Page 20 of Tight Spaces

Chapter five

Danusia rolled the pencil between her teeth, the faint taste of wood comforting in its familiarity.

Her roommate, Rebekah, teased Danusia for using the old-fashioned, yellow No. 2 pencils that had to be sharpened every morning before she started work. Danusia firmly maintained a mechanical pencil was not the same. She grabbed the No. 2 and put a check beside another anomaly in the research.

These results simply did not make sense in the face of the company’s claims of a breakthrough in nanotechnology for medical treatment.

She put the pencil back in her mouth and flipped to the next paper in the stack. This one listed results exactly as she’d expected them to be. Her brows drawn together, she put the two printouts side by side.

A big warm hand landed on her shoulder and she gasped, spitting the pencil out. It clattered as it bumpily rolled across her brother’s glass tabletop.

Her heart galloping, she jumped up and spun, knowing on one level that it had to be Max and another not so sure.

It was him and he was smiling. "You know, after this morning, I expected a little different reaction to my return."

She looked around frantically for her cell phone, the only "watch" she ever wore, but it must be buried under the papers she’d been reading. "Um, is it that late already?"

"Later."

Then she noticed his black hair was damp and he was wearing PT shorts that exposed the full of his dark, muscular legs. No shoes, and no shirt. Oh, man.

Her legs wobbled.

The man had a to-die-for chest. "You took a shower."

Without her, darn it!

"I did." He tugged her ponytail. "No massage?"

"Oh, I was going to call and then got to thinking about something I wanted to check in my research..." she trailed off, embarrassed. "Um, how long have you been here?"

"A while. When you didn’t respond to my initial greeting, I found you studying in here." He looked around the dining room she’d taken over for her work area.

"Roman’s desk isn’t big enough to spread out on." She bit her lip. Like Max cared where she studied.

"You get really lost when you’re working, don’t you?"

No use denying it. "Yes."

"That could be dangerous."

"I don’t study away from my apartment at night." When all of her older siblings kept harping on it, she’d finally promised them she would do her library work earlier in the day.

"It’s cute."

"Seriously, you’re not irritated?"

"Nope." And he didn’t look mad either. Not even a little annoyed.

"Oh." Cool.

"You looked pretty intent when I first got here, and not very happy."

"It’s these results." She indicated the printouts on the table. "They’re supposed to show Luminescent Pharmaceutical’s breakthroughs, but they’re pretty much the opposite."

"You think Luminescent is making false claims for their research?"

"They could be. Maybe this data is older, but they’re really sloppy about some stuff. It’s hard to tell."