Just One Thing (The Alexanders 6)

She shook her head. Her crazy imagination was always getting her in trouble. The job hadn’t even really started yet and she was already imagining all the ways it could go wrong. She needed to just give it a chance and approach things with an open mind.

Considering that the alternate was losing her home and her pride, how bad it could it be?

?

It was a disaster.

Before today, Bennett wouldn't have thought there was that much damage one person could do in his lab. After all, he liked to think he ran a logical operation. Everything was in its place and well-labeled so as to reduce confusion. His prior assistant hadn't experienced any trouble following his written notes.

Katie, it turned out, had no aptitude for science. None.

"Sorry!" she called out as she swept up the pieces of the petri dish she'd dropped.

He'd handed it to her and asked her to transfer the contents to the small aquarium on the east wall. Apparently he was supposed to warn her when a sample contained insects or worms.

"I really am sorry. You work with plants so I guess I should have known there would be at least some creepy crawlies involved. And you'd think I'd be better at this after helping Ri plant so many things. I just wasn't expecting it to look right at me!"

Bennett lifted his head from the paperwork he was filling out. "It looked at you? The worm looked at you?"

She huffed slightly. "Well, it looked like he did."

"He? Earthworms don't have gender, per se. It's actually quite fascinating. Even though they're hermaphroditic, having both male and female sex organs, they usually still need a mate to reproduce—" He stopped talking at the horrified look on her face. "Although I suppose that isn't relevant right now."

"No. Not really." She knelt to position the dustpan to collect the mess. A second later, a soft giggle floated up from the floor. "I can't believe you know about the sex life of earthworms."

Bennett wasn’t exactly sure why that was funny but he was glad she didn’t seem offended by his random aside. He knew that was a particular failing, becoming intrigued by some side point and then losing the thread of the current conversation. Katie seemed to find it amusing rather than annoying at least.

“Well, I’ll make sure to keep any live specimens I’m using away from you from now on.”

Katie leaned the broom against the wall. When she came back, she rolled up her sleeves and reached into the box containing the rest of the soil samples.

“Wait, Katie, you don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do. I’m your assistant. If looking at earthworms is part of the job then I’ll just have to get used to it. That’s the job, right?” She walked carefully over to the table across the room and placed each sample in a row where he’d indicated they should go earlier. The table was positioned to get only a certain amount of sunlight per day, mimicking the exposure the soil would receive if it was outside. When she got to the last one, Katie let out a soft sigh of relief.

“There. All done.”

“You’re a very hard worker.”

She shrugged. “I was raised to be. My mom was a seamstress and she worked around the clock, especially after my dad died.”

Bennett looked up at that. “I’m sorry to hear about that.”

“Yeah, it was a hard time. My mom loved him so much and for years afterward she just wasn’t the same. It’s almost like he took a piece of her with him when he left. It’s one of the reasons I love visiting your parents. The way they look at each other— that’s how my parents were, too.”

“My parents are pretty special. Not everyone could raise four sons who are as different as we are without making any of them feel like they didn’t belong.”

Katie tilted her head quizzically. “Why would your parents think any of you didn’t belong?”

“Not the others. They’re all the model sons you’d want. Jackson and Nick especially were the popular, good-looking types that everyone else wanted to be like. Eli was more of a loner but he had the bad boy thing down pat.”

“What about you? What was high school Bennett like?”

He couldn’t hold back a soft snort of disgust. “Not that different than current day Bennett, unfortunately.”

Her lips plumped up into a pout. When had she moved closer? Bennett thought.

“You know what? I think high school Bennett must have been pretty awesome. You’re so smart. I wasn’t like that. I mean, you can probably tell.”