As soon as we arrived at the border I leaped out of the car and stretched my legs.

“Stay here,” Huxley says in his ‘I know better than you’ tone as he rounds the corner of the van to face me.

As if I'm gonna come to the border driving in complete silence just to sit in the car and not even check to make sure Melvirn steroids are there.

“And I'm staying in the car, why?” I ask Huxley in an annoyed tone

to be fair he didn’t let me get food and I'm slightly hangry.

He is just standing there looking at me like I'm stupid.

“Because you're not needed, I don't even know why you came anyway”

That was not what I wanted to hear.

Seriously, he couldn’t have asked that before we drove 3 hours in complete silence?

“Trust me if I didn't have to be here I wouldn’t be, especially after that tortuous drive but Melvirn insisted I go to make sure all our stuff is there and that’s what I'm gonna do. So if you would like to tell Melvirn that you are the reason his equipment wasn’t checked then be my guest” I have had enough by this point and didn’t wait for his response to push past him and make my way to the border center.

I walk into the building which looks like an abandoned warehouse, so fun seeing as it is almost 11 pm and of course, it is empty. There is no one in sight except Huxley who has finally caught up to me.

“What do we do now?” I asked him

“So now you need my help?” He responds quicker than usual which catches me off guard.

I am so not in the mood to deal with this so I respond

“The sooner we find this damn box the sooner we can get the hell out of here and away from each other since apparently you have some sort of problem with me”

He just stands there looking at me, staring at me with those big green eyes, eyes that I have never noticed before now. He then turns around and starts walking into the dark empty warehouse. Like hell am I gonna stand here alone so I wait a couple of seconds then follow him down the hall. After what seems like 15 minutes of wandering we stumble across a crate with a large label that says LAB TECH plastered across the side. Thank god we finally found it. Huxley walks over to the crate and props it open to get a look inside.

“Anderson, come over here and count your supplies so we can leave” I didn’t think he knew my first name, let alone my last. I know his but he doesn't have to know that.

“Coming,” I say as I lean over the side of the crate and check my steroids.

The crate is quite large and all the lab supplies are stacked on top of each other surrounded by styrofoam padding. As I am reaching into the crate to lift the first layer and check to make sure all my supplies are accounted for, Huxley grabs my wrist as he says

“Your supplies are on top, you don't need to go through mine”

I don’t even register how weird the statement is and why he is so opposed to me seeing his supplies because Huxley still has my wrist in his hand, which completely wraps around with room to spare. I think he suddenly noticed that he was still clutching my wrist because he very abruptly dropped it and cleared his throat.

“Is everything there Anderson? Can we leave now?” I glance back into the crate and mentally recall everything that I ordered and it all seems to be accounted for.

“Yes Huxley, everything is there.'' He looks at me slightly confused and then closes the lid on the crate.

“Aren't you gonna check your stuff to make sure it's all there? '' I ask him before he fully gets the lid secured.

'' It's there” he tells me without even sparing me a glance.

“I mean are you sure because sometimes things ship out separately and you would hate to get back just to realize that-”

“it's there,” Huxley says as he cuts me off. Why does this man feel the need to be right? It's so infuriating.

“Okay,”

That's all I say to him as I turn around and make my way to the door without even offering to help get the crate to the van. I get to the van 5 minutes before Huxley even gets to the door with the enormous crate in his arms. As I sit in the driver's seat I watch Liam carry the box with ease and set it down in the back of the van, I never noticed how strong he is. Pretty much all of the men at LAB TECH are either skinny and nerd-like or old and grumpy so Huxley definitely stands out. I am shocked back into the present as my door is being opened by Liam, he just stands there looking at me with a very unpleasant expression on his face.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Is there a problem?” I ask him knowing what he is going to say

“out” is all I get from him.

OUT! Are you kidding me? I barely know the guy and he feels this unequivocal need to be a complete asshat to me.

“You snooze you lose” is all I say as I pull the door closed and start the van. Huxley reluctantly climbs into the passenger seat and immediately pulls out his phone

“Uh uh” I say as I pluck the phone out of his hand and throw it in the back seat

“I am not doing this silent car ride again, either you actually talk to me or I play my music at full volume and sing along, and just so you know. I was a theatre kid…” I knew Huxley was not going to agree to the second option which meant his only choice was to engage in conversation.

Maybe by the end of the ride, I can find out why he is such an ass all the time.

“Fine” is all he says, still refusing to look at me as I pull out of the lot and make my way onto the main roads.

“So…” I say working up the nerve to ask him anything

“What do you want for dinner?” I thought I would at least start easy.

.

After what felt like years of deliberation we finally ended up at a small diner off the side of the highway to eat, which we found about an hour into our drive home. It looked like a small family-owned company because the waitress that sat us at our table looked like she was a few years younger than me and the rest of the staff were laughing past the counter. We sat at a small table for two in the back and both of us immediately picked up our menus to look for our meal, or avoid making eye contact? I don't know. About 5 minutes into Huxley and I staring at our menus the waitress who wears a small name tag that reads ‘Stacey’ approaches our table.

“What can I get for you two tonight?” she asks far too chipper for working a midnight shift.

Huxley looks up at me, silently gesturing for me to order first.

“Uhh,” I looked up at the waitress.

“Honestly I have no clue what to pick, any suggestions?” I can almost feel Huxley's breath as he huffs from across the table.

“Well, my mom makes the best-grilled cheese and ham sandwich if you want to try that. Oh! And the sweet potato fries are amazing!” Stacey says, suggesting what I suspect was her favorite menu choice.

“That sounds amazing, I'll go with that,” I tell her smiling as I hand her the menu.

“Perfect!” she says as she turns to Huxley

“And you sir?” Huxley relays his order as if he practiced it beforehand while passing the menu back to the waitress

“I will take one of the BLT sandwiches with onion rings” Stacey smiles at him for a little too long before she responds with

“Great choice, I will be out with your orders shortly” she turns and walks back to the kitchen leaving me and Huxley in our uncomfortable, comfortable silence.

“Why did you ask the waitress what she suggested?” I was slightly startled when I heard Huxley's voice come from across the table. When I didn’t answer him right away he took the opportunity to clarify

“You were staring at the menu for 5 minutes before Stacey came to the table but you still asked her what she suggested” I tried not to notice the fact that he paid attention to the waitresses name tag

The real reason I didn't know what to get is because I wasn't looking at the menu, I was just holding it so I could avoid talking to Liam.

“um” is all I could get out.

“Everything looked so good I just didn’t know what to choose.” It was a lie and I think Huxley could tell because he looked at me accusingly. I couldn’t sit here in silence any longer so I brought up the only one similarity between us that I could think of

“So, tell me more about your research” I finally looked up at Huxley and into those big green eyes

“You must have lots of progress if your starting to write your ‘final testing’ reports again Huxley just looked at me, studying me with his eyes, finally he spoke up

“I don’t want to talk about work” that one took me by surprise, he didn’t want to talk about the only thing I thought we could hold a conversation over!?

“Give me something else,” Liam said, the last part quieter than his previous statement.

Give him something else? Like what? Another conversation starter? Another question that he will probably refuse to answer. Again he was studying me with those green eyes

“Just stop it already” is all I could say,

shit! I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“I'm sorry?” he said, obviously confused, why wouldn't he be confused? I just blew up at him for looking at me. I have two options, be honest and admit that I didn't like him looking at me like that or lie and tell him I'm just hungry or something.

“No, I'm sorry” is what I landed on saying

“I'm just hungry and the silence between us is so awkward and I just-” I trailed off as I let my head fall to the table in defeat.

“Raelyn, tell me about your research” I jerked my head up, he knows my first name too. And why is he now being so nice?

“No, it's fine, you don’t want to talk about work. We can just sit here in silence, it's fine” At this point I was actually too tired to even put effort into a conversation with Huxley and I just wanted to shove my face with the food that is taking far too long for an empty restaurant.

“Raelyn” there's my name again.

Why does it sound so different when he says it?

“Tell me” This time it seemed more sincere and less of an escape from the awkwardness.

“Ok,” I told him as I recalled what I was working on.

“Honestly with everything that Melvirn is making me do for his project, I have barely had time for my research.” Huxley was looking at me while I spoke, I couldn't bear to look up into his eyes again so I fiddled with the sugar packets on the table.

“When I started at LAB TECH I was working on genetically modified cells. I wanted to be able to treat patients with gene abnormalities by reintroducing my modified cells with their lacking ones.” Huxley looks genuinely interested in my work because he pipes up and asks

“How far are you on your project?” this was not the question I was hoping for, when I tell people I work at lab tech they are so impressed until I tell them that I don’t actually have a project of my own and I just get the actual scientists their coffee.

“Um, I have only hypothesized it. Like you said, most people aren’t jumping at the opportunity to give a 18-year-old thousands of dollars in grant money” By the time I finished my sentence Stacey arrived back at our table with the food.

The rest of our time at the cafe was quiet, we both ate our food and occasionally looked up to say how good it was. When Stacey comes back to the table to remove our plates and drop off the bill I go to reach for it and so does Huxley. He is stronger than I am and ends up with the bill.

“Huxley, you don’t have to pay for my meal” he looks up at me and responds with,

“I told you I would get you food did I not?” I guess that's technically true, but I thought he just meant that he would allow us to stop somewhere.

“Besides you don’t work full time and I do, you can get the bill next time”

Next time? There was gonna be another time? This time barely went well and I could not picture doing this again voluntarily. I think Liam realized his phrasing and tried to correct himself by saying

“I mean, not that we are gonna do this again but if-” I laughed internally at his correction and said

“Don’t worry Huxley, I don’t want to do this again either” I finished my statement with a little laugh but he didn’t seem to think it was funny. His flustered expression left his face and returned to the stoic Huxley that I was now growing used to.