Page 21 of Love and Gravity

“Does not pretending it didn’t happen encompass you being civil and professional?”

Grace tilted her head in consideration before she nodded. “It does.”

An ill-fated crush on Anton didn’t mean she couldn’t do her job. Just because he asked her out didn’t mean anything. She knew he hadn’t ghosted her now. He’d just had his universe upended and not in a good way. That lessened the sting somewhat, but it was still too fresh to think of anything more. Lou gave her hand a pat and Grace smiled. She could do anything, was willing to do anything, for Lou. Treating Anton professionally was the least of those things.

“Then I’m fine with you holding a grudge,” Lou said.

“Who said I was going to hold a grudge?” Grace asked, feigning innocence. They both knew she could hold a grudge till doomsday. It was one of her superpowers.

Another light pat to her hand from Lou. “I know you.”

“Touché.”

five

“You cannot build a betterworld without improving the individuals.”—Marie Curie

“Coffee?”

Anton’s head snapped up at the soft voice. He swallowed hard when he saw Grace holding a coffee cup out to him. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the way her eyes slid away from his shut him right up. He didn’t even know what he would begin to say after yesterday and like the old saying went, ‘silence is golden.’

“Black, right?” she asked, making him want to melt into the floor and evaporate into the atmosphere. He wanted to tell himself she knew his coffee order from the times they’d been on the phone and she’d caught him drinking a cup at two in the morning, but he knew it wasn’t that. She’d remembered his barked order from the day before. Anton felt like dog shit on the bottom of a shoe for that one, but he deserved it.

All he could do was nod as he took the cup from her. “Thank you,” he murmured.

Grace inclined her head in acknowledgement but said nothing else. Just turned away, already moving on to the next scientist with a warm smile and another cup of coffee. Anton’s lips pursed at the sight of her toothy grin, radiant and warm. It was a look Anton wished she had directed at him. He’d thought about what it would be like when he was here in Geneva with Grace. What her smile might look like, or what having coffee with her might be like. He’d done that idle daydreaming when he’d gotten stuck on a problem with RED. It was infinitely easier to consider setbacks when he had Grace running through his mind. Even if it was just the sound of her voice or their earlier conversation.

Now that he had the real thing in front of him, had Grace so close he could reach out and touch her, she didn’t send any smiles his way.

He stifled a sigh, eyes tracking Grace as he nursed his cup of coffee. It was torture trying to sort out his own team and not be hyperaware of Grace as she flitted through the lab. Her mass of pink hair acted like a beacon. Then there was the part where she was stunning. He shifted and forced himself to look anywhere but at Grace. She had her thick hair all done in curls and pinned up in a perfect pairing to her red lipstick, rounding out the picture of a pinup from Anton’s fantasies. It was going to be a long day with Grace in the lab, all right. Anton took another sip of his coffee and opened up his work on the tablet Lou had given him yesterday. He was lucky she hadn’t chucked it at his head with how angry she was at him.

Maybe he could cut his stint in Geneva short? But what would he say? That he had to beg off because he was inexplicably and distractedly attracted to the smart-mouthed lab assistant? That wouldn’t be professional.

And besides, it wasn’t in step with his plan to get Grace to fall for him again. Just because he was seeing how hard it was going to be to stay focused with her around didn’t mean he was going to turn tail. He was going to stand strong and make this happen. That was, if he wasn’t distracted-to-death-by-pink-haired-goddesses first.

“Anton, are you there?”

Mindy, his lab assistant, tapped her pen against his chest with a pinched look on her face.

“What?” he asked, even as he stared off hopelessly at Grace, who laughed at whatever joke a tech had just told her. Fuck.

When did he pine after women?

He never pined.

Yes, he’d sort of pined for Grace before, but that had been different. Now it was unrequited. That would not do. It would not do at all. He should be better than longing looks. He’d dated a princess, for heaven’s sake! By god, he was debonair. He was never going to get her back by staring at her like a pre-teen with a crush.

He forced his attention back to Mindy. “Right, sorry, sorry. What is it?”

“Swear to god you get spacey sometimes,” she said, but nothing else, for which he was grateful. The last thing he needed was for someone to comment on his behavior. Mindy was eagle-eyed. There was no way she hadn’t caught him staring at Grace. But it couldn't be helped. He had a new problem to figure out. The equation of how to unfuck things with Grace, and he was starting from zero.

He wiggled his pen in his hand and glanced at Grace again. It was new to him to not be the focus of attention, and it puzzled him. How did this work? Was he supposed to wait for her to approach him? Or were they forever doomed to dance around one another in the labs? Would he be able to bring up one of the books she loved and use that as a bridge back to whatever they had almost been?

He looked away from her when Mindy smacked him in the chest with a list. “What is this?” he asked, trying to make sense of the paper he now held.

“Inventory. We need to take it to make sure nothing got left behind and if it did, I can start replacing it,” she said, dropping down on the stool beside him. “Now, if you could focus?”

Anton gave her a mock salute. “Sure thing, boss.”