“Julie-oh, wait, I meant, Mrs. Jenkins-asked to meet with me so that I could explain the details regarding the hibernation pod." Ian wanted to help Julie to explain, but he said something wrong the moment he opened his mouth.

Maria's gaze swept over to him. She pulled a long face and said slowly, "Well... My mother can be quite dull when it comes to new technology. She might need you to explain it to her a few more times.”

A few more times?

Hearing this, Julie was quite confused.

Was Maria trying to get Ian to ask her out a few more times?

Even after Maria and Anthony left, Julie still stared at their backs intently.

Ian, on the other hand, remained calm. He waited patiently for Julie to come back to her senses.

A few minutes later, Julie finally snapped back to reality and Looked at Ian apologetically.

“I'm sorry, Ian... Er, I mean, Professor Navarro." Julie accidentally addressed him the way she did when they were still in school.

Only then did she realize it wasn’t appropriate and immediately corrected herself.

“I zoned out just now. Sorry about that."

There was no sign of impatience on Ian's face. Instead, he smiled at her in understanding.

“Never mind," he said.

After a short pause, Ian added, "I had no idea you're Maria's foster mother. Julie, I--Sorry, I mean Mrs. Jenkins..."

Their eyes met.

Realizing how ridiculous the situation was, Julie burst into laughter.

“Forget it. I guess there's no need to be so polite. I'11 call you Ian, just like when we were at the exchange students' ball twenty years ago."

“Okay. In that case, I'll call you Julie." Ian nodded in agreement, grinning from ear to ear.

Now that they had broken the ice, the two went back to their usual frank natures.

A long lost and tacit feeling stirred in the hearts of the two. How time flew! The Last time they had seen each other was twenty years ago.

As a technical expert in the hibernation pod project, Ian was to stay with the Smith family for at least a month or two.

His main job was to adjust and fine tune the hibernation pod to make sure it would function normally.

Moreover, Mathias was to be the first official user of the hibernation pod. It was part of Ian's job to monitor the machine to make sure nothing bad happened.

It could be said that Ian had practically become Mathias's exclusive doctor.