Elements of Chemistry (Part 2) HEAT (2015)

Chapter 6. Dimensional Analysis

UNBELIEVABLE.

That’s the word that kept flying around my stunned brain. I couldn’t even play the synonym game with the word. It was just all completely, totally, entirely, wholly, and absolutely unbelievable.

It was, the entire exchange was, epically unbelievable.

Patricia Sandeke—fourth, latest, and longest-lasting wife of Martin’s father—was…truly a different species. I know it’s not PC to think ill of my fellow females. In fact, one of my life rules is to try to assume the best of people, but—I’m sorry and I’m not sorry—the woman was a miserable excuse for a human being. She was a caricature, the epitome of a scheming, blonde bimbo gold digger.

Maybe she had hidden layers and a secret pain that explained away all her terrible behavior.

Maybe I was being a petulant and judgmental harpy.

Or maybe there were no hidden layers or depth. Maybe there weren’t two sides to this story. Maybe she was a black hole of vapidity and greed.

And Martin…

I tried to swallow. My mouth was dry, and therefore my throat was parched. I hazarded a glance at him but then quickly looked away before he saw my sneak peek.

I didn’t honestly know what to think about Martin.

At present he was staring straight again, the set of his jaw grim, the clouds in his blue eyes menacing. We were speeding away from the house via a fancy speedboat.

I didn’t know anything about boats, but I knew this one was super fancy for a speedboat. It was like a mini yacht. We were in an enclosed cabin aboveboard that looked over the bow; Martin was sitting in the elevated captain’s chair and I was in the co-pilot seat to his left. Both chairs reminded me of splendidly plush, leather barstools with armrests.

The vessel even had a downstairs bedroom with portal windows for undersea viewing. The space was much larger than I’d expected from first glance of the boat hull; it had room enough for a double bed, dresser, desk, bathroom, efficiency kitchen, two closets, and a respectably sized sitting area.

He hadn’t said more than two words since we left the house. But before we left, in his room, he explained that he’d cut morning practice short when Mrs. Greenstone radioed Lee in the boat about Martin’s father and stepmother’s unexpected arrival.

After the showdown at the I’m not OK Corral, otherwise known as Martin’s bedroom, he gave me one of his shirts and a pair of his shorts so I could get dressed. Then he left and told me to lock the door after him.

To me it all felt clandestine, cloak and dagger, high dramatics.

To Martin however, I suspected it felt like a Wednesday.

He returned ten minutes later with my things and informed me I would be sleeping with him for the duration of my stay. I opened my mouth to question this, but then he added that the gargantuan suite was the master suite, and Mr. Sandeke had claimed it for himself.

I wanted to point out that there were other rooms in the house, but Martin’s severe and distracted scowl made me back off. I decided to just go with it…for now.

I changed into my own clothes before we left, but I made him turn around while I dressed. Being naked at night with a happy Martin felt different than being naked during the day with an angry Martin. Yes, the odd modesty rules were likely my own dysfunctions rearing their ugly heads, but I didn’t have time for self-psychoanalysis. Martin wanted us to leave the house, and do so as quickly as possible.

He busied himself by stuffing some of my things and his things into an overnight bag.

When I was finished changing, I risked his ire by asking, “What about Sam? We can’t leave her here.”

“Eric has Sam. He’s taking her to the cottage on the other side of the island. We’re going to meet them there tomorrow. Everyone else, all the other guys, are flying back today.” He didn’t look at me as he said this, as he was too focused on his task of merging the essentials of our belongings into one small bag.

“Tomorrow? She’s staying?”

“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t stay without her, so…” He sighed, picking up my chemistry book. After considering the cover for three seconds, he put it in the bag.

I guessed he didn’t want to chance another encounter with his wicked stepmother. Or maybe it was his father he dreaded seeing. Or maybe both.

Sitting next to him now, while he steered his fancy speedboat with livid concentration, I didn’t know what to say.

When I thought about relationships, I had thought the role of the significant other was to know what to say. My parents always seemed to know what to say to each other. But then, my parents had been married for thirty years and hadn’t been raised by evil people.

I’d only been conversing (about topics other than chemistry) with Martin for six days. Granted, those six days had included quite a lot of conversing. Sam had been right when she’d said this week was relationship boot camp. I was certainly getting bang for my time buck.

But the fact remained I didn’t know Martin well enough to know what to say, or if I should say anything at all. So I fretted instead until he slowed the boat to an idle, stopped it, then cut the engine.

I glanced around us. We were some distance away from the southernmost tip of the island and no other boats were nearby. We were completely alone.

“This was a mistake.”

Martin’s distracted statement drew my attention. I studied him for a beat, wondering if he were planning to continue unprompted.

When he remained silent, his eyes examining the gauges on the dashboard in front of him, I decided to ask, “What was a mistake?”

“Bringing you here, to the island. We should have just stayed on campus; my father wouldn’t have bothered us there. But I thought…” Martin absentmindedly covered his mouth with one hand, lifted his eyes to the horizon.

I didn’t wait to see if he was going to continue. I slipped from my chair and closed the short distance between our seats, standing in front of him, and placing myself between his legs. I wound my arms around his neck as he lowered his eyes to some spot on the floor. His hand dropped to his knee but he made no move to touch me.

“Martin…” I tried to use the voice my dad used when he attempted to explain the unexplainable. It always made me feel safe and comforted; in fact, I repeated my father’s words now because they seemed right for the situation and it was the best I could do.

“We can’t change the past. But we can change how much importance we allow it to have over our future.”

His lips tugged to the side and his eyes drifted shut. He shook his head slowly, but I was gratified when his hands settled on my hips.

“Who told you that?” he asked without opening his eyes; his tone told me he was reluctantly amused.

“My dad, when I didn’t study for a trigonometry test in high school and then subsequently failed it.”

Martin’s laugh burst forth with a tsk and a wonderful scoffing noise; it was adorable because it sounded involuntary. Best of all, when he opened his eyes and gazed at me, he didn’t appear to be angry.

He looked a little helpless, a little lost, a little hopeful, and a lot vulnerable.

“Oh, Martin.” I stepped all the way forward and pulled him into a hug, which he returned immediately. I felt a surge of fierce protectiveness for my Martin. It took my breath away, caught me off guard.

My Martin…oh, sigh.

In that moment I hated his father—a man I’d never met—and his stepmother for their treatment of him. I hated them for being too blind or evil to recognize how sacred his heart was, how he needed tenderness, care, and love. My heart broke a little as I wondered whether he’d ever experienced genuine affection from another person.

Given what I knew so far, I thought the chances were slim.

Yet, there was something about him that made me think he knew what normal was; he seemed to want normal for himself. He knew that mutual respect, honesty, and affection were essential, even though those closest to him had never demonstrated any of those character traits.

His enemies were now my enemies. I hoped he knew that, no matter what happened between us in the long run, whether we ended as friends after all this was over, he had a safe place with me.

After several wordless moments, I kissed his neck then spoke against the spot. “We have several strange conversations queued up for today’s agenda, but for right now I say we just hug it out for a bit, then maybe go swimming.”

He tsk-laughed again, a little longer this time, then pulled away so he could look at my face. I gave him a bright smile; my heart didn’t hurt quite as badly now he was looking less lost.

“Also, I hope you brought food because I’m hungry.” I patted his shoulders. “Please tell me there’re cookies.”

“Are you always like this?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in mock suspicion.

“Like what?” I pretended to be confused. “Amazing?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, finally smiling, “amazing.”

***

AT THE STERN of the boat, we ate at a table that popped up from the deck. Martin set some fishing poles up and left them in these neat fishing pole holders that buzzed when there was a bite, then reeled the fish in on the line. I didn’t even know that kind of thing existed.

“You mean you don’t have to hold the pole in order to fish?”

“Nope.”

I felt slightly outraged. “But…that’s the whole point of fishing, to hold the pole, to reel in the fish.”

“The point of fishing is to catch fish.”

“That’s cheating. You’re cheating at fishing.”

He shrugged. “Outcome is the same.”

A light breeze picked up his hair and tossed it about a bit, playing with it, as though the wind couldn’t resist touching him. Behind Martin was the endless green-blue of the Caribbean and the endless, cloudless soft blue of the sky. The unmistakable, but not unpleasant, salty smell of seawater made the palette of greens and blues feel sharper somehow. Martin’s gorgeous eyes almost glowed on his tanned face.

I smiled at him, because he’d just placed the last of the grapes from lunch on my plate. “Well, where did you even find this infernal contraption? At the lazy fisherman dot com?” I teased.

“No,” he said, “but that’s a good domain name. I invented it.”

“What?”

He popped a grape into his mouth, chewed, then took a drink of his bottled water before finally answering. “The lazy fishing pole. I invented it.”

I stared at him for a beat. I couldn’t decide if I was outraged or proud.

“When did you do that?”

“It was my eighth grade science fair project. The first mock up was very crude since I’d built it myself. But I did a Kickstarter for it my junior year of high school and they’re now manufactured in Switzerland.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know quite what to say, so I studied the grapes.

He was so full of surprises. He was unexpected, and not at all who I thought he’d be. Yet at the same time, who he was made total sense. Martin seemed to really know himself, have a level of comfort and confidence in his own skin. This confidence was wrought by multiple trials by fire, and it manifested as not caring what anyone else thought.

I envied that. I envied him.

Everyone I met always presumed to know who I was because of who my family was, and therefore, what I would do with my life. I had huge, impressive, worthwhile shoes to fill—so obviously that’s what I would do.

Abruptly, apropos of nothing, I blurted, “I don’t think we should move in together.”

Martin’s hand stopped midair as he reached for another grape on my plate and his blue-green eyes told me I’d caught him off guard.

“Really…” he said, like he was stalling for words.

“First of all, I’ve already renewed my dorm room lease for the entire summer, and Sam is counting on me. As well, I’m very regimented about things like dishes and messes and such. I wouldn’t want us to be roommates and find that we can’t stand living with each other. Sam and I keep a chore list and we’re both really good about sticking to it. Would you be that kind of roommate? Also, there is the matter of cost, size, and personal taste. I don’t mind living in a small space, I actually kind of like it. I also like how inexpensive it is compared to an apartment. It is likely that where you’ll want to live wouldn’t suit my budget or my size preference. As well, the opposite is probably true…”

Martin watched me through my well-reasoned speech. His surprise at my subject choice changed to a leveling glare of cynicism, then frustratingly, complete withdrawal.

“If you don’t want to move in with me you can just say so.”

I wrinkled my nose at his frosty tone. “No, Martin—it’s not about wanting or not wanting to move in with you, it’s about thinking through all the pros and cons of any proposed action.”

His jaw ticked. “Do you want to be with me after this week is over?”

“Yes. We’re dating. We’re officially two dating people who are dating each other, at least that is my understanding. We are dating, right?”

He nodded coolly, but said nothing.

I tried to pacify his sudden surly mood. “We don’t have to move in together in order to be dating, or be in a relationship, or see each other.”

“When?”

I frowned at his question because I didn’t know what he was asking and he looked extremely frustrated.

“When what?”

“When are we going to be together? When will I see you when we get back?”

“You want specific dates and times?”

“How often? Will I see you every day? Or will it be once a week?”

“Martin—”

“Maybe we should make a chore chart for it.” He stood abruptly, looking menacing and angry. “Then you can allocate just the right amount of time to maintaining an adequate relationship.”

I stood as well, heat spreading from my chest to my neck. “That’s not how it would be.”

“I’m going for a swim.” Martin turned from me and pulled off his shirt; he shook off his sandals as I rounded the table, trying to reach him before he jumped off the boat.

“You’re overreacting. Just stop for a second and think about this. I know if you think about this you’ll see that I’m right.”

Martin’s attention was on his watch as he removed it from his wrist. “All I know is that I’m completely crazy about a girl who doesn’t want to move in with me because she’s worried I’ll be messy.”

“That’s an oversimplification of the issue, Martin Sandeke. You can’t let your passion make every decision for you.”

“No, you’re right.” He stilled and glanced up at me then, his eyes glinting like daggers, his voice hard. “It’s much better to be a musical prodigy, to love something passionately, but give up and bow out gracefully. To not fight. To talk yourself out of caring about what matters to you, because then you’ll have all those fine deeds and reasonable decisions and logic to keep you warm at night.”

My mouth moved but nothing emerged. He was being completely crazy and irrational and I had no idea how to interact with someone who was being completely crazy and irrational.

But then I looked at him more closely as he placed his watch on the table and saw the unhappy curve of his mouth. I realized I’d hurt him.

“Martin.” I placed my hand on his bicep to stay his movements. He winced a little at the contact, but I took heart in the fact he didn’t shrug me off. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want us to be—”

“Smart,” he finished for me, his resentful gaze softening as it moved over my face. “I know. You always want to be smart and do the right thing. But the problem is, Parker…I just want you.”