Page 56 of The Scientist

“Why so early?” I leaned on one elbow while he crouched down next to me, picking at the grass.

“I never sleep for more than a few hours a night. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. I can never seem to shut my brain off,” he explained. “I used to toss and turn wide awake until I got the idea one morning to go for a run. Now it’s just become this thing I do to pass the time when I’m restless.”

I nodded. That made sense.

“Why were you up so early?” he asked.

“Same reason as you—couldn’t sleep. I haven’t been getting much sleep since my mom’s diagnosis. Every time I close my eyes, my brain conjures up images of her dying, and I work myself up into a panic.”

“I’m sorry, Hadley.” The tendons of his hand flexed. It looked like he was about to reach out to comfort me, but changed his mind at the last second.

I nodded. “Thanks. I just can’t picture my life without her. I want her to be there for the things that matter. Like if I ever got married or had kids,” I told him. “She’d be such a wonderful grandmother.”

He smiled sympathetically at me. I needed a subject change before I turned into a walking ASPCA commercial.

“Do you picture yourself ever getting married? Would you want kids?” He’d always been such an enigma to me. I decided to try and satiate my curiosity while he was still being relatively open before the inevitable shutdown occurred.

“I haven’t really thought about it that much. I think I’d have to find someone I’d actually want to marry before considering it. It would definitely make my mom happy, though.”

I tilted my head. “Did you want to marry Nicky?” I hoped I wasn’t overstepping.

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

I couldn’t read his expression properly, so I pulled myself up to a sitting position. “It must be hard having to work with an ex,” I said. “I’m not sure I could do it.”

He stretched his long legs out on the grass in front of me before answering. “Some days are worse than others. We seem to manage for the most part.”

Since he didn’t immediately shut me down, I decided to push a little more. “How long did you work together before you got together as a couple?”

I knew I was being nosy, but his romantic life was just another facet of Alexsander Strovinski that I was deeply curious about for reasons I wasn’t quite ready to admit to.

“A few years,” he answered simply.

“And what? All those late nights in the lab you realized you were made for each other?”

“Something like that,” he answered vaguely.

With that response, I figured he was ready to drop it. But to my surprise, he continued after a beat. “She sort of… propositioned me one night. She told me she knew I wasn’t seeing anyone and that she wasn’t either. She said it would be mutually beneficial because our schedules were too busy to ever meet anyone else or go out on dates.”

“Wow, that’s not the romantic story I was hoping for.”

“No, I guess it really isn’t. But she was right. We never had time to meet anyone, especially back in those days. And I liked her well enough. Over time though, her feelings grew, and she wanted more from me than I could give her.”

I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

He looked off toward the lake like he was thinking carefully about what to say next. “Work always comes first for me. It always has. I can get obsessive about it. It’s sort of been the story of my life—work coming between me and the person I’m dating. I thought my relationship with Nicky was the perfect solution. I thought she understood, but I guess I was being selfish. She needed more from me and from our relationship than I could give her, so I eventually broke things off.”

Well, now I just felt sorry for her. She was a rude toad of a human being but giving your heart to someone and having them reject it really hurts. And on top of that, having to still see them and work side by side, day after day, I could see why she’d be jaded.

He inclined his head toward me. “You must think I’m an asshole.”

I shook my head. “No, you did the right thing. It would have been worse for you to string her along when your heart wasn’t truly in it.”

He sighed. “I don’t recommend dating coworkers.”

I shrugged. “Who knows, maybe you’ll end up back together someday.” I felt a knot twist in my stomach at the thought, but second-chance romances were a personal favorite of mine.

He gave me a disparaging look. “I sincerely doubt it.”