Chapter 83

Stay Up to Learn New Positions I resisted the urge to smirk. “Eat up. I need to get back to the lab.”

“I’ll take you.”

I wanted to politely decline, but before I could, Aaron already had the car keys in his hand and was walking to the front door.

I froze, and my heart fluttered with adoration.

When we got downstairs, the wind was howling outside. It blew my hair in every direction, and to make things worse, I was dressed in thin clothes. Then, Aaron suddenly covered me with his jacket, held me close, and ran to his parking spot. My heart pounded as I felt his arms around me.

It wasn’t until I was sitting in the passenger seat that I was able to calm down.

I didn’t want to worry about whether Aaron really loved me. I didn’t want to worry about his complicated love life before me. All I wanted was to enjoy the presence.

You only live once, after all.

Aaron looked at me with one hand on the steering wheel, and his eyes looked like they were filled with stars.

“Do you have any plans for Christmas?”

“No, why?” As soon as I said that, I remembered that Cinder had invited me to Switzerland.

“Do you want to come with me to Hawaii?”

I was shocked.

He turned away from me and stared at the road with the concentration of a first-time driver. He was trying his best to seem calm, but I knew better when I saw how tightly he was gripping the wheel.

Aaron was nervous.

Of course he was. Inviting a f*ck buddy to a Christmas vacation was no small thing, especially when she was your best friend’s girlfriend.

When I took too long to answer, I saw the starry look in Aaron’s eyes suddenly dim with disappointment.

I pursed my lips and tried to find some excuse. “I don’t even know if I’ll be off… The lab’s been busy lately, so—”

“No, I get it. I was just… just asking, that’s all.” Aaron gave me a lopsided grin as if he was completely unbothered.

Honestly, it made me feel uncomfortable. Even though I was the one who refused, I still felt bad when I heard him say he was ‘just asking.’

Then I suddenly realized: Aaron has so much power over my emotions, and that was not a good thing.

The rest of the ride was silent, all the way up until I stepped out of the car.

Later, while I was working on another experiment, Aaron’s face kept popping into my head, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, and I was so distracted that it started to affect my work. My experiment failed over and over again, and after a while, I ran a hand through my hair, annoyed. With a deep breath, I tried to banish Aaron from my thoughts.

“Good morning, Olive. Is everything okay? Maybe I can help you so you don’t rip your hair out.”

When I heard David snicker, I looked up with wide eyes. To be honest, this was the most ‘undignified’

I’d seen him. I was so used to him wearing suits that I was shocked to see him in loose sweats with a towel around his neck. He must’ve just come back from the gym.

The gym shared a building with the lab, but I never went there myself.

“Hi, David. Good morning… I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m a little out of sorts today.”

“Maybe you could exercise a little. You know, a little exercise in the morning is good for the body and the mind.” David picked up one end of the towel to dab at his forehead. “The gym downstairs has a full range of equipment even though not many people go there. You don’t need to worry about being bothered.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about it.” Of course no one went to the gym. The people who worked in this building weren’t exactly the athletic type.

“People in our line of work tend to go bald in their forties or fifties. Judging by what you’re doing…”

David gestured to my anxious habit. “You might be giving yourself a head start.”

I chuckled. “I still have plenty of hair, thank goodness. I don’t need to worry about that any time soon.

David laughed with me, then his tone became serious again. “But you do have really dark circles under your eyes. What were you working on last night?”

That made me nervous. “Oh, I was just learning new…

things…” Sex positions, specifically, but he didn’t need to know that.

I blushed at the obscene memories of last night. Would he see through me?

Luckily, he didn’t seem to be paying much attention. He nodded and said, “Research like this is a long process. Don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Thanks. I won’t.”

I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned and left. He seemed like such a nice person. How could he ever hurt someone? Maybe Aaron had the wrong idea about him…

I blinked.

I was thinking of Aaron again!

I shook my head and forced myself to focus on my work. With a deep breath, I reached for more samples.

I held reagent No. 8 in my left hand and No. 15 in my right. I narrowed my eyes in deep thought for a long while before I poured No. 15 into the beaker.

The reaction was immediate. The solution hissed and bubbled until it violently erupted, like a bottle of soda that was shaken too hard.

Failed again.

I stayed in my lab until it was dark outside, and throughout the entire day, I was never able to figure out why it kept failing. I lost track of how many times I thought about asking David for help, but he was busy with his own work.

Then again, in one of his papers, he described a method very similar to what I was doing right now…

He might know the answer.

I was hesitant to ask for his opinion because I didn’t want to offend him. When I was an undergraduate, I once asked a professor about their research during a conference, and I was met with a long-winded lecture about how disrespectful that was. The professor had chided me for my complete lack of academic literacy and basic ethics…

Apparently, other researchers don’t like revealing their findings before they get a chance to publish their work themselves.

The incident didn’t ruin my reputation as a scholar, and thanks to that professor, I developed highly independent research habits. That was how I was able to secure my own lab and have my earlier work published in one of the top science journals. It was a major achievement as an undergraduate.

I looked over at David and decided not to bother him. I didn’t want to strain our relationship by asking him for his secrets.

But our relationship was better than simple colleagues…

It was settled.

If I couldn’t make progress by Christmas, I’d ask for his help.

For now, I was getting more and more frustrated as I prepared a new batch of samples for a fresh trial.

That was when Nick dragged his tired self over to me.

I was stunned for a moment and looked at him, surprised. “I thought you had today off. What are you doing here?”

He called out today since he had too much to drink last night, and he told me he was going to use the free time to confront Tim.

Nick pursed his lips as he frowned. He looked like a ghost.

“Nick… Are you ok?…”

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