Ace of Hearts - All We Are Series [NaNoWriMo 2014] [#JustWriteIt]

Chapter Nine [Edited]

Daniel and I had exchanged numbers, and planned for this Friday to go out. Though it had only been two days, I was already freaking out internally.

‘I agreed to go out with a guy I barely know! What is wrong with me? I’m usually so much more cautious and sensible than this!’ I thought. Glancing at my desk, I groaned. It was only two in the afternoon, and I still had piles of work to do sitting on my desk.

‘Focus, Anaya!’ I mentally yelled at myself, sifting through the piles.

Finally, it was four o’clock, and I could get ready to leave. I wrapped up my report and grabbed my work bag. As I was putting on my jacket, Lily came running through the door. Internally, I sighed.

“Anaya,” she said, panting. I pushed her into a chair in my office.

“Are you okay there, Lily? Breathe,” I said, slightly alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she panted, taking in large gulps of air.

“Then why did you run all the way over from the other building?” I questioned her. “I know I’m your manager, and I might joke about chemists being crazy, but you don’t have to prove me right!”

“Yeah, I don’t get why,” she leaned over a bit, “they decided to keep us in that other building.” She took in another breath. “Research and development came up with something new!”

“R&D usually takes a while, not spontaneous like this,” I noted.

“Yeah, someone mixed the wrong chemicals … but they think it might actually be significant. They need you to go over … in case you want to do stuff with it… one of the other chemists said that … that adding some natural oils might be better,” Lily said, catching her breath.

“Okay, let me grab some of my materials science engineers and head over,” I said, picking up the phone by my desk.

“Hello, Charles? Could you come down to my office? Bring your coat. R&D has something to show us,” I spoke into the phone.

Not even five minutes later, Charles walked into the office.

“What did those crazy chemists come up with now?” Charles said jokingly, rolling his Asian eyes and shrugging his shoulders in an exaggerated movement.

I raised an eyebrow at him, and then turned towards Lily. Charles looked surprised when he saw the second person in the room.

“Charles, this is Lily Hernandez, one of those crazy chemists. I’ve worked with her a lot in the natural oils. Lily, this is Charles Wang. He’s one of the best MatSci engineers in my department,” I introduced the two.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, should we head over now?” Lily asked me impatiently.

“Shouldn’t we grab Dave?” Charles questioned.

“And this is why you’re the best,” I joked. “We’re grabbing him on the way out. I’m not sure if he’s still here or not as we haven’t been doing many lab tests lately.”

The three of us walked down two flights of stairs and grabbed Dave from the first floor lab. Lily was practically bouncing on her feet at this point.

“Okay, crazy chemist, lead the way,” I laughed at her.

“Crazy chemist?” Dave questioned.

“Don’t ask,” Charles groaned. “I didn’t know she was in the room when I said that.”

Under his breath, he muttered, “Though she is a pretty cute crazy chemist…” I pretended not to hear it.

We exited the building, all four of us grimacing at the harsh winds of November. Entering the Research and Development lab in the next building over, Lily led us to the area where a bunch of chemists were huddled around a beaker.