“Tell me where they’re at. I’ll go get them,” he said.
By the time he returned, I’d curled back up into his bed, and sleep was already pulling me under. He shook me gently, watched while I downed the medicine with the water he’d brought with him, and then sat down in the desk chair.
I wanted to say he could sleep in the bed with me. I wanted to be flippant and coy like I used to be when we were younger. I wanted to pat the bed, have him join me, and tangle our toes together. But the grown-up part of me knew all the reasons we weren’t supposed to be. The same ones he’d always listed off.
So, I just let the departing alcohol tug me into a sleep that was deep and solid with a feeling of safety washing over me.
???
When I woke to my alarm going off from the pocket of Jada’s jacket, Dawson was gone. No sign of him anywhere. Only the scent of him remained. The old ache I’d tried to bury in a life without him turned into a new one. What would it be like to wake up with not only the scent of him surrounding me, but also his arms? The heat of that thought was enough to make me want to linger there. To see what would happen if he came back and I was still tangled in his sheets.
I knew I had to pull myself from the temptation, but when I moved, my head protested. Pain from the hangover and the tender bump on the back of it radiated over me. A thick coating lay over my tongue as another stark reminder of last night. Momentary guilt hit me. My dad was an alcoholic. I’d definitely enjoyed my buzz the night before. The escape. But I knew it wasn’t something I could make a habit of. I couldn’t afford to become him anymore than I’d already been by getting in a car I couldn’t drive.
I crawled out of the bed and dragged myself to the window, and in the gray shadows of dawn breaking over the ocean, I could see Dawson’s expensive sports car was no longer parked outside.
I pushed aside the disappointment that he hadn’t waited for me to wake and left his room for my own. I showered, headed downstairs, got breakfast ready, and then waited for Tami and Saul to show up. The couple of hours they worked at the B&B each day allowed me a break from being on call twenty-four seven. While they did the bulk of the cleaning and maintenance, I worked in the lab and then took over food prep from them in the afternoon.
By the time I headed for the garage, my headache was receding, thanks to the ibuprofen and caffeine. Even still, I kept the Watery Reflection playlist I normally had blaring down to an elevator level. I checked the tubes and petri dishes, and joy filtered back in, replacing the melancholy of the night before and easing aside the longing that had curled its way into my stomach from waking up in Dawson’s bed.
My supposition had been right. It wasn’t just the cinnamaldehyde but the combination of it with eugenol and macroalgae that were making the biggest difference. I recorded the impact in terms of colony-forming units, even though there hadn’t been enough time elapsed to really prove anything. The real data wouldn’t come for three or four more days. So, I focused instead on mixing ingredients for something totally different—a male face cream inspired by Dawson’s pine scent and the formulas that had trailed through my bed before sleep had overtaken me the night before.
My fascination with organic makeup and skincare had come after I’d read a study about how asbestos was found naturally in some talc and could be linked to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. When I’d read that first study, I’d known the truth. I wasn’t meant tocurecancer. I was meant topreventit.
The battle for natural products was shelf life. Just like the battle for the electric car industry was battery life. I intended to be the person to find the answer to the synthetic-additives problem just like Raisa was solving the energy crisis.
I’d just put everything away and was going to wash up when my phone rang. I looked down to see Jersey and Nell’s face on my screen. I stepped outside the plastic walls of my lab, peeling off layers to answer it.
“Hey,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. The real question is, how are you?” Jersey asked, worry flooding her voice.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Dawson said Silas left, and you drank yourself into oblivion.”
I snorted. “Like Dawson should be one to talk.”
“When was the last time you saw Dawson drunk, Vi?” she asked, her point ramming home like she’d meant it to.
I hadn’t seen Dawson that way in five years. But then again, we were rarely together. I usually saw him at Truck and Jersey’s during the holidays, and he’d shown up at my college graduation when I’d received my bachelor’s, but he’d missed the latest ceremony in May. What I did know was that he and Jada partied their way all over the globe. I was sure there’d be social media proof of a drunk Dawson if I went digging for it.
My silence worried her when I hadn’t meant it to.
“Are you upset about Silas?” she asked.
“God no,” I said instantly. When she laughed, I felt chagrinned. “That’s awful, right? I’m an awful human being. Ishouldfeel more when I’m breaking up with a boyfriend.”
“Don’t do that to yourself,” she said with force. “You cared for him, and when you realized it wasn’t going to work, you ended it. There should be no guilt in that.”
“Sometimes…sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever?” I stopped myself from finishing the sentence. “Never mind.”
“It’ll happen, Vi. When you least expect it,” she said softly.
She’d thought I was going to ask about finding the right person. About finding someone who made my soul light up the way Truck made hers. But hadn’t it already happened? Wasn’t that the problem? The man I couldn’t shake but couldn’t have?
“I’m fine, honestly. I’m happy sticking my head in my formulas and helping Mandy and Leena, so don’t worry.”
“It’s my sisterly prerogative to worry.”
