The Chemistry of Love
Sariah Wilson
CHAPTER ONE
There were three things that I really despised—being late, the color orange, and having to clean my beakers after making an anhydrous product （because those hardened waxes were nearly impossible to remove）。
Today I was late for work, and the only thing that could have possibly made that worse would have been to arrive at the lab and find out that my next assignment would be to create a lip balm. An orange lip balm.
My boss was going to freak out. And he was going to make a scene while I had to stand there, quietly taking it . . . I shook my head. No. Maybe I could sneak in, and Jerry wouldn’t even notice that I’d come in late.
Even as I thought it, I knew it wouldn’t come true. Something was going to happen. Again.
The guard at the front desk waved me through the security gate without me showing him my badge. Normally I would stop and chat with Daniel, but instead I was too busy doing my White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland impersonation.
I was so, so late. And I was never late.
Daniel furrowed his brow, as if he sensed that something was off. I wondered if he’d tease me, but instead he just smiled. “Good morning, Anna!” he said as he buzzed me through.
“Good morning!” I replied, trying to retain some semblance of dignity as I power walked to the elevator bank.
I could still hear my grandma’s words in my head as the elevator doors finally opened and let me inside. She had noticed my tardiness and said, “Being late is disrespectful to you, and it is disrespectful to your colleagues. Even if you’re not working at a real lab.”
The memory made me sigh heavily. It was a real lab, despite what she thought, and I hadn’t been trying to disrespect anyone. I’d accidentally slept in on my first day back at work after my company’s two-week holiday break, which somehow just zoomed by. One day I was leaving the office with nothing but time in front of me, and the next it was New Year’s Eve, where I sat with my grandparents on their couch and watched the ball drop on their ancient television. My grandpa’s favorite parrot, Feather Locklear, had repeated, “Happy New Year! Happy New Year!” in the room behind me, and I realized that I wasn’t actually happy with my life.
My vague sense of dissatisfaction was also due in part to my grandmother’s constant, pointed comments about me being a cosmetic chemist （or as she liked to call it, wasting my college degree by becoming a “makeup lackey”） instead of choosing an important job, like being an environmental scientist.
Which was what she did for a living.
I was extremely happy with my chosen profession. I was less happy with the lab I worked in. Still a real lab, but it had drawbacks. There were definite bright spots, like my fellow chemist and best friend in the world, Catalina Diaz. She’d been here for six months （compared to my four years）， and being the only two women in our division had quickly cemented our friendship.
That, and our devotion to Lord of the Rings and nerd culture in general.
But working at Minx Cosmetics hadn’t turned out quite how I’d hoped. I had so many ideas, things I wanted to work on and try out, but my boss, Jerry, shot all of my proposals down.
He was the kind of guy who wore a three-piece suit under his crisp, pristine lab coat instead of comfortable clothing like the rest of us and always smelled slightly of formaldehyde. His sporting that particular scent should tell someone everything they needed to know about him.
Radical innovation wasn’t really his thing, despite the fact that we were in the research and development branch of the company.
The branch that was headed up by our yummy vice president, Craig Kimball.
Thinking of him made me sigh, my stomach fluttering. Tall, with light blond hair and smiling light eyes, he was kind and funny and charming—and I’d fallen in love with him.
Catalina was a little too fond of pointing out that Craig and I had never had a conversation that had lasted longer than ten minutes, but that wasn’t a deterrent. I knew we could have something special between us—I just had to find the courage to talk to him again.
Maybe I could tell him about how I wished I could start my own makeup company where I’d be free to experiment and try all sorts of new chemical combinations.
Like neurocosmetics. I loved the idea that there could be an interaction between the nervous system and makeup—that it could possibly influence moods, soothe or inflame, all while making your skin radiant.
That was the reason I was late—I’d stayed up too late reading a paper by a German biochemist about transient receptor potential cation channels and how stimulation of those TRP channels could heal wounds faster and cause skin regeneration.
Seriously fascinating stuff.
The elevator doors opened, letting me out into the lobby of our floor. I walked down the fluorescent-lit hallway, heading toward the lab.
The more I had thought about it, the more I wanted to dabble in neurocosmetics. I wished I could experiment in my home lab, but I still needed to get a high-shear mixer, and the cheapest, smallest one I could find was three thousand dollars.
Which I did not have.
I’d considered asking Jerry if I could stay after work, but I knew he would never let me conduct personal experiments during off hours.
Last night after I finished reading the article, I’d felt inspired. I’d thought about the fact that the New Year had just begun, so I figured it was time to make some resolutions.
First, I resolved to figure out a way to start my own company. I’d take business classes, learn how to find investors, whatever it took. I was personally terrified of change, but I wanted this enough that I hoped I might actually do it.
The second thing I wanted to do was tell Craig how I felt about him. Another terrifying thought, but I’d been in love with him for two years, and after another holiday season spent with my grandparents and their menagerie of birds, I was ready for something more.
A real relationship with the perfect man.
I scanned my badge at the sensor and heard the door to the lab unlock. I walked quickly to my station, ignoring the stares of the other chemists. I hated this uncomfortable feeling.
That was my third resolution. To never be late again.
To never put myself in a position where Jerry might coldly berate me.
I got to my workbench and put my backpack in my bottom drawer, on top of my folded-up lab coat. I remembered that I was chewing gum, as I often did when I felt anxious or needed to concentrate, and I tried to be discreet as I leaned over to spit it out in my trash can. Another thing Jerry hated. Gum chewing while working.
I sat down and had just nudged the drawer shut when I felt someone standing next to my stool.
“Anna! Finally. Here.” Catalina placed a beaker down on my workbench. It was filled with an odorless clear liquid. Which made me remember that in my rush that morning, I’d left my Hydro Flask at home.
I grimaced. I tended to get caught up in my projects and would skip lunch and all fluids—I would definitely dehydrate myself if I didn’t have some water at my table. “What’s this?” I asked her.
“I brought you some cyclopentasiloxane.”
“Why?”
Catalina looked at me like I’d flunked Basic Analytical Chemistry. She was the only person in my life who had ever looked at me that way. “Because the project you were working on before the holidays? The mythical lipstick that’s all-natural and chemical-free, made of the tears of a unicorn and pixie dust? The one that crumbled after you baked it?”