A Symptom of Love (GERI Labs #1)

4. Back In the Moment

4

Back In the Moment

Present Time

“ W ill you watch my seat for me? I’ve worked hard to get it.” She attempts a joke with this gorgeous blue-eyed guy, who’s just saved her from a run to the ER. He gives her a bemused look. “Going to wash my face,” she explains, blaming her need to leave on her messy appearance, omitting the fact that her bladder is about to explode any minute now. Got to go easy on the guy.

“Maybe try walking this time,” he says, face unreadable.

Okay then…

Staring at herself in the bathroom mirror does confirm her suspicion about the mess part. Her hair would make the typical bad hair day seem good, her nose is stained with dried blood and her eyes are begging for some sleep. Miraculously—and thanks to the healthy instincts of this handsome stranger—she didn’t get any blood splotches on her clothes. She washes off the dried blood, trying not to splash herself, which proves to be not very successful and just perfect when wearing a white T-shirt. Finally, in an attempt to put some order in her unruly hair, Eleanor pulls it back into a ponytail, wetting her bangs to lay them flat on her forehead. She’s not sure why she cares, but so be it.

She stops to buy two water bottles—one for her and one for the lifesaving person—in case he hasn’t run away screaming—and goes back to her seat next to the charger. This time extra slowly, which is still faster than the way reasonable people walk, but it’s not running.

A small sense of joy creeps up on her when she sees he’s still there. But she pushes this alarming feeling away, handing him a water bottle and chugging the other one at the speed of light. He opens his bottle and hands it back to her, clearly implying she could use that one too.

“This one was for you,” she says, wiping some water off her upper lip.

“Hmmm,” is his response, as he takes her hand and wraps her fingers around his bottle. A buzz.

Her pulse quickens a notch, before she complies and chugs this one too.

Then she pulls out her laptop, praying that:

She didn’t accidentally break it while she was too busy falling.

The battery hasn’t died yet, which would mean her precious unsaved work is not lost to the digital black hole. She should really turn on the automatic saving feature.

Eleanor presses the power button and sighs with relief when the screen wakes up, maybe a bit too loudly, as it makes the guy turn his gaze toward her with a slight eyebrow furrow. Actually, both eyebrows. He shakes his head. Again.

“I know.” She beams at him. “I’m like an entire entertainment crew.” And since he doesn’t say anything, she adds, “Hey, at least you’re not bored anymore while waiting for your flight.”

“I’m certainly not bored anymore,” he admits.

After drinking two whole water bottles and making sure her laptop is alive, she remembers how hungry she is. Thank goodness for mom-made sandwiches—and relentless insistence. Her mom definitely knows her well. Eleanor pulls the mighty sandwiches out of her bag and offers some to the guy, but he politely refuses.

“You sure? My mom made a ton of these. You’ve just saved my life, and I drank all your water too. The least I could do is give you a sandwich.” She shoves it in his hand. “My mom would not take no for an answer,” Eleanor warns.

“What’s in it?” He hesitates.

“Don’t ask, just try it.”

“I think I should know—”

“Do you have any food allergies?”

“No.”

“Then just try it. No questions.”

The guy gives her a stupefied look but eventually gives in. “It’s good!” he admits, after politely finishing his first bite.

“Told you, my mom’s sandwiches are the best.” She gloats while devouring her sandwich and watching him enjoying his. “It’s one of these things that you shouldn’t question, just trust the magic.”

“You make sandwich eating sound like a philosophical activity,” he says, still bearing his serious expression.

“Isn’t it?” she asks, watching his lips twitch to an almost smile before he can help it.

A small win.

She considers going back to work, but noticing those blue eyes wandering to her screen—or maybe it’s just her imagination—she decides to switch from her precious data mining to reading an older Nature Review paper about cellular barcoding. The idea of being able to track specific cells across time and space is fascinating to her, and she’s been fantasizing about maybe bringing some elements of it into her own research now that budget won’t be an issue. She can finally let her brain go wild. Or wilder.

Eleanor sneaks a quick peek in his direction, curious to know whether he might be staring into her screen, but he’s finished her mom’s sandwich and is now deep into some auto magazine, reading away about new electric car models.

Who’s staring at whose reading material now?

The speakers announce that their flight will be boarding soon. Eleanor reaches to her front backpack compartment to retrieve her phone. She needs to send an update to her mom. Her fingers search but come back empty. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong?” Life-saving guy looks straight at her, his blue eyes concerned, again.

Did she just say that out loud?

“My cell phone,” she mumbles. “I probably dropped it when I ran here from the other terminal.” She recalls glancing at it just before finding out she had been sitting in the wrong place. It must have fallen, possibly smashed somewhere along her frantic running route.

“Where were you before?” he asks with a stern look. “I can help you look for it.”

What makes some stranger want to be so helpful? Is he always like this?

“Pretty much all over the place,” she chuckles. “That’s probably a lost cause.”

His eyebrows crush together in the sweetest expression. “You don’t come across as someone who would give up without a fight,” he says.

“That’s a pretty accurate assessment, but there’s no way we could make it back in time for the flight,” she says despite herself, trying to be responsible for once. “Thank you for the kind offer, though.”

“Come with me.” He gets up and holds out his hand.

Apparently not a quitter either.

They inform the flight attendant, who promises to let Eleanor know by email if they find anything. The woman even goes the extra mile and calls the other terminal to ask if they found an orphaned cell phone—which they haven’t.

They also scan the nearby area but come back empty-handed.

“Can I ask you for a huge favor?” She looks up at him. “Hmm, another one, I mean.” She rubs her forehead, smoothing her bangs to one side. He nods. “Just don’t think I’m a weirdo or something. Unless you already think that, then it won’t make a difference anyway,” she chuckles.

“Go ahead,” he says, clearly intrigued.

“Can you please text my mom?”

“Your mom?” Some degree of amusement in his voice.

“Yes, just to let her know that surprisingly I’m still fine and that we’ll be boarding soon. She’s probably worried. Tell her I lost my phone and not to worry. That I’ll contact her when I get to… Well, hopefully they’ll have a phone there. I would email her, but she never opens her email. Oh, tell her to check her email tomorrow.”

“Okay.” He obliges, pulling out his cell phone.

“Oh, and she doesn’t do regular text messages. Do you have WhatsApp?” Eleanor continues. He gives her a confused look that probably means he doesn’t. “Can you download it? I’m sorry, I know I’m asking for a lot here, but I don’t want to call her in the middle of the night, that would freak her out.” Eleanor takes a second to breathe. “And could you also download a Hebrew keyboard? She won’t believe it’s really me if I text her in English.”

The guy looks speechless and somewhat stunned, but he’s up for the task and follows Eleanor’s directions to the best of his ability. Then hands her his phone so she can text her mom.

Thank goodness for handsome, life-saving guys at airports.

“Let’s just hope she doesn’t block you,” Eleanor utters, typing. The guy quietly chuckles. A sound that bears the potential to mess with her mind. She can already tell. But when she looks up at him, he’s back to his serious face.

They both glance at the screen anxiously, or at least that’s how she feels, until the two check marks turn blue.

“She’s reading it,” Eleanor announces ceremoniously. Relief. Boarding commences around them, but they stay put.

“Ellie, is that you?” her mom responds in Hebrew, which he probably can’t read. “Are you okay? You weren’t kidnapped or lost or anything?”

“She’s double checking it’s really me and ruling out some crazy scenarios that naturally come up in a concerned mother’s mind,” Eleanor summarizes for him, smiling.

”I’m OK Ima, don’t worry,” she writes back in Hebrew. “Going to board the plane now, so got to give this nice guy his phone back. Love you, please read your emails. I’ll email you when I get there.”

“Love you honey, have a safe flight and don’t forget to enter your new apartment with your right foot first,” her mom responds, this time in English—she doesn’t like to exclude others in a conversation.

“Thank you so much!” Eleanor smiles widely at her new favorite stranger who’s just saved the day. “You’ve helped alleviate my worried mom’s concerns. Saving my life twice in one day.” She hands him back the phone. Mission accomplished. Their eyes meet for a second longer than the stranger-to-stranger-in-the-airport kind of normal.

And… there’s something magnetic about it.

“That’s my boarding group,” he finally says, gesturing to the screen. Group two, nice for him. “Are you coming?”

“Oh, I’m with the lowly group five, but you go ahead.” She smiles. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” he says. His manners take her by surprise. She’s been nothing but a big headache. She expected something along the lines of ‘good riddance.’

Thank you again for saving me , she mouths as he disappears into the line of the respectable group-two-boarding people.

Will she ever see him again? Probably not, but that’s surely for the best. She came all this way for her science, for her work, and being next to this guy in the last—has it been an hour? Two? She’s lost track of time—has been quite distracting. Plus, she doesn’t even know his name.