Dirty Dining by EM Lynley Read Free Book Online Page B

companion will be Mr. Mauve. If he joins, he’ll get a permanent color.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Dinner is at eight. Would you mind having your guest arrive thirty minutes early for a new-visitor discussion?”
    “Thanks.” He hung up. Good, Remy wouldn’t be there. No guilt over passing him up and no temptation to see him again. He’d get a completely different boy, one who he would avoid forming any connection with. Maybe he’d even go for something on the special menu. Why not?

Chapter SIX
     
     
    J EREMY ’ S WEEK was full of disappointments. Suddenly, finding instrument time was impossible, potentially putting his research behind schedule, and he didn’t get any tutoring appointments. His research was now stalled, mainly because he found going to the lab frustrating. He didn’t have the hours to do all the experiments he needed for his dissertation, which meant he might need to stay an extra semester or two. He needed to discuss these problems with his adviser, but Dr. Morrell had been scarce around the department, and he wasn’t returning e-mails or calls. He was probably speaking at a conference; he was one of the world’s foremost authorities on VLPs.
    To make matters worse, Jeremy found himself thinking of Mr. Green. He was sexy in a sort of shy way, like he wasn’t aware of how hot he was and didn’t want anyone else to pay attention to his looks. But Jeremy could also tell he was smart. Smart enough to find the artifice of the Dinner Club a little overwhelming. The other boys poured on the sex appeal and compliments, and their gentlemen ate it up like it was foie gras.
    Jeremy sensed Mr. Green wouldn’t want that kind of treatment, and it wasn’t Jeremy’s personality to lavish unearned praise on anyone. Even for money. Though it would certainly work better for tips at the Dinner Club than it did with PharmaTek—the biotech start-up was rumored to be planning to further cut funding to the grant covering Jeremy’s research. They blamed their venture capital investors. Too bad he couldn’t just fawn all over the start-up and VC guys and get his grant back.
    Early Sunday Jeremy headed back to the lab. Plenty of other doctoral students were there, checking on experiments or prepping others. The faculty rarely came in on weekends, so the atmosphere was relaxed and fun. Someone had the radio on so they could listen to the Giants play in Atlanta.
    Jeremy put on his protective gear and set his materials up at his workstation. He carefully rinsed the cells in the petri dish; he needed to change the cell media before adding the latest sets of antigens that he wanted to test. It wasn’t hard, just time consuming and somewhat tedious. Most grad students got their undergrad assistants to do this work for them, but Jeremy enjoyed the chance to let his mind wander. Once the new media was on the cells, he started adding the tiny amounts of antigen to each well of cells. They would need to incubate for several hours before he could analyze them on the flow cytometer.
    He spent the rest of the day at the lab and finished two experiments. The results looked pretty good, and he was eager to analyze the data further and show them to his adviser. Another month of this kind of progress would mean he might get additional funding and have enough data to publish in one of the top journals. In this haze of semicelebration, Jeremy raced down the steps—all six floors, because the elevators were a little untrustworthy and the last thing he needed was to get stuck in one on a weekend—and out the front door of the lab building, realizing it had gotten dark while he was working.
    He turned right and headed for the bike rack. There had been four other bikes when he’d arrived hours ago, and now there were two. But neither of the two were Jeremy’s.
    “Fucking bike thieves!” He kicked at the metal rack and pain shot up his leg and continued to radiate through his foot. Stolen bikes were one of the major issues on