Spinning

Chapter 22: The Duchess of Darkness

"Excuse me, but are you Eddie Vedder? Will you autograph my chest?" Eddie looks up from his arm with a look of annoyance. Why is he hunched over his arm like that?

"Ha ha... you really are a thorn." I smile wickedly.

Eddie is sitting on the sidewalk outside of my building as I walk out. It's a Saturday, Halloween, finally, but cancer cells wait for no one, and, alas, I had to go into work for a bit. Eddie offered to come with me, a rarity considering his hatred of the public. He's in an oversized sweatshirt with the hood up and large insect-like sunglasses on. He is such a diva sometimes.

Eddie pulls the sleeve of his sweatshirt down and stashes what looks like a marker in his pants. I look at him inquisitively, but he just shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets.

"So, am I going to get a tour?"

I groan. Eddie has been asking to see inside the laboratory for weeks.

"I just finished everything. There's nothing to see." Eddie scowls.

"I just want to see how you handle your test tubes..." I punch him in the arm.

"Ugh. Fine. But we need to go around so I can sneak you past security."

I guide Eddie towards the back entrance, where I can badge in and hide him from our strict security guards. We round the corner and my blood turns to a viscous ice slushy as I see a hauntingly familiar six foot six frame walking out of the building. Dear God, please. God. No. Goddamn it. I lose all feeling in my extremities. I try to keep walking normally, for Eddie's sake, pretending like nothing is amiss.

"Jordan, what the hell are you doing? It's Saturday."

"Hey... I should say the same to you. You heading home?"

"Yeah, I actually just forgot my watch here. Went to grab it." He holds up his wrist for proof, before sending a calculating stare between me and my anti-social Eddie.

"Oh, er, sorry. Eddie, this is Adriano. Adriano, this is, er, Eddie." Goddamn it. That was painful. Should I have labeled them? This is my coworker Adriano. This is my boyfriend Eddie. Those damn bug-eye sunglasses mask any reaction Eddie has to the name Adriano. Adriano reaches out to shake Eddie's hand, which Eddie returns unemotionally, with a simple head nod. What the heck is going on? It's Halloween. It's my goddamn birthday. Why, universe, why?

"So I meant to email you Friday before I left, but I scavenged the syngeneic data set for copy number changes. Looks like two of the cell lines have chromosomal deletions. I would check your indels again to make sure you aren't missing any frameshift mutations." His words drift by me. I really do need this information...

"Oh right, thanks. I'm worried I still have protein expression, but I have no antibodies or functional assay to confirm. Can you rework the algorithm to show a heat map? That might help in comparing the indels."

"Sure, I'll throw a meeting on your calendar for next week to work through the data."

"Cool... Well, have a good weekend."

"You too." Adriano sends Eddie, the insect listlessly hovering at my side, one more curious glance before heading home. Goddamn it. That was awkward, and Eddie is stiff beside me. Too stiff. With his eyes shielded, I can't read him at all.

"C'mon, let's go tour the liquor store instead." I drag Eddie back down the block to the liquor store, where he nervously tugs the sweatshirt hood closer to his face. I roll my eyes, as if I'm not internally analyzing the past ten minutes with excruciating detail. I grab some pumpkin beer, naturally, while Eddie hovers in the corner. I pay and drag my social hermit to the subway, worried at how brooding he appears to be, even with those goddamn massive sunglasses on. Is he connecting the pieces of the puzzle?