the email,” she said, plucking a folder from her desk. She extended it toward him. “This is your transfer paperwork, just so everything is in line.”
He took the folder but didn’t open it. “Thank you.”
“I really am going to miss you. Please do come down and see us anytime, and I might send some data up to you when no one down here can decipher it.” She smiled, but Hunter knew she wasn’t kidding.
“I’d love that,” he said, standing. “I really am sorry. I didn’t know all of this was going to happen.”
“I know you didn’t,” she said, standing with him. “We’ll just enjoy you while we can.”
He nodded once and left her office. He shed his suit coat in favor of his lab coat and settled in front of his station. He tucked the folder under his keyboard and got to work.
Work was about the only thing Hunter could do these days to keep him from sinking into a deep depression or fighting the urge to smash his fist through the nearest object. He oscillated between hopelessness and anger so fast, sometimes even he got dizzy.
“Hunter,” someone said, and he glanced up from his screen. Joel stood there, and he carried a personal-sized cake in his hands.
Hunter leaned back in his chair. “What’s goin’ on? It’s not my birthday.” He grinned at his friend.
Larry came over, and he had a candle he pushed down into the cake. “You’ve been here for five months,” he said. “We have this big five month celebration in Lab Six, didn’t you know?”
“We do?” Hunter asked with plenty of disbelief in his voice. About as much to match the sarcasm in Larry’s.
Cassie put a stack of paper plates on Hunter’s desk. “Yes,” she said. “Here in Lab Six, we celebrate someone’s five-month anniversary.” She grinned at him and nudged his chair. “Now, get up. We want to sing to you.”
Hunter chuckled as he did what she said. Somehow, they all knew he wouldn’t be here for even six months, and even as he smiled at everyone in the lab who’d stood and faced him, a deep sense of sadness filled him. To think he’d been nervous about starting here, scared people would think he didn’t belong, and terrified he wouldn’t know what to do.
Cassie got up on a chair with Larry’s help, and she raised her arm like she was about to lead the world’ best choir. The team started a rousing song about five months in a job to the tune of Row Your Boat, and Hunter laughed through the whole thing.
Joel lit the candle and said, “Hurry up, or the smoke detectors will go off. Larry, you ready?”
“Ready.” He held a big, blue, plastic bowl in his hands and carried a smile on his face.
Hunter stepped forward and blew out the single flame, and Larry quickly capped the cake with a plastic bowl. Hunter shook his head, because the smoke would get out sooner or later, but he supposed Larry and Joel knew what they were doing.
There was just the one cake, and everyone else went back to their tasks. Cassie, Larry, and Joel pulled up chairs while Hunter cut the cake into quarters. Once they each had a chunk, he grinned around at them. “Thank you,” he said. “How did you guys find out?”
“You’ve been wearing a suit and going to the twenty-fourth floor for a month,” Cassie said. “Call us crime scene investigators.” She looked at Larry, and the two of them laughed.
“You’re a Hammond,” Joel said. “The smartest one I’ve known, and you’re the only one your age. I told Helena the day you started you wouldn’t be in the lab for longer than a year.”
Hunter forked off a bite of cake but didn’t put it in his mouth. “You did?”
“Absolutely,” Joel said. “Your mind is like a computer, Hunt. You can handle a dozen tasks at the same time. You’re a natural fit for CEO.”
Hunter ate the cake, the rich chocolate making his taste buds rejoice. “No one in my family is happy I’m taking the job.”
“Why not?” Larry asked.
“My girlfriend broke up with me because of it.”
“Hunter,” Cassie said sharply. “Why didn’t you come to me? I would’ve told you what to do.”
“What do I do?” he asked, not meeting her eye. Instead, he took another bite of cake.
“You march up to her front door with the biggest bunch of flowers you can find. Her favorite kind.” She pointed around at the three men gathered at Hunter’s