It’s Friday again. After lecture.
“Relax, you’ve got this,” he murmured from across the table, the blonde’s face wedged in the textbook with a groan. Although comforting others wasn’t his strong suit, at least Everett believed the sentiment of his own words; Ruby had shown marked improvement since the fatal red ink of her first quiz. She was the first to show up at his office and often the last to leave, unafraid to ask questions, committed to confronting the gaps in her knowledge. Everett admired her resilience, preferring to credit her success to her character rather than the inordinate amount of attention and time granted to her. The exhilaration of their conversations and messages was successfully blunting the fear that came with bending the rules, overriding the alarms his ethics had been sounding for weeks. Naively, he hoped that the secret only existed in this room, at these hours.
“My brain is meltinggg,” she pouted, her voice echoing against the curve of the page. They had been reviewing for two hours already, books and notes strewn about his office. The midterm was next week, and if she recovered with a decent enough grade, the impact of her first failure could be nullified. Maybe it was simply test-taking anxiety or the precarious relationship with Dr. Angelo that he still didn’t quite understand, but it was the only time her confidence took a noticeable dip. With a glance at his watch, a sudden idea occurred to Everett.
“I think you could use a field trip,” he said, a rogue smirk taking to his lips as he rose from his seat. The blonde picked herself up from off the table, her interest piqued.
“What are you talking about?” she laughed, blue eyes narrowed in playful suspicion of this cryptic suggestion. He shrugged without another word, nodding suggestively toward the door, almost losing his nerve to try this.
“Just trust me.” They rode the elevator down a level, opening to a floor Ruby had no reason to ever need to visit. He led her down a corridor by her hand, peering into the sterile rooms as they passed, silent and unoccupied on a Friday afternoon.
“These are some labs,” he mentioned quietly, focused, trying to select the right door from memory. When he eventually made his selection, he ushered her through as he flicked on the overhead lights. A rack of white lab coats hung near the door, a shelf of safety equipment opposite to it.
“Put this on,” he started, an unintentional edge to his tone—
he was still working on that. His features warmed with a smile, pausing in front of the blonde to help align and snap the buttons on the coat. Her red lips parted with thanks, fingers fixing his collar in return. Next a pair of safety glasses, sliding them to her temples after securing his own.
“I figured you would want to take selfies,” he clarified, excusing himself to rummage through their storage while she gawked at the innards of the room, for once rendered speechless.
“Go ahead, feel free to look around,” he invited absently over the sounds of glasses clinking in his grasp, busy with a new task. He worried less about her touching things, more about someone wandering in and asking questions. She was an unfamiliar face to anyone in the chemistry department, his mind spinning with excuses in case they were noticed. This was a spare shared lab, countertops taken up by electronic scales, support stands, old microscopes, metal racks and Bunsen burners, a simple setup not unlike that of a high school chemistry class. It was often used for training purposes or the grunt work assigned to undergrads, nothing like the caliber of Everett’s research group in another building. He watched her from the corner of his eye, answering her questions as she pointed out different objects, curious, out of her element and tumbling headfirst into his. On a chalkboard Everett began to scrawl in his sharp, bold handwriting the reaction equation to be demonstrated:
CH2OH(CHOH)4CHO + 2[Ag(NH3)2]+ + 3OH- → 2Ag + CH2OH(CHOH)4COO- + 4NH3 + 2H2O
“You don’t have to know any of this, by the way,” he called over his shoulder, sensing her concern. It was beyond the scope of their introductory class, far more than she would be expected to understand.
“I just wanted to see if I remembered,” he murmured, dusting the chalk off his palms, standing back to double check the balance of his equation. It was a simple demonstration that tended to awe younger students, something he had done in the past during club outreach efforts and extracurricular obligations. He beckoned Ruby over to the countertop, glassware twinkling against a black backdrop.
“Pick a souvenir,” he said, gesturing at the options glittering before them: a test tube, a beaker, and two different flasks.
“Really?” she asked, skeptical of the offer though her eyes flickered excitedly across the glass. He chuckled at her caution, flipping one in his palm for show.
“Umm that one!” she squeaked, making her selection with a pointed manicured finger. Everett nodded his approval:
“The Florence flask—wise choice.” “This is all very mysterious,” she hummed playfully, hands hesitant at her sides as she glanced at what he had gathered. He shook his head, a grin breaking out on his lips; she had a way of breathing life into the banality of basic chemistry, reminding him what it was like to be a novice.
“Would you like to be my lab assistant?” he asked, looking her up and down, assessing her. At her enthusiastic nod he turned them both toward the awaiting experiment.
“This is silver nitrate, sodium hydroxide, dextrose…” he introduced, indicating the beakers queued before them.
“And ammonia and nitric acid,” he finished at the droppers, feeling her eyes on him, hinged on his guidance.
“Of course, professor,” she nodded along, leaning into the role. They were close again, enough to make his blood vibrate with the sudden awareness of her.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but I’m going to add this until we get some silver oxide,” he narrated as the drops descended, brown particles precipitating in the liquid added to her keepsake. He held up the beaker to show her, encouraging her to follow along. Once the solids dissolved, he added some acid and swirled the contents in the flask.
He poured the solution down the drain, handing her a pair of gloves.
“Now comes your part,” he said, placing the glass in her protected palm, hand wrapped around hers. Pouring some dextrose into the flask, he was happy to have a task that took his mind off their proximity, the warmth of her fingers under his.
“Once I add this, swirl it around and see what happens,” he instructed, stoppering the flask before gently encouraging her with a touch to the wrist. The liquid rolled around the contours of the glass, her features gradually shifting from concerned to excited. The glass began to darken, a shiny film forming on its inside surface, becoming like that of a mirror.
“Wait, what’s it doing?” she squeaked in alarm, watching the change occur with each blink. While the flask transformed, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Maybe it was the laboratory regalia or the lack of permission to be here; perhaps it was the kiss they had shared or the feelings he knew lurked just beneath the surface. The lines were still blurred from their first encounter, the confessions of attraction stilted by the rules allowing either of them to act on it.
“Everett!” she giggled, his gaze snapping back to reality, finding his distorted reflection in the shape of the flask. His attention shook back into place, running a hand through his hair.
“Don’t freak out, that's supposed to happen,” he laughed that rare sound, catching her wrist. He moved her to pour the solution down the sink and rinse with water, the inside of the glass permanently coated.
“Remember how we talked about reduction and oxidation in class?” he prompted, moving to the chalkboard again and drawing the simple reagent.
“This,” he pointed to the left molecule, then moving toward that on the right,
“oxidizes into this. It lost electrons.” Then he circled the positive charge of the silver (Ag) on the left, and the neutral silver on the right.
“The silver was reduced into metallic silver—it gained electrons,” he emphasized, tapping the chalk against the board. Maybe it was silly what he was doing, but it was a simple gesture of goodwill and childish amusement toward basic chemistry—with the added benefit of spending some time with her in one of the other few places he inhabited.
“That silver is now stuck to the glass, and that's a way mirrors are made. Ergo, you just made a little mirror there,” he smiled at his reflection in her flask, palms upturned in his big
ta-da moment. Before he could worry about her reaction, she was propelled forward and threw her arms around him, their safety glasses clinking in the motion.
“That is so cool!” she exclaimed, words muffled against him, feeling her smile press into his neck. She pulled back to marvel at it just as he feared for the spike in his pulse.
“Ok maybe you chemists do have fun,” she purred, tugging impishly at the lapel of his lab coat. The ridge of his throat quivered with a gulp, remembering how it felt in the café to be even closer to her.
“Yep, this is what I do all day,” he played along, moving to clean up everything he had brought out for the experiment. She twirled the trinket up to the light, smiling silly at her reflection still. If her expressions and body language were clear, she seemed livened by this gesture.
“I can really keep it? You won’t get in trouble for stealing?” she asked next, endearing but deceiving in her concern. Wiping down a countertop, he offered a defiant shrug.
“Since when are you worried about getting me into trouble?” he nearly laughed at the absurdity, as she was usually the first to encourage it.
“I thought that was your favorite hobby.” Any time they ended up together like this, he was crossing a boundary he previously mistook for a solid wall. Everything about her was asking for trouble, gradually wearing down his defenses and making him rethink everything. She shook him from his usual coordinate system, forcing him to see beyond simple black and white, outside the obvious lines of the rules they were bending until they broke.
With the experiment done and its evidence gone, Everett shrugged off his coat and glasses, prompting the blonde to do the same.
“You’re always talking about ‘consequences’ or whatever,” she teased as the fabric slipped from her shoulder, rolling her blue eyes dramatically. Her boisterous nature had yet to lose its charm; if anything, it was the only thing predictable about her.
“I guess it’s rubbing off on me.” He considered this, their pull on one another: her emboldening him to lose control, him urging her to practice some of her own.
"One of us has to be a good influence," he countered, leaning against the door that would be their exit out. They would return to his office, back to studying and hoping not to burn in proximity.
"What about me. How do I influence you?" she murmured, inching closer to him. She knew what she was doing, always did. His eyes dropped to her lips then back to her eyes, recognizing this tone of hers, feeling it prickle his skin with memory of the café.
"Well, you know, I think.." he started unsuccessfully, flustered by the temptation of sudden closeness until she laid a steadying hand on his shoulder, amused by her effect on him.
"Hey, Everett? Shut up and kiss me," she demanded before he obliged, capturing her wicked grin with his lips in this secret place of his.
They weren't supposed to do this. They weren't supposed to do this here. They weren't supposed to do this here anymore.
