Miracle (boyxboy)

Chapter Thirty-Three

When I got out of bed Sunday morning, Ezra was already up and clicking away on his computer. He hadn't folded the sofa bed back up yet, and there was a rumpled blanket piled on it, so he must have slept at least a little. I went into the kitchen, still in my sweatpants and sleep shirt, and pulled my hair into a topknot to keep it out of my face.

"How do you like your eggs?" I asked as I got the frying pan out from the cabinet.

"Huh? Oh. Well... they're best if they haven't been frozen."

What?

"But they spoil fast. Ideally we like to work with a batch within a few hours of retrieval, if we're looking for the clearest results."

Oh my god, he was talking about work. I set the pan down on the stove, trying to hold back laughter. "That's not what I meant. I was thinking more like, scrambled? Over-easy?"

"Huh? Why would I want to—"

I held up an egg from the carton we'd bought yesterday, and pointed to it. "You know. Breakfast?"

"Oh."

I grinned at him, and he got the cutest sheepish look on his face. I think he was just noticing me for the first time too, because his attention went up to my messy bun, then the front of my wrinkled v-neck t-shirt that was hanging loosely around my neck, all stretched out from sleep. I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear self-consciously. I probably looked like a total slob.

He turned back to his computer. "Just make them the way you like, I'll eat them."

So I fried our eggs sunny side up, and made bacon, toast, and coffee too. The leftover pineapple from last night became a side dish. Ezra was so absorbed in his work that when the food was ready I brought it over to his desk. He rolled his chair back as I set everything down.

"There you go." Remembering my resolution to give him space, I took a seat at the breakfast bar to eat my own food.  When we were done and I'd gotten the kitchen cleaned up, I had to change into real clothes and pack my containers of pee into a couple grocery sacks. Ezra hadn't seen any problem with storing my piss in the refrigerator overnight. I got the impression he frequently kept his science projects in there, nice and cozy alongside his groceries.

Which was why, as soon as we got back, I would be giving the whole inside of his fridge a good scrub down.

Holding the bags while riding on the back of his bike was super awkward, but we managed to get to his work without too much sloshing. He took the bags from me and carried them the whole way up the elevator, though this time we stopped at the lower floor where Dr. Sarias had done his examination of me yesterday.

The building was pretty quiet. It didn't seem like many folks wanted to work on a Sunday. Ezra went to an industrial refrigerator inside one of the clinic offices and started unloading the containers of urine into it. He handled them as if they were a perfectly unremarkable part of his routine.

On the way out, though, a picture on one of the desks caught my eye, and I paused. "Is that... Is that Dr. Sarias' family?"

Ezra turned around to see what I was looking at, and nodded. "That's his Bride and their daughters."

The woman in the picture looked about ten years older than Dr. Sarias. There were three girls posing with them, all black-haired and pale-skinned. But the oldest one had a familiar streak of blue in her ponytails. I picked the picture frame up to look closer.

"That's Grace," I said in wonder. So Dr. Sarias was her father? He was the person she was so afraid of disappointing?

"You know her?"