Chapter 10 #2
His bedroom.
But once again, my expectations are a far cry from reality.
I expected flickering candles and crushed velvet, something dark and decadent and a little bit dangerous.
Instead, his bedroom is almost aggressively simple– a large bed with a charcoal duvet, a nightstand with a book turned facedown upon it, and a slim dresser along the wall.
Blackout shades are drawn tight over the windows, and there’s no clutter, no personal photos, nothing that gives away what kind of person he is when he isn’t wearing the mask of a brilliant, immortal scientist.
I freeze up for a second, hesitant to invade this space like I did the others. The study was fine, the office was interesting, but entering this room feels intimate in a way I wasn’t expecting.
“This is where you sleep,” I say, because apparently my brain has decided that stating the obvious is safer than thinking too hard about the fact I’m standing in Elliott Faulkner’s actual bedroom.
“Yes,” he replies simply.
“You sleep in a bed.”
“I do.”
I nod slowly, turning back to him. “I guess I expected a coffin or something.”
He studies me for a moment, then looks past me into the room. “I don’t enjoy confined spaces.”
It’s the first thing he’s said that feels less like information and more like a glimpse through a crack in the wall. Something personal, something real.
I take a step backwards into the hall, and he reaches for the door handle, pulling it closed with a soft click. I crane my neck to look up at him, and he stares down at me for a long, loaded moment. A strange flutter rolls through my stomach, the air between us tightening.
Then he turns, heading for a door on the opposite side of the hall rather than continuing in the direction we’d been going.
“What about those?” I ask, gesturing toward the remaining two doors.
He pauses, his eyes following mine. “Storage.”
I’m about to argue or insist that he show me anyways, but then he says, “The laboratory is through here,” and I’m immediately distracted. Because the other rooms were mostly boring, but his mad scientist lab is guaranteed to be a doozy.
Dr. Faulkner taps his key fob against the scanner beside the door, a green light flashing. Then several locks disengage in sequence, the sound echoing faintly through the hallway.
“Okay, that’s cool,” I breathe, practically buzzing with anticipation.
“It’s a door,” he deadpans.
“It’s a very dramatic door.”
The corner of his mouth twitches– not quite a smile, but it’s something. Then he pushes the door open.
The room beyond it is enormous– easily the size of the other three combined– and lit by rows of white LEDs set flush into the ceiling.
Benches run the entire length of it, loaded with all kinds of expensive-looking equipment.
Unlike the minimalism of the other rooms I’ve seen, this one is overflowing with stuff, my curious gaze skimming over labeled tubes, petri dishes, and sealed containers of god-knows-what.
I do a slow lap around the room, trying to take it all in.
Machines blink softly. Refrigerators hum. Tiny indicator lights glow red and green. The entire space feels alive– and, more than any of the other rooms I’ve seen, this place feels like him.
“So, what exactly do you research here?” I ask, turning his way.
“Many things,” he replies coolly. “Most recently, the properties of blood bonds and the genetic markers associated with them.
“Like Taylor and James?”
He dips his chin in a nod. “Their bond is an anomaly. I’m trying to understand the mechanism behind it.”
I look around again, trying to imagine it. Dr. Faulkner holed up in this lab night after night, working while the rest of the city sleeps. The thought should feel sad, but instead, it feels strangely fitting. A creature exactly where it’s meant to be.
Looking at him in here, it shows. He’s visibly relaxed, the faint tension I’ve come to associate with every social interaction we’ve had easing from his shoulders.
For the first time since meeting him, he doesn’t seem like a man forcing himself to participate in the world around him.
He looks like he belongs. And somehow, that’s the most surprising discovery of the entire tour.
“Come,” he directs, turning to lead the way deeper into the lab.
I follow him through the maze of equipment, trying not to touch anything.
It all looks fragile, expensive, or important.
He gestures me over to a computer, brings up a spreadsheet, and proceeds to show me how to enter data from the handwritten logs beside the monitor.
For the first time since moving in, it occurs to me that this arrangement might involve actual work that’s way outside of my wheelhouse.
“Please tell me I don’t have to understand any of this,” I mutter, glancing down at the logs. They may as well be written in a foreign language for how little sense I can make of them.
“You don’t. You only need to transfer the data.”
A relieved sigh escapes me. “Thank fuck.”
Dr. Faulkner sets me up, provides more instructions on how to transfer said data, then leaves me to get started while he slips on a lab coat and starts working at another station across the room.
The process is mindless, the keys clacking satisfyingly under my fingers as I fill in the columns on the spreadsheet.
I try to focus, I really do, but tasks like this are the natural enemy of my attention span.
Also, being confined in a small space with a hot doctor is distracting as hell.
I keep catching myself glancing over at him, studying him in the same way he’s studying whatever he’s looking at through his microscope.
Earlier, I’d thought the study revealed something about him.
The bedroom, too. But sitting in his lab, watching him move from workstation to workstation, I realize none of those rooms tell me nearly as much as this one does.
Unlike me, he’s completely focused, every action precise and methodical. He snaps on a pair of blue latex gloves, picks up a glass vial, and turns it slowly between his fingers, his eyes narrowing behind the lenses of his glasses.
The tube looks absurdly small in his large hand, and my brain immediately supplies an image of how those same hands might look wrapped around my waist.
I shove the thought away and refocus on the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is safer. My eyes ping between the monitor and the logs as I transfer the data, resisting the urge to continue creeping on the giant vampire across the room.
Then I hit a roadblock when I encounter a handwritten number on the log that was scrawled a little too hastily. I squint at it, trying to decipher whether it’s a 4 or a 9, but the harder I look, the more unsure I become.
“Hey, uh…” I look up and hesitate, suddenly realizing I have no idea what I’m supposed to call him. “Boss?”
He glances my way, arching a brow.
“What do you want me to call you?” I ask.
‘Doctor’ feels weird.
‘Dr. Faulkner’ feels too formal.
‘Hot vampire scientist landlord’ feels inappropriate.
“Elliott is fine,” he says.
“Elliott,” I repeat, testing the way it rolls off my tongue.
His gaze flicks briefly to my mouth, the latex of his gloves creaking as one of his hands flexes against the counter. “My close friends call me Eli,” he adds, dark eyes meeting mine. “Though we’ve only really known each other for less than twenty-four hours.”
“And what a magical twenty-four hours it’s been,” I snort.
He studies my face, tipping his head. “Sarcasm.”
“Obviously.”
A flicker of amusement ignites behind his eyes, but then it’s gone, replaced by that same cool detachment.
I hold up the logbook, pointing to the mystery number. “Is this a four or a nine?” I ask.
He squints at it as if he’ll actually be able to tell from all the way across the room. “Nine.”
Well. Guess he can.
“Thanks,” I say, forcing my attention back to the monitor and punching the number on the keyboard.
The next hour passes agonizingly slowly and proves two things. First, science is significantly less exciting than television would lead me to believe. And second, Dr. Elliott Faulkner has somehow built an entire career around shit that would bore most people to tears.
I stare at the computer screen in front of me, resisting the urge to slam my forehead against the keyboard.
Rows, columns, numbers.
More rows, more columns.
Somewhere in the endless sea of data are blood samples, test results, collection dates, and scientific information apparently important enough to justify a Nobel prize. All obviously of value to him, but to me, wading through it feels like punishment.
“You’ve been staring at the same entry for three minutes.”
I startle at the deep rumble of Elliott’s voice, glancing up from the monitor. He’s now sorting samples into trays, watching me out of the corner of his eye.
I hadn’t even realized he was paying attention. Half the time, he looks completely absorbed in whatever he’s doing, while the other half, he somehow notices everything.
“That’s because it’s judging me,” I huff, folding my arms and glaring at the screen.
“The spreadsheet?”
“Yes.”
“It isn’t sentient.”
I turn toward him, narrowing my eyes. “You don’t know that.”
He slides another tube into place, his long fingers surprisingly precise despite their size. “I do.”
“That’s exactly what a sentient spreadsheet would want you to think.”
A faint crease appears between his brows, like he’s actually evaluating the possibility.
“See?” I laugh, pointing at him. “That’s your problem.”
“My problem?”
“Most people would’ve immediately recognized that as a joke.”
His gaze returns to the sample tray. “I recognized it.”
“You considered it,” I fire back.
“I considered whether you believed it.”