cheering. My eyes closed, and the blinding lab fell away. I stood onstage in the spotlight.
“Eden?” came a voice from the outer hall.
I swiveled my stool toward the door, anticipating the arrival of my first fan. When Stacy came in, I bowed my head. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on a wooden peg. Unimpressed by my performance, she turned down the radio. “You’re early. How long have you been here?”
“Since seven.” The centrifuge slowed, and I pulled out tubes filled with rodent sperm. “I want to leave a bit early to head into the city and catch Micah’s show.”
She dragged a stool over. “Kelly and I are hitting the clubs tonight. You should come with.”
“Yeah, right. Why don’t you come with me? Kelly’s such a—”
“Such a what?” The devil herself stood in the doorway, phone in hand.
Succubus from hell played on my lips. But it was too early to start a fight. “Such a guy magnet. Nobody can compete with you.”
Kelly didn’t argue and turned her attention back to the phone.
Stacy leaned her elbow on the counter, conspiratorially talking over my head. “Eden’s going to abandon us again to go hang out with Micah.”
“At that filthy club?” Kelly’s lip curled, as if Stacy had just offered her a non-soy latte. “But there are never even any guys there. It’s always just a bunch of moms.”
I gritted my teeth. “Micah’s fans are not all moms.” When Micah made it big, I was going to enjoy refusing her backstage passes to his eventual sold-out shows.
Kelly snorted. “Oh, right. I suppose their husbands might be there, too.”
“That’s not fair,” Stacy said. “I’ve seen young guys at his shows.”
“Teenage boys don’t count.” Kelly dropped an invisible microphone and turned toward her desk.
I’d never admit that she was right about the crowd that came out to hear Micah’s solo shows. But unlike Kelly, I wasn’t interested in picking up random guys at bars. I spun a test tube like a top then clamped my hand down on it before it could careen off the counter. “Whatever. Sometimes Micah lets me sing.”
Apparently Kelly smelled blood; her tone turned snide. “Ooh, maybe Eden’s dating her brother.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kelly.” Stacy rolled her eyes and gave me her best don’t listen to her look.
“Oh, right.” Kelly threw her head back for one last barb. “Eden would never consider dating a struggling musician.”
The clock on the wall reminded me I had seven hours of prison left. I hated the feeling that I was wishing my life away one work day at a time.
Thanh peeked his head around the door and saved me. “Eden, I need you to come monitor one of the test subjects.”
Inhaling deep to get my residual irritation under control, I followed Thanh down the hall to the holding cells. Behind the window, a cute blond sat with a wire snaking out of his charcoal-gray Dockers. Thanh instructed him to watch a screen flashing more or less pornographic images while I kept one eye on his vital signs.
I bit my pen and put the test subject through my usual Terminator-robot full-body analysis to gauge his romantic eligibility. He wore a crisp dress shirt with a white cotton undershirt peeking out below the unbuttoned collar. I wagered he held a job I’d find acceptable, possibly in programming, accounting, or maybe even architecture. His fading tan, manicured nails, and fit build lent the impression that he had enough money and time to vacation, pamper himself, and work out. No ring on his finger. And blue eyes at that. On paper, he fit my mental checklist to a T.
Even if he was strapped up to his balls in wires.
Hmm. Scratch that. If he were financially secure, he wouldn’t need the compensation provided to participants in clinical trials for boner research. Never mind.
Thanh came back in and sat next to me.
I stifled a yawn and stretched my arms. “Don’t get me wrong. This is all very exciting, but could you please slip some arsenic in my coffee?”
He punched buttons on the complex machine monitoring the erectile event in the other room. “Why are you still working here, Eden? Weren’t you supposed to start grad school this year?”
“I was.” I sketched a small circle in the margin of the paper on the table.
“You need to start applying soon for next year. Are you waiting till you’ve saved enough money?”
“No, I’ve saved enough.” I drew a flower around the circle and shaded it in.