Heart-Bound ✅

Chapter Eight*

Tomie groaned in exasperation and rubbed both hands over her face in frustration. They were sitting in one of the private study rooms of their university's library. They were only allotted two hours to use the room, and they had already wasted an hour piecing together an experiment for their project.

But...

"This is impossible!" Tomie cried out "All that work—and we can't use it because it doesn't meet the criteria for the project!"

"Don't sweat the small stuff," Georg said, calmly sipping his coffee. "We'll manage this."

"I'm working harder than this than my other classes." Tomie leaned down and thumped her forehead against the table. "Ugh...why can't chemical engineering be an easy field to study?!"

"If it was easy, then everyone would do it," Georg pointed out. "Then we wouldn't be poised to make the big bucks when we graduated and get jobs."

"...That's true," Tomie conceded, mumbling against the table.

Georg reached over and patted the back of her shoulder comfortingly. "Want to get back to work?"

"I suppose so." Tomie straightened in her chair and tried to ignore the tingling sensation in her shoulder. It was a simple touch by Georg, but she couldn't stop the way she...responded to the touch. She tried to ignore as she dragged her lab book closer to her. "Okay," she said wearily. "What angle should we approach this from now?"

"I think we should stop seeing this as work," Georg said. "And start seeing this as fun. We're going to be dealing with these kind of experiments in our professional lives. If we're exhausted now from trying to figure them out and make them work, then we're not going to enjoy our jobs. So why don't we try to focus on enjoying the project so we can pass?"

Tomie nodded and grabbed her coffee. She went to drink it, but when the cup rim touched her lips she realized that it was empty. "Damn," she muttered.

"I'll get some more," Georg said, standing up. "There's a coffee vending machine on the first floor. You take a break and I'll get us some more."

Tomie sighed quietly. "Vending machine coffee isn't as good as the café coffee."

Georg choked out a laugh. "Most coffee is better than vending machine coffee. But you have a class after this, right? You can't be burned out for the class."

"Okay, Dr. Georg."

"Not yet," Georg responded, and Tomie managed a laugh as he slid out of the room. The laugh slowly died as she folded her arms on the table and rested her head on them. "God," she groaned. "I thought being paired with such a hot man would be heaven. But he's so distracting! And I'm complaining too much! No wonder Tyler—"

The words choked in her throat. She shook her head against her arms. "No. Don't think about it."

Seeing her brother entangled with a stripper had been utterly nightmarish for Tomie, and the backlash she personally received from her sorority had been awful. But she knew that the stripper had been hard to resist. Hell, none of her sorority sisters had been able to resist him!

But Georg...Georg wasn't a stripper. He was her classmate and lab partner. But he was also an extremely attractive man; in looks, personality, and intellect. Tomie knew she had never met a more attractive man in her life. But instead of making the best impression on him, she was constantly making the worst impression on him!

I need to stop. I need to try harder. I didn't come this far to let everything fall apart because I'm starry-eyed over my lab partner. I have to work harder.