixed ahead and reached for one of the mugs of coffee. She offered it to Yasmine with a nudge.
“Come on,” Bella said. “Don’t let it get cold.”
“Bella.”
Bella’s coy smile dropped.
“What?” she said, sounding annoyed.
“Are you here illegally? Is that why you keep evading the question? Because I hope you know I am the last person on Earth to care about that kind of thing.”
Yasmine would have happily forged her some papers if she just asked, but she wasn’t going to volunteer that kind of service out of nowhere.
Bella went silent. Her hand absentmindedly clutched the half-moon pendant.
“I’m not here illegally,” she said after a beat, propping her elbow up on the back of the couch and looking carefully at Yasmine. “I’d rather discuss something else.”
“Why?”
“It’s a touchy subject.”
“I see,” Yasmine said, bringing her leg up on the couch so she could turn her body completely towards Bella when she asked, “Are you from Romania?”
Bella laughed in shock. “God, you are persistent.”
Yasmine shrugged. She’d been told as much before. “I’m just doing basic reconnaissance. Letting you live with me is one thing. Letting a stranger into my lab, around my research, is another altogether.”
And okay, that was kind of true. Mostly Yasmine was nosy, and Bella was the definition of a closed book, so naturally she felt the urge to tear her pages open.
But also, more importantly, her research was her world.
And there were plenty of people at Columbia—and beyond—who would love to see her project collapse, burn, end in scandal and public humiliation, et cetera.
If there was a possibility that Bella was working for someone else, she’d like to know ahead of time.
Yasmine was torn abruptly from her thoughts when Bella’s hands coiled tightly around her arms. Her mouth was slightly agape, her eyes wide. She looked like she’d just scratched off a winning lottery ticket.
“Wait, are you being serious?” she asked, voice catching. “You’re actually letting me join your lab?”
Oh, damn it.
So, this phenomenon happened to Yasmine embarrassingly often where she would tell Sylvia something, then assume she’d told everybody else that thing, too.
“Oh. I suppose… Well, yes. Your lecture was… slightly impressive, and you’ve seen the kind of graduate students I’m working with…”
Bella surged forward, wrapping Yasmine up in a bone-cracking hug.
“Oh my god. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Bella’s breath landed hot on Yasmine’s ear. Encouraged by the natural dip in the couch, the blonde had completely engulfed her: her knees nudging into Yasmine’s stomach, her hand tight around the back of Yasmine’s neck, not letting go.
“You have no idea what this means to me,” Bella confessed quietly.
It sounded uncharacteristically earnest.
In the silence, Bella’s nails scratched along the base of Yasmine’s neck.
It was incredibly intimate, and it also, very obviously, had to have been a mistake.
Bella was emotionally overwhelmed, not thinking about her actions, not taking account of her hands—but it was enough of a shock to get Yasmine to speak.
“Exactly. I don’t know,” Yasmine replied, pulling back. “That’s what makes me so hesitant about involving you.”
Bella’s fingers froze against Yasmine’s neck. She took in a breath, and then peeled herself off, extricating her limbs.
Yasmine was eternally grateful for it. Any longer enduring that kind of proximity would have been torturous.
“Well, if working together really necessitates total honesty…” Bella trailed off, pulling her knee up to her chest, then perching her chin on it. “I might as well start with the bigger potential issue threatening our scientific partnership.”
Yasmine stared at her in bewilderment.
“What bigger issue?”
Bella looked shyly down at her socks, as if she was counting the stripes on them. After a long moment, she trailed her eyes back up to Yasmine’s face.
“Well, for one,” Bella sighed, “I find you really, really attractive.”