Page 32 of Under Pressure
“Thanks so much for coming in, Brad,” Mia says warmly as she turns the dials off on her biofeedback machine.
“No problem.” He picks his backpack up off the floor and slings it over his shoulder, but makes no other move to leave. I want to tell him to get gone, but Mia would say that’srude. “Hey, I meant to tell you I finally placed you. You were in Dr. Hahn’s Cognitive Psych class last semester, weren’t you? I knew you looked familiar.”
“Yeah, I was,” she says shyly, tucking a curl behind her ear. My eyes narrow at the action. Is that a sign of nervousness? Or attraction?
“How’d you do in that class?”
“I got an A.”
He continues asking her questions and my shoulders tense up the longer he goes on. I try to focus on uploading the data from his session, but something about his voice worms its way into my brain. I watch the two of them, his all-American looks complementing her wholesome, farm-girl image. He was our last appointment of the day, so it’s not like I have to hang around if I don’t want to, but I decide to stay. This information won’t analyze itself.
When he finally says his goodbyes and leaves, I casually ask her, “Are you done flirting with the participants?”
“What?” She looks over at me, genuine confusion on her face.
“You andBrad.”
She rolls her eyes. “So just talking to someone about classes is flirting now?”
“He was all over you. And you liked it.” I don’t know why I’m getting worked up about this. It’s not like it matters.
She raises her brows, then crosses the room over to me, laying the back of her hand on my forehead.
I still at her touch, the contact easing something inside me. “What are you doing?”
“Checking if you have a fever. That might explain your delusion.”
Now I roll my eyes, but that tension in me fully leaves as she gives me a goofy smile. I tentatively return her smile but a knock on the door of the lab interrupts us. Brad comes back in, gaze trained on Mia.
“Did you forget something?” she asks.
“Could I actually talk to you outside for a second?” He hitches his bag higher on his shoulder, his gaze never straying from her.
The tension in me returns twofold and I blurt out, “Mia can’t leave the room. We still need to go over the results.”
She gives me a strange look and turns back to him. “What is it?” she asks softly.
He shoots a dirty glare my way and wipes his palms on his jeans, staring again at Mia. He better not be doing what I think he’s about to do. “I just wanted to know if you’d like to go out for coffee sometime.”
Her eyes widen and she glances over briefly at me, something like guilt on her face.
I immediately jump in before she can answer. “Mia is a researcher here and any interaction outside of this study could be seen as a conflict of interest.”
Brad looks taken aback at my outburst, but that’s probably more because of the hard tone I said it in than the actual words themselves.
He flicks his eyes back and forth between us. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know—”
“No worries,” Mia says, ushering him out with promises to see him next week during his scheduled time. She closes the door behind him and turns around, keeping her back to the door, hands behind her, and watches me carefully.
“What?” I ask her defiantly when it’s obvious she won’t say anything. “Tell me it wouldn’t be inappropriate to date him.”
“It would be,” she agrees evenly.
I stand and move to the front of the desk, leaning back against it. I don’t like this dynamic of her standing when I’m sitting. In fact, her compliance is a little suspicious. I’ve gotten used to her falling for it when I try to rile her up. “All right, then.”
She tilts her head slightly, still staring at me. “Why do you care so much about my love life?”
I cross my arms, uneasiness settling in my stomach. “I don’t.”
