What Happens at Con Read online

  Is he really being a sexist asshat, or is he just being rigorous, one of those “tough guys” in academia that wants to prove how much his team can take? Is it all in my head?

  There was a knock on her door, startling her. She walked over to her closet, grabbing her metal baseball bat as her heart raced. Then she peeked through the peephole.

  Only one man could have that shock of copper hair, she thought.

  And that beard.

  And take up the peephole like Mount Rainier.

  She opened the door, bat still in hand. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Well, you gave me your address, but not your phone number,” he said, “or else I would’ve called. Can I come in?”

  She stepped aside before she realized what she was doing. Damn, she was loopy. “What do you want?” she asked again.

  “You,” he said.

  “Well, you can’t have me. You sure as hell can’t have me tonight,” she said. “I’m tired enough that my eyes are crossed and I can’t see straight, and I have a bunch of papers I still need to grade.”

  “I didn’t come here for sex.” When she laughed out loud at that, he shrugged. “It wasn’t the first priority for me.”

  She laughed again, harder.

  “There were other issues I wanted to discuss as well, okay?” he said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t have the time or the inclination. I got in massive trouble just because of that stupid pipette box. Can you believe?”

  “Seriously? Why?” He looked like someone had goosed him. “It was a box of fucking glassware. I’ll reimburse for damages if it comes to that.”

  “My adviser thinks that women are too clumsy and hysterical to be in labs, apparently,” she said, anger dripping from every syllable. “This only reinforced that. To prove I wasn’t too clumsy, I’ve spent the day cleaning all the glassware and doing a bunch of other menial chores.”

  “What an asshole. Can’t you—”

  “Listen, I know what you’re going to try to do, and believe it or not, I appreciate it,” she said, cutting him off. “But I really don’t need a man ‘fixing’ my problems right now. I don’t need suggestions on how to deal with my asshole thesis adviser, or how I should tell him off, or how to tell the university about how I’m being treated. This is the job. This is getting your PhD. Everybody knows it.”

  He blinked at her. “Are you fucking serious? Why would anybody do this?”

  She stared at him for a second. Honestly, since she’d been in the fifth grade, it had never occurred to her not to go for her PhD. Sure, she’d taken some time off for herself, but really, she’d always known that she’d be inexorably drawn back to science, to immunology or epidemiology.

  Instead, she asked, “Have you ever watched The Walking Dead? Or 28 Days Later?”

  “Um, yeah. Sure.”

  “I was at a slumber party when I first saw 28 Days Later,” she said. “And you know what I thought? I thought, how could it spread that quickly? What were the scientists doing? Why didn’t they have contingencies in place? I actually asked my parents, who were then pissed that I’d watched a zombie movie.”

  She smiled in response to his smile.

  “This is like being a superhero, only in disguise. Superman can save a city, but he usually winds up destroying a lot in the process. So do all of them. This is rescuing thousands, maybe even millions — with no structural damage, unlike a regular superhero.”

  He let out a low whistle. Then he walked toward her.

  She still held the bat, and she held it up. “Easy, buster. You keep your magic penis over there, got it? Or I’m going Ichiro on that bad boy.”

  He winced, taking a step back. “That sounds painful. Is it really that bad for me to be here?”

  “What did I just tell you? I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. You, sir, are a threat to that goal.”

  “That doesn’t seem right,” he said. “What, you’re going to have no more sex for the rest of your life?”

  “For the rest of my doctorate, probably,” she muttered. Of course, that could take, what, two or three years? Maybe more? She sighed heavily, her body already aching under the strain and sadness of that thought. She did enjoy sex.

  “What if I promise to leave right after?” He grinned. “I’ll be quick. You won’t feel a thing.”

  She hated that she snorted a laugh at that before locking her emotions down. She glanced around. There were dirty dishes in her sink, piled up because she hadn’t taken the time to unload her dishwasher. The trash was overrun with takeout boxes because she hadn’t taken the trash out, and she really needed to. She knew her bathroom was in a state, and her floor was littered with balls of paper from her thesis proposal mistakes that she’d wadded up. Her laundry bin was overflowing. She was wearing the same leggings she’d originally made out with him in, when they were in the lab. Hell, she was wearing the same T-shirt, and that had been dirty that day.

  “Gah!” she said, wondering if she smelled. No, she’d showered, because it had woken her up, but… just gah.

  “I’m not the type that can just hit it and kick a guy out,” she said. “I need to feel sexy and in the mood. Right now, I feel about as sexy as a pool noodle.”

  “Pool noodles can be pretty sexy,” he said, and she shook her head.

  “No. I don’t need a lover right now.”

  “So, what do you need?” His voice was growly again, and she felt her heart pick up a beat.

  She glanced around again — at the piles of papers covering the kitchen table, at the trash and the dishes and everything. Then she sighed.

  “What I need is a wife.”

  He blinked at her. “Um… don’t think I can help you there. Even if I were the right sex — marriage seems a little extreme, don’t you think?”

  “Not like that,” she said, finally putting the bat back in the closet. “I mean… you know how men who have big careers, like in the ‘50s, they’d have women who were taking care of everything for them on the home front? Like making them food and cleaning their houses and doing their laundry. That’s what I need.”

  “You need that more than sex?”

  “Sure,” she said easily. “Because once I’ve had sex, all the problems are still there.”

  “But you’d feel a little better, right?”

  She shrugged. “A vibrator could do the same thing, but it can’t do my dishes.”

  He took a step closer to her, and she could smell his woodsy cologne. “You know a vibrator can’t do the same thing I can, darlin’.”

  She gulped. He was right there — she’d never had this kind of response to her mechanical friend.

  Then she had an idea.

  “If you were willing act like my wife, help me out… maybe we could have that booty-call business, as well.”

  “That’s awfully transactional,” he said. “It’s like you’re getting paid for sex in household chores.”

  She nodded. “I’d prefer to think of it as open-minded,” she said. “And at this point, the house is so awful that I’d be happy to have sex to—”

  “No,” he said, quick as a whip.

  She stepped back. “I was kind of kidding.”

  “I’m not doing…” He stopped. “I’m not being a ‘wife’ just to get sex. As incredible as sex between us is. I want you to want me for me, not for fucking chores.”

  She frowned. “It wouldn’t just be to have sex, but it would help me get in the right mindset…”

  “I bet it would,” he said. “Seeing me grovel? Seeing how far I’d go? Jeez. I thought you were different.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, poking him in the chest. “You came over to see me, pal. You wanted a little something-something. Do you know how fucking tired I am, day after day? And do you know how hard it is to feel sexy when you’re wearing dirty clothes and your bedroom is a mess and all you can see around you is chaos? Do you have any idea?”

  “I don’
t have a problem with it,” he said.

  “Well, I do,” she said. God, he was sucking her down another rabbit hole. “Listen, I don’t have time for this. I told you what it would take for me to get in the mood sexually, and you’re just pissy about it. So let’s just leave it at that, okay?”

  She walked over to the door, holding it open.

  “Thanks for stopping by. Sorry I couldn’t be more accommodating,” she said, then tapped her lower lip. “Oh, wait! No, I’m NOT.”

  He growled at her. “You drive me crazy,” he said.

  “Right back atcha,” she said. “And the next time you decide you’re up for a booty call — go find someone else, okay?”

  He stepped out, mumbling, and she shut the door behind him.

  Now she was stirred up, and she still had blizzards of papers left to grade. Damn that man, she thought, eating more noodles. Damn him and the horse he rode in on.

  A week later, Ani couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so tired.

  She’d spent most of the night doing the TA work that Golden Boy Jeffrey had pushed onto her, saying that Dr. Peterson insisted that she be the one to do them “to make up for the glassware debacle.” As if one box of pipettes was going to break the bank. She’d replaced the pipettes, by the way, out of her own pocket. It had been her fault, he was right about that.

  Or Abraham’s, she thought, then winced.

  She’d been trying hard not to think about him. He was pushy and Alpha and antiquated. And buff. Handsome, in a rough, press-you-up-against-a-wall kind of way.

  “Stop it,” she snapped at herself, rubbing at her eyes with her palms. She had one more experiment to do for Dr. Sadist Peterson, and then she’d be able to go home, put some work in on her own proposal, and finally get an early night’s sleep. Maybe rest would be able to help her.

  Of course, the few hours of precious sleep she’d managed to get in the past week hadn’t really helped. She hadn’t seen Abraham since he’d dropped by her apartment unannounced. After telling him off, she got the feeling that she’d never see him again, unless maybe she crossed paths with him at Tessa and Adam’s.

  But he was showing up plenty in her dreams. She couldn’t get away from him there — in some cases literally, where he was chasing her through some moonlit forest and then when he caught her…

  She shivered. Not in fear, but under the influence of something much more primal.

  She’d had an orgasm in her sleep from the last dream of him. That was a welcome stress relief, albeit a weak echo of what she’d experienced with Abraham himself.

  “You just need some rest,” she chastised herself, then took the microfine ball mill out. This was an experiment for Dr. Peterson, one she wasn’t familiar with and hadn’t been given the details for. He just said he needed lactose monohydrate ground.

  She wondered if he was just giving her busywork. She wouldn’t put it past him, honestly.

  She poured the material in the chute, then turned the dial to start the grinding process.

  It didn’t work.

  She blinked. “What the fuck?”

  She checked the plug — it was plugged in. She unplugged it and tried a small scale on the same outlet, just to see if that was the problem. It worked fine.

  “No,” she breathed, plugging the ball mill back in. She bent over, looking at the dials as if she were coaxing a wounded person back to life. “Come on, baby. Just grind a bit for me, please?”

  “Well, if you insist,” a deep voice intoned, and she yelped, leaping up.

  Abraham leaned against the door, his hands in his pockets. “I came to grab you whatever food you wanted,” he said.

  She sighed. “I don’t have time for this,” she said. “I thought I told you to just get out.”

  “And I told you if you tell me that you don’t want me, that you want me to steer clear of you because you have no interest in me whatsoever, I’ll back completely off,” he said, his voice sounding deceptively reasonable. “But you haven’t told me that. You said that you were tired, and that if I’d do some chores for you, maybe we’d have a shot at it.” He frowned. “It goes against the grain, but I’m thinking about it. Like I said, I’m into you. Hard.”

  She was so tired, and so frazzled, she said the first thing that came to mind. “I do want to make out with you, and more. But I don’t want to have to buy more pipettes.”

  He chuckled softly, stroking her face and her jawline, his eyes bright. “Did they really make you buy those fucking things? Tell me how much. I’ll pay for them.”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” she said, feeling bad. “It really was my fault, anyway…”

  “You work too hard,” he said. “If you’ve got time, let me take you out for a quick bite. You have to eat, right?”

  She looked at the broken ball mill. Dr. Peterson was going to blame her, she thought. It was stupid, but he was going to blame her for not being able to “keep up with the work” like Jeffrey — even though Jeffrey had pushed off most of his grading onto her, even though she was being given shit work that undergrads could be doing. He was trying to force her out.

  “Fuck. My. Life,” she said, and to her dismay felt tears leaking down her cheeks.

  “Whoa. Whoa,” Abraham said, his body straightening and going the bad kind of tense. “You’re crying.”

  “No shit,” she said, knuckling the tears away. Annnnd here’s where he leaves, she thought.

  But instead, he took her into a bear hug, which was really the last thing she expected. “Do I have to kick somebody’s ass?” he asked, sounding irate even as he calmly stroked her hair.

  “That’s so stereotypically male,” she said, even as she giggled a little. Yes, giggled. It surprised her.

  “Oh, really? What would your friend Tessa say if somebody hurt you?”

  “Probably the same thing,” she admitted. “But she’d work her way up to it.”

  “I’m a simple man,” Abraham said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong, then?”

  “I’m exhausted,” she said. “And I feel like I’m being set up to fail. My adviser wants me to grind this stuff, with this specific equipment — and it’s broken.”

  “Then tell him it’s broken. It’s not like you broke it, right?”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “I don’t know who did. But he’ll blame me, especially if I don’t get the stuff ready for his experiment in the morning. I need this fixed. I need this done.”

  He frowned. “They should have more than one if this sort of thing happens frequently.”

  She laughed. “Sure. That would mean allocating more budget. Budget is always tight. And they’d rather just have some skewed data than shell out more — you wouldn’t believe what research grad students have to go through to get their doctorates, I swear.” She shook her head. “I will just have to see what he does.”

  But Abraham was looking at the ball mill, frowning. “If it’s broken, what happens to it?”

  “I have no idea. They could call in a repairman, I guess. Or send it out for repair, it’s not that big. Which means nobody would get to use it. Otherwise, they’d have to purchase a new one, and I know they’re not going to be up for that, but we need one, so…”

  “How much could one cost? This fits on the desk. I mean, it’s portable.” He looked at it from all angles. “It can’t be that expensive, can it?”

  She sighed. “A box of pipettes, like the one we broke, costs sixty dollars,” she said. “This is a four by five hundred milliliter gear drive two-liter planetary ball mill. It costs about five thousand dollars.”

  Abraham let out a low whistle.

  “Yeah, that,” she said, rolling her eyes. This was a lot worse than a box of broken pipettes.

  He sighed. “I have an idea, but you ‘ll probably hate it.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “I know a guy who might be able to fix this.”

  She felt her heart start beating faster. “Really? Are you kidding me?”
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  “No. He was a tool-and-die man at Aircraft Dynamics.”

  She let out a low whistle. Everybody knew AD. They were one of the biggest aircraft suppliers in the world. “What’s a tool-and-die man?”

  “Someone who… well, he was basically an engineer. But he could also build things with his hands, straight from the metal, with a lathe or whatever. Custom stuff. If you needed a part fabricated for a prototype, he was your guy.”

  “Was?”

  “Retired.”

  She thought about it for all of a second. It would mean spending more time with Abraham and letting him into her life a little more… the door she’d closed creaking open even wider. And let’s face it, he was going to keep disturbing her sleep.

  But she wanted this fixed. And for whatever strange reason, she trusted him.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s see this guy. I don’t want to let this thing out of my sight or be seen without it. Dr. Peterson will kill me.”

  “It’s a little far, but I’ll get you back by tonight, okay?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Enumclaw,” he said. Then he sighed. “I should warn you — this guy…”

  “What?” She’d seen Abraham at his hungover and grouchiest. How bad could this guy possibly be?

  “He’s my father.”

  She bit her lip.

  Oh. Shit.

  Ani told herself that the reason she was going with Abraham was because she couldn’t trust him and because she didn’t want to have to explain why the grinder had gone missing. At least if she went with it, she felt like she was still responsible for it.

  What if Abraham’s father breaks it?

  Well, technically, it was already broken, she reasoned. It was broken before she got her hands on it, and she probably should have said something. But after the pipette stupidity, she just didn’t want to. If she had a shot at fixing this, by God, she was going to go after it.

  Which was why she was riding in Abraham’s big-ass black truck, headed out to the wilds of Enumclaw. Big grassy areas were dotted with horses or cows behind their fenced… paddocks? Was that what they were called?