Page 86 of A Stealthy Situation

“Figuring out a way to test your sex-sells theory.”

“Isn’t me being a thousand percent more interested proof enough?”

“Nope. Sorry, babe, but it’s a thing in science. You need a decent sample size, otherwise it could be a fluke.” Still between his legs, I slide my laptop around to face us, then type in “group research ideas.”

Benny looks around the room instead. “Why don’t you do something here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s a greenhouse. Sure, pictures of those things are cool, and you could show people a slideshow all day long, but imagine having them actually here?”

“The plants?”

“Yes! Those ones that smell like a decaying body would be a real draw card.”

I laugh into his shoulder. “Or make everyone evacuate the scene.”

“Come on. Seeing them in person would be so much cooler.”

“You have a point.” I rub my jaw. “I’d have to source them all though, then organize the event—what kind would I even do? Like an expo type of thing?”

“A dinner.”

I blink at him. “That sounds like a lot of work.”

“Maybe, but people love them. The NHL does it all the time. A charity dinner to get people in the door, charge them a per-plate cost, and then get them to empty their pockets.”

That sounds … ambitious. “I was thinking more two groups, one shown everyday plants and one shown the kinds we looked up today?—”

He makes a buzzer sound. “How do you measure that?”

“A simple ‘does this interest you’ quiz.”

“While that sounds sufficiently stiff and boring, you’re better than that. Your whole appeal is your personality?—”

“Thanks.”

He waves me off. “You’re hot too, obviously, but you’re the kind of person people are drawn to. You want people to care about plants? You need to be the one making them. And how better to make people pay attention to what you’re doing than by money? Money talks. I see it in hockey all the time. They plaster dollar figures all over their social medias, like those numbers mean anything.”

“So, I have a dinner for an environmental charity?” I’m not really asking, just talking through it. “I could reach out and see if anyone is interested in helping. Try to get plants here. Hit up Professor Nottering to see if I can hold it in the greenhouse. Maybe I can get a not-for-profit on board …”

“See?” Benny squeezes me. “You’re way too much of a personality to do some basic test.”

“Only problem is that for this to work, I’d have to throw two dinners. Otherwise, the results are inconclusive.”

“You’re telling me there have never been charity events for the environment before now?”

He’s right. Maybe if I can match up what I’m doing with one of those, it’ll hold enough weight for passable results. After all, this doesn’t have to be a perfect experiment. It’s preliminary, a way for me to test whether this is the thing I want to be completing my capstone project on.

“This is good,” I say. “This is really good.”

I want to ask him if he’ll help me with it, if he can be a part of my team with getting this organized, but I hold off. Benny has more than enough on his plate with his schoolwork, and that was before he had to take statistics for himself.

If I’m honest, it’s something I do feel bad about. It’s clear he struggles with it and isn’t happy, but it’s not like I could pretend not to know while he gets a degree thanks to his brother’s hard work. It’s unethical. Even if I really, really hate seeing him struggle in class and want to fix it all for him.

I move toward a pad of paper and a pen to jot myself out a list before I forget it all.

“How long have we been here?” he asks, looking toward the wall at where the sun is sinking in an orange display.

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