A Brush with Love(9)
He laughed. “My mom will be so proud. What’s next?”
“We go into the wet lab to pour in the liquid stone, and then let it set. After that, we’ll be good to go.”
“Cool. That sounds like something I can only mess up two or three times instead of twenty.” He swept a hand over the mess they’d created. Harper had the not-so-subtle sense that Dan gained no enjoyment from the process.
“Hush. You’re learning,” Harper scolded before giving him a smile. She turned to organize the chaos at her station and grab the next tools they would need.
“Have you used a high-speed vibrator before?” she asked.
Dan’s head snapped up, and he looked at her skeptically, eyes narrowed.
“That question sounds like a trap…”
Harper blushed at his meaning and gave an involuntary snort of laughter. She rolled her eyes, trying to save face.
“Oh my God, are you twelve? The tabletop vibrator.” She waved her hand toward the adjoining wet lab, her words becoming flustered as his wicked smile grew. “The heavy-duty dental vibrators.”
At this point, he was downright snickering at her. She clapped a hand over her face and made a blind punch for his shoulder in a weird attempt at self-preservation.
“I’m sorry, Harper, are these names supposed to indicate that what popped into my head is somehow wrong?”
Her face flushed a deep crimson, and she peeked at him through her fingers. Dan’s smile grew wider, that gorgeous dimple making another guest appearance. He was so cute it was almost obscene.
“I officially hate you. It gets air bubbles out of stone pourings.” She gave his wheeled lab chair a hefty push with her foot and he started to roll away, laughing. Harper broke out in helpless giggles.
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry! You would think they would come up with names a little less … primed for innuendos,” he said, wheeling back toward her.
“I think to be an innuendo, it has to be subtle. That was anything but.” She turned back to their work, but the smile refused to leave her heated cheeks. “I guess they assume the future doctors of America are a little more mature than that.”
“Guess I’m not cut out for the job.” Something sadder and darker flitted to the surface of his gleaming eyes, but it was gone before Harper could define it—his goofy smile firmly back in place.
They spent the next half hour in the connected wet lab. Harper showed Dan how to mix and set the powdered stone, the finished product coming out nearly perfect with minimal issues along the way. They both shared a moment of delicate pride at what they’d created together. As they were cleaning up, Dan broke the peaceful silence that had fallen between them.
“Do you want to grab some food?”
Harper’s eyes darted up to his. Working together in the lab was one thing. The lab was her domain, her safety net of skill, and a place she rarely felt awkward or nervous. Interacting with Dan in the real world felt infinitely more terrifying.
“T-together?”
“Preferably. I mean, we can sit at different tables if you want? I hate to think I’m that terrible of company.”
“No! No. That’s not what I mean. I—I mean—we don’t really—know each other … Do we?” She searched his face for confirmation.
Dan let out a soft laugh. “No, we don’t,” he confirmed, ducking his head and running a palm across his neck. “Which is kind of why I asked.”
Her eyes bounced around the room, unable to rest on one thing, as the familiar pulse of anxiety started in her stomach and radiated outward to her limbs.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to eat with him, it was more that she didn’t know if she physically could. The whole exercise had been a teaching one, a situation that provided her confidence and a constant flow of conversation. Helping him had automatically afforded her value and didn’t require her to slide real pieces of herself across a table in an exchange of emotional currency.
Sharing a meal tilted the dynamic in a way she didn’t think she was capable of functioning in, not when he made her nerves feel like they’d been plunged into a socket with a metal fork.
“I have to study,” she blurted out. This was the truth. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she felt panic tickle at her rib cage.
“Who doesn’t?” He shrugged. “But you also need to eat. Fuel that big ole brain.” He tapped his finger lightly on her temple, and Harper felt like she was going to pass out.
All she could do was stare at him, paralyzed by the equally strong forces of want and fear. It wasn’t a new sensation; she was constantly immobilized by warring impulses until anxiety eventually won out and she retreated from the tempting distraction.
But as Dan smiled at her—a look that was warm and soft and encouraging—want gained the upper hand.
“Come on,” he finally said, grabbing both of their bags and slinging them over one shoulder. He took her hand and led her toward the exit.
“Where are we going?” she asked nervously, but she didn’t try to take her hand away.
CHAPTER 5
DAN
Stepping out of school was like stepping out of a bubble. No one was fully human under the fluorescent lights of the clinic. Emotions and personalities were largely unzipped and hung up outside the school doors, allowing only the callused skin of intellectuals to enter. Leaving at the end of the day left you feeling naked and exposed, blinking at the world around you and trying to remember how to be a person.