Page 56 of The Naughty Professor
Grandma reached across the table and patted my hand.“Felix, darling, don’t you ever say that about yourself.You’ve got plenty going for you.”
“Like what?”I asked.
She tilted her head.“Your mind.You think things through.You see patterns where other people see mess.That’s a strength, sugar.You just have to lean into it instead of running from it.”
The words hit differently this time.Lean into your strengths.
A spark ignited somewhere deep inside me—faint, but bright enough to burn through the fog.
They were right.The serum had worked.
It had transformed me into Jax—confident, magnetic, fearless.But it had faded too fast.Like Cinderella at midnight, minus the glass slippers and talking mice.
Maybe I just needed to make the formula more stable, so it lasted longer.Perhaps I’d been too conservative with the formula, trying to keep it from causing permanent brain damage.I’d modified it enough to make it safer, so now the trick was to make it last.
“Felix?”Grandma said, waving a hand in front of me.“You’re staring into space again.Lord, don’t tell me you’re mentally balancing chemical equations.Girls, he can stare off into space like this for hours.”
“Actually,” I said, jumping to my feet, “I’ve got to run.”
All four of them blinked up at me as I grabbed my coat.
“You all have no idea how helpful this has been,” I said, leaning down to kiss Grandma on the cheek.“Thank you.I mean it.”
Frieda smirked.“You’re not running off to do anything stupid, are you?”
“Define stupid,” I said, already halfway to the door.
“Anything involving nudity or police tape,” Lisa called after me.
“No promises!”I shouted over my shoulder.
* * *
Juniper burst into the lab like a storm wearing combat boots.The door slammed against the stopper, echoing off the tile walls.
She tossed her glitter-splattered backpack onto my desk and propped a hand on her hip.“Okay, Dr.Sterling, what’s so important it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?I was in the middle of planning my next Pleasureware party.”
I didn’t look up right away.In front of me, the table held beakers and test tubes, all fizzing and hissing in precise, mesmerizing rhythm.
“This,” I said simply, gesturing toward the shimmering blue liquid burbling in a flask.
Juniper leaned over, eyes wide behind her cat-eye glasses.“Oh, my God.The serum?”
I nodded.
Her face lit up as if someone had plugged her directly into the wall.“Does this mean you’ll let me sell it?Because technically—technically—it’s not illegal if it’s not on the Controlled Substances Act list.We could make a fortune, Dr.Sterling.”
“Juniper.”
“I’ll even handle the branding!We’ll call it something sexy, like Confidence: The Elixir of Desire.We could market it to geeks terrified of Tinder and Grindr.”
“Juniper.”
“Or maybe Jaxxed—oh my God, that’s perfect!Double meaning, right?You get ‘jacked’ and you get ‘Jaxxed.’I’m putting that on a T-shirt.”
“Juniper!”
She blinked, finally looking up at me.
