CHAPTER 17
I walk back into the suite, happy to see Rick at the whiteboard, writing furiously. Before I can walk two steps into the room, he stops and lifts his head into the air. I slowly walk toward the center island as he turns to me. I set the Coke bottle on the island and wait for him to say the expected “what’s that smell.”
He looks at my hand. “What did you do?”
Close enough. “Bree surprised me in the bathroom and I ended up cutting my hand on the corner of the slide.” I walk over to the storage cabinet as I saw a first aid kit on the wall beside it.
As I am busy sitting by the computer arranging bandages, tape and anti-bacterial ointment, I can hear Rick’s soft steps headed in my direction. I look over my shoulder and up into his face. He seems to be trying to be very careful not to express too much one way or the other. And what was that he said about not being afraid of him?
He takes the seat next to me and looks at the wound on my hand without touching me. Trying for distraction I say, “Have you made much progress?”
“Hhhmmm...?” he groans as he continues to watch me.
Catching myself in mid-eye-roll, I say, “Bree happened to mention that they were close in completing their project work.”
He looks up at me. Bingo. That got his attention. “Close? And why would she even mention that? Was she taunting you?”
“No, she said it when she not-so-subtly told Tucker to get back to work.”
He raises his left eyebrow. “Tucker was in the restroom with you?”
I shake my head. “No, I ran into him as I was getting my Coke.”
“That’s convenient,” he says with a sneer.
I give him my best “really?” look. “I know he told you about what had happened before, but he hasn’t done anything since.”
He shrugs one shoulder, “Is that because he has learned the error of his ways or because I said something to him?”
“Oh, right. You should get credit for his behavior,” I grimace sarcastically.
Looking down at my hand he says, “Never underestimate the power of the vampire threat.”
I turn my hand over so he can’t see the cut. “Don’t worry. I won’t be forgetting that any time soon. What are you doing here anyway?”
“Did you hurt your head, too? I work here, remember?”
“No,” I start, “why aren’t you continuing to work, especially since the other team is close? Instead you’re sitting here watching me bandage my hand.”
He looks back up into my eyes, “What can I say? Your blood is intoxicating.”
I take a slow, deep breath as I can feel the heat of embarrassment sprinkled with excitement inch up my neck, over my jaw and invade my pleasantly round cheeks. Looking away from him I quickly apply the anti-bacterial ointment and tape the bandage securely to my slightly perspiring skin. I pack the supplies up and begin to turn in my seat only to nearly collide with Rick as he leans in closer to me without me realizing it. He is still looking at my bandaged hand. I cover my wounded hand with the other as I move to look into his face. “Rick?” Clearing my throat I stammer. “The show is over.”
He looks up at me with a rather peaceful smile on his face. “And a fantastic show it was.”
I hold his gaze for a few moments, not really knowing what to do with that tidbit of information. Rick slowly reaches up and lightly traces his fingertips down my cheek. I am slightly conscious that I am more comfortable, no longer feeling embarrassed. He slowly glides his fingertips over my chin, just below my lip. I feel as warm and nurtured as I would be swaddled in a huge afghan crocheted by granny Burcham. I blink while shaking my head as if I am ridding myself of a dusting of personal comfort.
Rick is leaning back in his chair, a slight smile on his face. I close my eyes as my temperature elevates, and not in a good way. “I thought I told you to never do that to me again?” I open my eyes and he is leaning forward again, inches away from me. Instead of shrinking back, I try to maintain my posture because I don’t want him to think that I am still scared of him. If he said that I didn’t have to be, then I’m going to call him on it.
He nods, “I know. I would apologize, but it would be a lie.”
I scowl, “What the hell? So, you would do that whenever you want to? How dare you? What was that you said about feeding off a human against their will was like rape?” I cross my arms over my stomach, my body not knowing whether to be angry, throw up or both.
Smiling, he slowly shakes his head. “No. If that were the case, it would have happened more often already. I only did it because there is absolutely no reason why you should be embarrassed by my reaction to you or your blood. It’s natural for me to have urges and I try to express that in the least harmful way possible. I just don’t want you to feel badly about it.”
I softly chuckle. “Natural for you? So it could be any human bleeding and your reaction would be the same? You must go around invading people’s will all of the time.”
He laughs as he lightly places his hand on my arm, hovering ever-so-slightly below my breasts. “It’s natural for me to have the reaction to anyone, but I wouldn’t concern myself with that person’s feelings unless I cared about them.”
His fingertips lightly slide over my arm before he pats my knee. “Come on, let’s get back to work,” he says.
I watch him walk back to the whiteboard as I take a moment to regroup my jumbled nerves. He cares about me. What type of caring, exactly? Friendly? Brotherly? Or is it the type of care that is given to Kobe beef so that we can have a better cut of steak? I definitely don’t want to be considered anyone’s delicacy, at least not in a food sense.
Now I’m hungry. Dammit.
I join him at the whiteboard as he is writing more notes. “Okay, so what do you have so far?” I ask.
“Well it seems that we’re actually dealing with dehydration, at least in part. Now we need to brainstorm on all of the possible variables that contribute to the state of dehydration. The tricky part is that just because it causes dehydration in a human, doesn’t mean that it will do so in a vampire.”
I tap my fingers against my lips, scanning his notes as thoughts seesaw through my head.
I slowly walk over to the whiteboard, pick up a marker and begin to quickly make notes down the left side of the board. When I’m done, I turn back toward Rick. “Okay, in a human we know that dehydration is most often caused by a combination of water loss and not enough water taken in. But vampires don’t even drink water.”
It isn’t exactly a question but Rick responds, “We get some water through the blood we drink. That’s apparently all the water we need.”
I nod slowly as I tap the end of the marker against my lips, scanning my notes on the whiteboard. “That might suggest that vampires need a lower threshold of water to remain hydrated.” I look at him, “I say think because it really depends on how much blood you actually drink.”
Rick’s lips twitch as he tries not to smile. “Definitely more than 8 glasses a day.”
I close my eyes for a moment as my tongue rises in the back of my throat to block the coming bile. I give him my best smile. “Okay, so vampires seemingly drink enough to parallel how much water humans need. So that leaves loss of water.”
I point to each option as I ready myself to mark off the ones that we don’t need to test. “Diarrhea?” I ask.
Rick walks over to the whiteboard, a few feet by my side. “Not an issue.”
I raise an eyebrow, “What if you eat human food that doesn’t agree with you?”
“I guess it’s possible. But most vampires just don’t bother, so it’s not really an issue.”
I “humph” then mark it off the list. “What about vomiting?”
“We do vomit, but not from sickness. It’s usually because of either gorging ourselves or being hit too hard in the stomach.”
Another one marked off the list. “Sweat?”
He nods, “Yes, we do sweat. Either from strenuous activity or heat. And like humans, some of us sweat more than others.”
“Deodorant?”
Rick looks at me, grinning. “I didn’t realize that deodorant caused dehydration.”
I shake my head as I wriggle my nose. “No, do you use deodorant? Or do vampires sweat all over the place without any care for body odor? That would definitely lend credence to the stereotype of vampires smelling like the dead.” I unsuccessfully stifle a giggle.
“Maybe some, just like humans. Believe me, there are some humans whose lack of deodorant consideration is so extreme that I couldn’t even bring myself to bite them if I were starving.”
I laugh as he smiles at me. Composing myself I say, “Okay, so just like humans, many vampires do use deodorant but there are still some that are stinky.” I move on to the next option. “What about diabetes?”
Rick shakes his head, “I’ve never heard of it with vampires. I guess if we only drank from sugar or carb addicts, it might come up, but I doubt it.”
I mark it off the list, “Burns? I don’t really have to ask that because that’s a no-brainer.”
He nods without commenting.
“Inability to drink fluids?”
He puts his hand on his hip, his face scrunched in concentration. The silence grows for several moments. He finally says, “I cannot think of an instance where a vampire would not be able to drink blood, unless there was torture involved. There are some vampires who for whatever crazy reason abstain from drinking blood altogether. They would be more susceptible to dehydration, but more than those types die because of sun exposure.”
I nod once then mark it off the list. “Okay, that means that vomiting and burns are left as possible factors.”
“Unless there’s something unique to vampires that causes dehydration.”
I lay the marker down and cross my arms. “How do we find that out when there hasn’t been much research done on vampires much less on this specific topic?”
Rick raises his eyebrows and cocks his head. “Thalia?”
I drop my arms to my side. “You can’t be serious.”
“What other choice do we have? Like you said, there’s no research on this. We’ve already done experiments on her, so why not continue until we get the information we need?”
Breathing deeply I nod my head in reluctant agreement. “So what’s your suggestion?”
There is a knock on the door. We turn to see Allison walk through the door.
“Good early morning,” she announces cheerfully without cracking a smile. “Everyone is meeting in the conference room in 15 minutes. One of the research teams has come up with a solution and they will be presenting their findings to everyone, along with a demonstration.”
She looks at me then at Rick as she smiles briefly. “See you in the conference room. Please be prompt as Mr. Caulfield wants no delays.”
Allison briskly exits the suite, closing the door firmly behind her.
It is like all of the oxygen left the room with her. I don’t realize that I am holding my breath, or maybe I have forgotten to breathe, until Rick touches my shoulder. I jump at the brief contact and look at him, eyes wide and rimmed with the sadness of defeat.
“What do we do now?” I ask him.
He tilts his head to the side and shrugs, “We go see what they have come up with, challenge them where we can, suggest something better if what we’ve been working on seems more viable,” he pauses, “and be happy that someone has found a solution to this problem, if indeed they are successful.”
I stare at nothing in particular while still facing him. “How did you get so professionally mature?”
The corner of his mouth upturns. “Oh, about seventy-seven years of practice. Give or take a few months.” He reaches out and takes my hand, lightly squeezing as if to infuse me with the strength I will need to walk into the conference room with my head held high.
I really don’t need it. I can feign strength when I need to, which is often. I can get along much better in my career by acting like an accepting professional when deep inside I want to rage against the fact that someone beat me to the punch or outsmarted me. Accepting defeat with grace is the most common artificial behavior that “successful” people develop. I learned very quickly that the great secret to surviving in a competitive workforce is to act like a team player when I’m actually plotting the downfall of all my nemeses. Everyone does it, we just don’t talk about it...it’s not the professional thing to do.
I squeeze Rick’s hand and give a small smile. Get ready for one hell of a performance. Meryl Streep would be proud.