Penny was looking at them again; he couldn’t acknowledge Greg’s question; it seemed too intimate. Dale’s heart pattered. “How are your experiments going? Are your results comparable to June’s?”
“Yeah.” Greg glanced sideways, as though trying to see if Penny was still listening. “But the current set will only be done in two hours. Maybe check with me then.”
Between his words, Dale understood Rest for two hours. I’ll see you after that.
He turned away, leaning his shoulder into Greg’s arm so it looked like an accidental bump. The brief touch was comforting, and Dale wished he could have had more. “I’ll speak with you again later.”
“Get some rest,” his alpha said.
Dale’s heart swelled. When he glanced back, he found Greg’s gaze soft and warm, tinted with concern. “I’ll be fine,” Dale said. “June will accompany me to the office. There are some things I’ll need to discuss with her, anyway.”
“Fine,” Greg said.
Dale stopped by June’s bench, where she was working on her current procedure. While he waited, Dale looked at his phone again, scrolling to Bernard Hastings’ email. Greg couldn’t possibly want to spend his life with Dale. Not when Dale could miscarry anytime, and Greg would be free to go. He could fall in love with someone else, like Penny.
I’ll attend the dinner, Dale typed. Then he hit Send, and slid the phone back in his pocket.
When June accompanied him out five minutes later, she steadied him by the arm, frowning.
“What did you say to Penny?” Dale asked, massaging his stiff shoulders. “She seems terrified of you.”
June sighed, glancing down the empty hallways. “She was getting nosy about my relationship with you. I said it wasn’t her place to question your choices, but maybe with a few harsher words.”
She smiled sheepishly. Dale groaned. “I hope it doesn’t get worse. That was awkward.”
“You did land yourself some trouble,” she said, shaking her head. “How are you doing? I haven’t talked to you properly in weeks.”
Dale looked over his shoulder. This late at night, the only people staying in the labs were the grad students and post-docs, rushing projects and working on journal articles. There was no one in the corridor right now. “I’m doing fine. Greg’s been... really patient with me. I don’t even understand why he’s still putting up with my crap.”
“Oh, Dale.” June squeezed his arm. She smelled like birch, with faint petunia undertones. Her fiancée’s scent. “I can see why he likes you. You’re so serious all the time—you need someone to drag you out of your shell.”
“I don’t need to be dragged anywhere.”
“You do seem happier, though.”
Dale glanced down at his belly, oily unease unfurling through his stomach. “Maybe.”
“Something happened. Is it the baby?”
“Yes.” He caught his lip between his teeth. “The... the risks. I only looked them up last night.”
June winced, turning them round a corner. “Bad? I’ve never researched it myself.”
“Bad enough that I don’t want to think about it,” Dale mumbled, wringing his fingers.
“Oh, Dale.” June held his hand, giving him a squeeze. Dale squeezed back.
“If I lose the baby, he might—might leave.”
“I don’t think he will,” June said. “Have you seen the way he watches me when I hug you?”
Dale smiled, his heart thudding. He hadn’t thought Greg cared that much. “I’m just worried.”
“You don’t have to worry about Greg. That much, I’m sure of.”
But there was everything else to think about—the baby, the tenure, Greg’s father. Greg finding out about the risks, and leaving. No matter how much he said he loved Dale, surely there was a part of him that wanted a family at some point. If the pregnancy failed, Dale wouldn’t be able to provide that.
As they walked, Dale’s limbs weighed him down, his head heavy with fatigue. He didn’t speak until he reached his office. There, he unlocked the door, pushing it open.
The sight of the couch had him swaying on his feet. It called out to him, promising peaceful rest.
“Sleep,” June said firmly, guiding him over to the couch. “You look like you desperately need it.”
“I should be working harder,” Dale said. But he kicked his shoes off, curling up on the couch. It smelled like himself, and he snuggled into the cushions, taking comfort in its familiarity.
“You can’t work if you don’t have rest,” June said. She checked the room, then waved at the key in the door. “Do you want this?”
“Hand it to Greg. Please, and thank you.” Dale set his glasses on the side table.
June nodded, worry in her eyes when she looked back at him. “Call if you need anything. You have a couple of alphas who will do anything for you.”
Dale smiled. “You should spend more time with Cher—I’m sure she misses you while you’re cooped up in the lab.”
June cracked a smile. “Will do, once we get this project over with. Or, if we call off this fake engagement, maybe she can step into the lab or something.”
“We really should do that,” Dale mumbled. Before he could linger on that thought, his eyelids drooped shut, and fatigue pulled him under.
18
Greg
Time passed a lot slower without Dale around. Greg looked up when the lab door opened again, but June was the only one in the doorway.
She’d delivered Dale safely to his office, then. That was far better than the alternative: Dale staggering to the office himself, prone to collapsing along the way. He hadn’t looked okay the entire day.
June walked up to Greg, nodding at him. “Everything good?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m waiting for the oxidase powder to dissolve.”
“Great.” June glanced at Penny, who was frowning at her own experiment. Without missing a beat, June set a key on the bench inches from Greg—Dale’s office key. “Someday, I want to have a couch in my own office,” she said.
So Dale was sleeping on the couch. That was a relief to hear.
She smiled at him, then turned back to her own bench, where six glass vials sat on the magnetic stirrer, little magnets spinning inside them.
Greg slipped the key into his pocket, imagining
