LIVING THE DREAM ✅

Six: The driving teacher, the flinging of the door and the brothers.

"Hey, Lay Lay," William grinned as he exited his grey Mitsubishi and slammed the door shut. He leaned against the car like a cheesy movie character, his arms crossed on his chest, holding a pair of sunglasses. When Hayley reached in front of him, he uncrossed his arms and gestured for her to get into the passenger seat of the car. "This way, milady."

"Shut up," Hayley grumbled as she fasted her seatbelt. "Don't call me Lay Lay. What are you so happy about?"

"It's a beautiful day. Don't you enjoy some sunshine after a lot of rain yesterday?"

"No," she grumbled again. "What would I need the sun for? Photosynthesis?"

William held his hands up and sighed. "Why are you so grumpy anyways?"

Hayley sighed back. "My sister and I had a fight last night. I told you."

"So? Siblings fight all the time, like it's their job. Are you still angry over that?"

"What? You say it like you don't hate your brother!"

"I don't hate my brother!" William chuckled as he started the car. "In fact, he is like one of my favorite people. Even if he did choose for me a course I didn't like, I'm glad he did it anyway because I don't know what I'd have chosen if the decision was up to me.

"Look, I don't know what the relationship between you and your sister is like but you shouldn't spend so much time overanalyzing and being angry at your siblings like that. One day, they'll be gone to pursue their own lives and you won't have them to baby you around anymore. They'll get married, have kids and have their own families, y'know."

"But-"

"No buts," William made a shushing sound. "Now are you ready?"

Hayley's eyes snapped towards him. "Ready for what?"

"Your first driving lesson, duh."

"No," her eyes widened.

"Well, then. Get ready."

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

"But-"

"Didn't you say that your sister won't let you touch her car if you can't drive?"

Hayley nodded. He had a valid point there. "Yes."

"My brother wouldn't let me either until I learnt. And get this, it took me like three days to learn," he grinned. "If you start learning now, you will be able to drive yourself after internship. It's ten weeks long, you can't be that much of a slow learner, right?"

Hayley shook her head vigorously. "I think this is a bad idea."

"And we are just twenty. We don't think before we do stuff! There's plenty of time in the future for that."

William's reasoning wasn't entirely bad. Twenty year olds like Hayley weren't worrying about much. They were out partying and snorting stuff to blacken their lungs and make them forget their toxic relationships. What would she lose by letting William teach her how to drive? Hadn't she always wanted to?

"You know what? Let's do it," she nodded

"You'll let me teach you?" his voice came out surprised. Then he did a little 'yassss' victory chant. "This is going to be so much fun."

Or not.

About forty minutes later, William pulled up to the now familiar building. But Hayley was almost hyperventilating. They were late. William had taken the longest route - a newly constructed flyover with no traffic - because he claimed that it was the perfect place to train drivers. Hayley had not minded because she hadn't known that the flyover was a one-way road and they had to drive to the end of it in order to rejoin the main road to the lab.

Sounds crazy, right? Hayley thought so too.

She didn't wait for William to park right but instead flew out of the car like it was on fire, ran towards the door and ended up running into it again - because apparently, the receptionist was on her way out and for the second time, she flung the door in Hayley's face. Then she muttered an oops with a sinister smile and walked away.

She's a bitch.

Theo Manson was waiting in the lab, pacing left and right. He stopped pacing when the door opened.
"You're late," he said, his voice sharp. His expression changed when he looked at her forehead. "What is on your face?"

"Ran into a door," she attempted a smile. "Good morning, Mr. Manson."

"Ran into a door, again? Are you that clumsy? I sure hope not because I won't tolerate tardiness nor clumsiness these ten weeks. Copy?"

"Copy."

"Good. Get your lab gear on and get to work. There's a lot we have to do," he threw disposable gloves at her. "There's a milk sample to analyze for a dairy company. You know what to do?"

"Yes."

"Walk me through, then."

"Disinfect the working area first, then prepare the growth medium and the diluent," she first paused to look at Theo's face for any expression. He just looked bored instead. "I sterilize the petri dishes in the hot air oven. After the media and diluent have been sterilized in the autoclave, I do serial dilutions of the milk sample, inoculate in the petri dishes and incubate for a day."

"Okay," Theo nodded. "Temperature and time specifics please?"

"Uh, 180°C for 30 minutes in the hot air oven and 121°C for 15 minutes in the autoclave."

"Good. You better not mess this up."

"Wait," Hayley looked up at Theo who was walking in long strides towards the door. "I'll be doing all this alone?"

"Are you seeing anyone else here?"

"But-"

"This is internship. It's for you to exercise what you learnt in class and get a picture of how the world outside university works. If you can't take that, maybe you shouldn't have applied to Vine in the first place."

Hayley's cheeks burned from embarrassment. She wasn't used to people calling her out like that.
"Uh- well what I mean is, what will I be analyzing for in raw milk?"

Theo raised his eyebrows at her. "What do you think?"

"I think total plate count to uh determine the microbial population in the milk."

"And then?"

"Compare with the dairy standards to comment on if the milk is or isn't safe for consumption."

"See," Theo shrugged. "You don't need me after all."

"But-"

"Just do the total plate count, I'll do the Staphylococcus test myself," he waved her off. "Also, prepare enough agar, broth and diluent to last a whole week. We share the autoclave with the second lab and Alice has an intern too. I'm sure you have met him."

"Huh?"

"William. Have you met him?"

"Uh, yes."

"Don't abandon your work to hang out with him. He might tempt you now that I won't be here."

"What? How do you know?"

"How can I not know?" Theo chuckled. "He's my brother."

Did you see that coming?

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