The Chemistry of Love(5)

Standing there, in the middle of the supply room, as if I’d conjured him up, was Craig Kimball.





CHAPTER TWO


“Hello,” Craig said with a smile. The sun shone down on his light blond hair, and his pale blue eyes somehow gleamed. He looked like an angel come to rescue me. My heart bubbled with excitement.

I tried to speak.

Nothing happened.

Just me standing there, gaping at him, my mouth partially open like a fish that had just been yanked out of the water.

“Hi! I’m Catalina Diaz, and this is Anna Ellis.” My best friend came rushing to my rescue, and I had honestly never adored her more. Although why she felt like she had to introduce me, I wasn’t sure. We’d met. He knew me.

“Craig Kimball,” he said, as if we were unaware. Like I didn’t think about him every single day.

As if I didn’t remember what he had done for me two years ago.

And my memory of it had me making a strange gagging noise in response.

Now my face was flushing for a second time that day but for an entirely different reason.

“You’re our two lady scientists,” he said with a wink.

Catalina bristled beside me as she responded, “Actually, we’re just scientists. No qualifier necessary.”

I felt completely off kilter. There was still that lingering feeling of dread and embarrassment from Jerry’s mini-lecture, and now I couldn’t quite catch my breath with Craig standing in front of us, his arms folded, smiling at me.

At. Me.

I could sense Catalina was aggravated, but I wasn’t sure why exactly. I was too busy focusing on the way Craig’s mouth moved, how he seemed to caress the words coming out of it.

I forced myself to pay attention.

“Oh, I hope you didn’t take that the wrong way,” he said. “It’s just so impressive that you two are succeeding in what’s typically a male-dominated field.”

Ah. That’s why Catalina was annoyed. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t mean any harm by what he’d said, but I also understood why she felt defensive—we were often treated as “less than.” Not only here at work but at conferences, too. As if we didn’t have the same level of education and skills as our male colleagues.

Craig cleared his throat, as if he finally realized that he’d stepped in it, and changed the subject. “What are you working on?” he asked.

My tongue still felt too big for my mouth, but if I didn’t say something soon, he might think I was weird.

Weirder than he probably already thought I was. “Uh, we were, um, getting supplies.”

I had spoken! Actual words had been said!

Never mind the fact that I hadn’t answered his question. I could only stand there, grinning at him like a demented jack-o’-lantern.

Catalina shot me a look that very clearly said, “Why do you like this guy?” and I shrugged in response. There was no way to make her understand. She just didn’t know him.

Technically, neither did I, but I could personally vouch for the fact that he was a good guy.

She shook her head and announced, “I’m going to head back to my workbench and make a little nitroglycerin.”

I got her intent, even though her concerns were misplaced. She left the supply room, and I was alone with Craig.

Alone—and talking to him.

“Did she say nitroglycerin?” Craig repeated, sounding amused.

“Vegetable glycerin,” I said, not wanting to explain what my best friend had meant. “She’s making an organic moisturizer. Personally, I like working on makeup better. It’s my favorite thing to create. Like now, I’m working on this lipstick that will be long-lasting and totally natural. Really vibrant colors, too.”

His gaze shifted, and he glanced around the room. Was that . . . boredom in his expression?

I thought we’d bond over a love of cosmetics. This was my fault. I was nervous and saying things he didn’t care about. I had a tendency to do that sometimes.

Time to trot out a story that people usually enjoyed. “You know, speaking of nitroglycerin, I had a lab partner in college who wanted to see if he could make it himself and blew out all the windows in our lab.”

It worked. I had Craig’s attention again, but now he looked concerned.

“It’s okay—he was fine. It burned off his eyebrows and the front of his hair, but he was far enough away when it blew up.”

That was the one exciting story I had in my past. I knew how sad that made my life, but I was just happy that I’d succeeded in getting his attention back.

“Is that the sort of thing that goes on here after hours? Are you guys busy making black-market explosives?”

Had I implied that somehow? “My lab partner, that wasn’t a money thing. He was just curious. But no, we don’t make explosives here. And we won’t. Not unless someone figures out a safe way for people to use them in order to diminish wrinkles and fine lines.”

I hoped he’d laugh, but he just nodded. “You wanted to show me that lipstick thing?”

“The formulation? Yes. Just follow me. I have it on my computer.”

Somehow I managed to make it all the way to my workbench without tripping over my own feet. I was keenly aware of him walking just behind me, and I wanted to pinch myself. We’d been having our second-ever actual conversation!