He got out, not bothering to lock his vehicle, and then walked back into the building. Every time he entered, it never failed to make him smile, remembering the way this building used to look. The barns on their land were all original structures and this one in particular had been in dire need of repair. When he’d first asked his parents if he could have it, they’d agreed easily, probably thinking he would just replace the beams or something. No one had expected him to completely renovate the entire thing until it looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.
It was the place he felt most comfortable. Since he’d made sure to have the builders put living space on the second floor, it was also his home. He lived here, ate here, created here and slept here. Very few people broached his space, save his mother when she needed to reach him. So when he walked in and Katie turned around, he was unprepared for the blast of warmth he felt seeing her sitting at one of the worktables.
It should have felt weird to have someone in his space. Instead, it was nice.
“Hey! How was your meeting?” She closed the magazine she’d been reading and turned on the stool to face him.
Bennett put his keys on the peg near the door and then slipped his arms into the lab coat he’d taken off before he left.
“She was late.”
Katie blinked. “Oh. But you weren’t gone that long. That must have been a short meeting if it got started late. How long did you have to wait for her?”
“I was waiting for her roughly seven minutes.”
“Well, according to Emily Post you aren’t late until after ten minutes. After fifteen, you need to call and explain. That’s the rule.”
For someone who viewed the world around him as a wild west of sorts, it was a revelation that there were rules governing such things. Maybe the social scene wasn’t as confusing and unstructured as Bennett had always believed. Was it possible that he’d only had such a hard time dealing with others because he’d never thought to look up and learn the rules?
Katie blinked at him. “Are you okay? I mean, you don’t have to listen to me. I understand if you were pissed about waiting around. I hate waiting, too.”
Bennett smiled at her. “No, I’m not upset. I’ve just never heard that rule before.”
“Really? My mom has always been big on etiquette. You wouldn’t believe how many rules there are, down to how long you have to send out thank you cards after receiving a gift.”
Bennett frowned. “You’re supposed to send a card to say thank you? Why wouldn’t you just say thank you when they give you the gift?”
Katie paused, her forehead crinkling in a way that Bennett found surprisingly endearing. It caught him off guard, this sudden attraction. He’d found women attractive before, of course, but it was strange to suddenly be attracted to someone that he’d known for a while. Granted, he was used to thinking of her as “Ridley’s friend” instead of a beautiful woman but it was a shock to discover that she could be both.
“You know, I’ve never thought about it that way. I guess it does seem odd to send a thank you card instead of just saying it. Weird, huh?”
Still reeling from the sudden, and extremely inconvenient, blast of desire, Bennett shook his head and tried to recapture the thread of the conversation.
“It seems illogical, that’s all,” he finally muttered.
“Do things always have to be logical in your world?” she teased.
“Yes. Always.”
Katie paused, her mouth forming a little pout. The motion drew his attention to her lips and he tried, he really tried, to turn away. After a few seconds he gave it up as impossible. With her richly colored skin, she stood out in the stark paleness of the sterile room like a rose in the desert. She had small, delicate features but there was something about her that spoke of strength. Then she looked at him again and he had to take a breath. It was her eyes. Her dark eyes weren’t those of an innocent. She looked like someone who’d seen quite a bit in her life and wasn’t afraid to face the bad stuff head on.
He could respect that.
“My need for logic and order is often at odds with the world around me. That’s part of why I need you here. I spend a lot of time immersed in my work so I need you to be the one who interacts with the outside world for me.”
She straightened, the teasing expression gone. “I can do that.”
He doubted she really understood just how much interacting she’d have to do on his behalf. There had been weeks at a time working on his last invention where he wouldn’t have remembered to eat or take a shower if John hadn’t been there. When he was working, his mind was completely absorbed in the process. The real world couldn’t compete with the joy he found in his work.
“Bennett?”
When he looked up, she held his gaze. There was a resolve there that he hadn’t seen before.
“I can’t pretend to understand what you do here but I can tell it’s really important. The way I see it, you need me to take care of all the boring, everyday stuff so you can focus on all the brilliant, science stuff. I can do that. So don’t worry about anything okay?”
Bennett was surprised to find himself nodding. “Okay. Let me show you around properly then.”
Katie stood eagerly, pushing the stool beneath the worktable. Bennett was suddenly overcome with nerves. Why did this always happen? He knew this lab inside and out so there was no reason for him to have stage fright showing it to someone else. Yet he was nervous all throughout the short tour he conducted.