Chapter 39: Missing Variable
Timeline: 17:15, Monday
Location: Agonwood R&D Campus, Outside of The Barn
We walked out of the side exit of The Barn into the cooling evening air. The sun was just starting to dip behind the Santa Cruz mountains, casting long, golden shadows across the gravel paths. Our shoes could be heard crunching and displacing the rough pieces of rock. I could only describe it as a lethargic snare drum.
Alex walked beside me, his hands in his jacket pockets. He had that bespoke, structural grace that made him look like he owned the ground he walked on—mostly because he actually did. Julian may have owned the staff housing, his suped-up MacLaren, and maybe even me. But the rest of the kingdom of Agonwood was the domain of Alex Greyson.
"You're quiet," Alex noted after we passed the first row of some type of manicured drought-tolerant bushes.
"I'm processing," I said, kicking a loose pebble with my boot. "Today was... not what I expected, at all."
"It was intense, unsurprisingly," Alex corrected. "Julian tends to redline the equipment to move things along. He doesn't believe in safety margins."
I looked at him sideways. "He somehow seems impulsive and oddly patient, at the same time. I guess that's what makes him good at keeping the team moving forward."
"It is," Alex agreed, his tone neutral. "He applies maximum pressure until he gets a result. It works, but it causes fatigue damage to the system. And the people."
We continued in silence until we reached the staff rowhouses. My mind, however, was mulling over his words and replaying scenes from the day.
Julian: 'I needed to know that when your brain tells you to quit, you'll listen to me instead.'
'And you are mine to correct.'
'.. you need structure. You crave it… I give you the parameters. I keep you focused."
Alex: 'He applies maximum pressure until he gets a result.'
Then Julian's declaration from Saturday:
"If you can't even tell me whether you want me to kiss you or not, then you're not ready for the things I want to do to you. And I will need your consent."
I collided with something while deep in thought.
That something was Alex.
We were in front of his housing unit: Unit 1. He held onto my shoulders at arm's length with both hands, steadying me and searching my face.
"I was asking if we should go check on Nephy?" he repeated, amusement dancing in his eyes.
I nodded, embarrassed that I wasn't paying attention and had walked right into him. How long was he standing there?
We walked past Unit 2—Julian's unit—which sat silent and dark between us. We had left him, Marcus and Dave at The Barn while we played hooky. When we got to my door at Unit 3, I waved the key over the sensor and heard the comforting click of access.
"She's still not used to everyone, so don't be offended if she hides," I warned him.
"Duly noted," Alex said with a smile.
As expected, I saw the blur of dark fur running up the stairs the moment the door cracked open. Alex followed me in, looking around the chaos of my living room with a polite, non-judgmental expression. I excused myself to go track down my cat, check the litterbox, and attempt to get her familiar with Alex.
I went upstairs and found her, also as expected, under the bed looking back at me with wide, accusatory eyes.
"Hey there, little lady," I cooed, laying on my stomach to look at her. "We didn't mean to scare you."
I pursed my lips together. "Listen. You can't go cozy up to the naughty one and hide from the nice one. Would you at least try to be a little social?"
Nephy responded by turning around and giving me "the butt."
I sighed, resting my forehead on the carpet. "I get it. Too soon. Just… sometime before the project ends? For me?"
She ignored me. Such a cat.
Come to think of it, maybe Nephy has been training me how to deal with the Julians of the world all along?
I stood up and went to the bathroom to wash my hands before I went back downstairs. I splashed cold water on my face, trying to wash away the cave dust and the lingering anxiety.
And there, in the mirror, I saw it.
Julian's mark.
It was a dark patch against my pale skin right where the neck meets the shoulder.
Is this what Alex saw every time he looked at me?
My face reddened, which was at least helpful in disguising the… uhm… hickey. In my panic, I started digging through my makeup bag for some heavy-duty concealer.
That jerk. I can't let any of my friends see this. Alex is bad enough. He's just using my embarrassment as another means of control.
And I'm the idiot who keeps letting it happen.
I suck.
I felt deflated. I've told Julian 'no,' and he respected it. So why can't I bring myself to do it again? Maybe I'm already broken.
As I stood there, dabbing concealer over the bruise, I knew it wasn't the fact he did it that annoyed me. It was how much I enjoyed it.
But Alex was waiting downstairs, and I needed to refocus.
Wait. Why did he come over here?
Then something occurred to me and I gasped, dropping the concealer tube. "He's alone with the sticky-note wall!" I exclaimed. to no one in particular.
No. No. No. No.
I hurried back downstairs and—sure enough—Alex was standing in the living room.
My "Analysis Wall" was plastered right behind my bean bag chair, impossible to miss. It was a chaotic explosion of colored paper categorizing potential failure modes.
* PINK: ELECTRICAL SPIKE, ARC FLASH, ELECTROCUTION
* BLUE: STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE, MATERIAL FATIGUE
* YELLOW: VOLTAGE DROP
* GREEN: NULL RESULT
And right in the center of the pink "Danger" cluster was the note Julian had placed there himself:
JULIAN VANE
Alex was staring right at it. He was looking at the name in Julian's handwriting sitting in the center of my danger analysis.
I felt very small. It was like he was seeing my true madness for the first time. The inner anxiety that constantly pricks at my synapses, displayed in neon. I felt… exposed.
Should I acknowledge it? Ignore it?
I decided to pretend it was no big deal—just like I pretended he didn't notice the mark. I just knew he would be polite enough not to point it out to me. Right?
"It's an interesting risk assessment," Alex commented, reading the Arc Flash note next to Julian's name.
Crap.
"Yes," I said, trying to sound nonchalant as I walked past him to the kitchen. "Late-night ramblings probably shouldn't be on display, I suppose."
He turned and walked toward me. I grabbed a dish towel and wiped at nothing on the kitchen island, staring at the countertop to avoid his eyes.
Had he also seen the purple note that said "Alex's motive?"
Double crap.
He removed the towel from my hand. "Let's cook something."
It took a moment for my brain to register what he had said. I blinked up at him.
"Good," he said. "We'll do it together. I need a sous chef."
"Cook?" I mumbled, my brain still stuck on the sticky note wall and the hickey. "I think I have Cup Noodles..."
"Safety protocols first," Alex murmured.
He reached behind him—I didn't even see where he grabbed it from—and shook out a navy blue chef's apron. He slipped it over his own head, tying it over his dress shirt like he'd worn one every day of his life.
Then he held up a second one.
"Arms up."
I was so distracted by my internal panic that I just obeyed. I lifted my arms like a child being dressed for school.
Alex slipped the apron over my head. The loop settled around my neck, resting gently before slipping my hair out from under it. I held my breath as he reached around my waist to tie the strings behind my back.
He was close. I could feel the heat radiating off him and smell cedar soap.
"There," he said near my ear, tightening the knot. "Safety first."
I smoothed the front of the apron absently, my eyes drifting back to the living room, terrified he was going to look at the wall again.
"Here," Alex said, pulling my attention back. He handed me a peeler and pointed to a pile of vegetables on the counter. "Peel."
I grabbed the peeler automatically. "I'm not sure I'm up to your culinary standards, but I'll give it a try."
I started peeling a zucchini, but my hands were shaking slightly. I was hacking at the poor vegetable, taking off huge chunks of flesh with the skin.
Julian marked me and put his own name on my wall in the most pretentious way as a "danger." And then there's the note questioning Alex's motives. I'm so screwed.
"Lonna," Alex said softly.
I looked down. I had essentially sharpened the zucchini into a spear.
"You have to start with a good foundation before you can build anything on it," Alex said.
He reached around from the back and put his hands over mine. His grip was warm and steady. He guided my hands, slowing down the frantic movements.
"I think of cooking like edible architecture. If you cut the foundation unevenly, the flavor profile collapses." He paused and leaned back to see if I was paying attention. "Maybe for you, we could think of it like a thermal conductor. If this slice is four millimeters and this one is two, the thin one burns before the thick one caramelizes."
"Thermal conductivity. Uniformity," I repeated.
Making sure I was following his example, he took over the slicing. He cut the squash and zucchini in perfectly sliced, colorful rounds. I picked up an eggplant and tried to mimic him, slowly measuring the width of each cut.
"So, what are we making?"
"Tian Provençal," he said.
I smiled while continuing to agonize over my eggplant slices. "That sounds fancy. But 'Provençal' just means it's a dish from southern France, right? And 'tian' is…"
Alex hummed for a moment and said, "It's similar to a casserole dish—a type of shallow earthenware for baking."
"Alex," I said, giving him a side-eye. "So Tian Provençal is just a fancy way to say veggies au gratin?"
He chuckled. "Lesson number two: Even something that looks fancy on the outside might be comforting and warm on the inside."
"You look like you intended that all along, but you are definitely making it up."
"I admit nothing," he said with a genuine, soft laugh.
I grinned. "Most of our conversations seem so serious. But right now, you look like you're having fun."
"I had fun at the club with you and your friends."
"No. You were definitely chaperoning," I corrected. "When you have fun, you scrunch your eyes. When you pretend to have fun, they're just normal."
He paused and lowered his head.
Is this what he looks like when he gets embarrassed? It's his 'kawaii' look again.
My face was one big smile, which I tried to hide when he composed himself.
"Here. Place the rounds in alternating colors. Green, yellow, red, purple. Keep the spiral tight. We want a dense pack so they steam each other while the tops roast."
"You had me at Fibonacci," I said and started my spiral.
"No, wait. You have to fill the center, too. It's more kaleidoscope than golden ratio."
"Booooo," I jeered half-heartedly. "By the way, what are we doing about the gratin part?
Alex gave a roguish grin and walked to my fridge and handed a package to me. "Grate this. No shreds. Small, like snow," he ordered.
"Yes, chef!" I've always wanted to say that.
Alex continued to sauté onions, garlic and thyme, and I finished organizing my veggie rounds.
Then I opened the paper that wrapped something that smelled awful. I recoiled. "Oh god. Alex, is this safe? I think it's gone bad."
"It is Gruyère," Alex said without looking up. "Aged eighteen months."
"It smells like a gym sock," I noted, holding it at arm's length.
Is he trying to suppress a laugh?
"Trust me," Alex said. "The volatile compounds burn off. It smells like feet now so it can taste like heaven later."
"How does someone get past the Feet stage and into the Heaven stage?" I pinched my nose. The last thing I wanted to do was cut it and have that smell permeate through the entire house.
Alex walked over to my fridge again, pulled something out of a drawer. I heard a few thwacks with a knife on a cutting board and then I heard him say, "Here. Put this in your mouth."
He held out a lemon slice, but wouldn't let me grab it. "No. Your hands are for grating."
"Wanna switch?" I whimpered.
"Open," he ordered and popped the lemon into my mouth.
I tried to say 'so sour' around the lemon, but it came out, "Stho sthour."
Hang on. I didn't have lemons. And I definitely didn't have aged stinky cheese.
I chewed the lemon and swallowed it.
"Hey, Alex…" I started.
"If you swallow the lemon, it defeats the purpose," he said, holding out another slice.
"Wait. It's just… where did the lemon and stinky cheese come from?" I started to look around. "Or the professional knives. And I only had one good skillet I brought with me."
"Open."
Pop.
"There. Hold it in your mouth. Don't swallow it." He turned back around and continued cooking.
"Thaths no' n ansther." I tried to say 'that's not an answer.'
He ignored me, so I bit down and swallowed the lemon again—this time feeling my eyes start to water. But I pushed through it and started to repeat myself.
"I said…"
Pop.
This time he held his fingers at my chin to ensure my mouth stayed closed. "If you swallow this one," he warned, "the next time we cook, I'll have your fridge stocked with durian."
My eyes went wide. I'd heard about that fruit (?) in an anime. It's described as a stink that is a mix of expired cheese, rotting onions, raw sewage and vomit. It's even banned on public transit in some countries.
I shook my head vigorously to decline and put up my hands in surrender.
Alex burst out laughing.
It was a real laugh—bright, unguarded, and echoing off the walls of the newly upgraded kitchen.