AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know I fucked up with you. But—”
I set my hand over his mouth.
“No buts. Not now. Not like this.”
“Right.” He smiles.
I have too many buts inside me. Too many howevers and what ifs. I don’t want them spoken. All love is conditional. Even this.
“No buts,” he says. “I really like you.” His fingers find a little wisp of my hair. He rubs it lightly, as if the texture is an object of fascination.
“I feel like something is wrong,” I say.
“I know.” He whispers this against my skin. “If you’re used to everything being wrong, rightness feels out of place.”
“No.” I sit up. “I mean—when did you put your beans in the oven?”
His eyes widen. He turns to me. “Shit,” he says. “Shit, shit, shit.”
And then he’s jumping up and reaching for his pants, and we’re both laughing.
* * *
JAY
* * *
I haven’t seen Gabriel Lopez in over a month—not since the seminar he gave at LBL, the one I scarcely heard because I’d just discovered Maria was Em.
Now I’m sitting across from him at four in the afternoon in a wooden booth, a pair of celebratory beers in front of us.
“San Jose State,” I say. “That is so freaking awesome!”
And it is. It feels like I’ve spent my last years making friends just in time to say good-bye.
Gabe raises his glass. “Hey, I’m here to stay. It is awesome.”
“So Jutta is moving out here. Does she need a job? Is she looking for industry or academics? And do you need a hand?”
“The latter.” Gabe gives me a smile. “We would love it if you could call one of your magic contacts and see if anyone needs a computational mathematician.”
“Done.” Gabe hasn’t said much about his fiancée, but I’ve heard from Maria, who Skypes her regularly. She seems cool, from what little Maria’s conveyed.
“And I’m near family.” Gabe glances at me. “Not exactly near my parents, which is…probably for the best. But my grandmother is here, and Maria is probably staying in the Bay Area after graduation—”
I frown at him. “What are you talking about?”
He waves a lazy hand in my direction. “Eh, fuck off. I know you don’t like her, but she’s my sister, and I don’t want to hear your crap.”
My beer suddenly feels heavy. I set it down with a thunk. “What do you mean, I don’t like her?”
“Unless you suddenly changed your mind overnight—”
I don’t think before I respond. “I’m dating her.”
Gabe snorts. “Ha!” He swallows beer. “Good one.”
I stare at him in amazement.
He stares back at me, the truth slowly dawning. “Oh. You’re…really not joking.”
I don’t respond. I’m going through my mental calendar. It’s early April now, meaning that it’s been five weeks since I last saw him. Four weeks since Maria and I had dinner and I took her home. I’ve seen Maria literally every day, barring the two I wasn’t in town.
During that month, I’m sure she’s talked to Gabe a dozen times. Exchanged texts with him practically daily. She Skyped his fiancée from my house.
I just assumed that he knew. How could he not? She’s the cornerstone of my day. And she and Gabe are good friends. Not meeting my parents is one thing. How could she not have told him we were together?
“You’re not joking,” Gabe repeats.
I shake my head. “I’m not joking.”
“When did this start?”
Years ago. “Weeks ago,” I say. “Four weeks ago.”
Gabe looks at his beer glass. His upper lip wrinkles, and he frowns at the coaster. “Maria will kick my ass if I go all big brother on you,” he finally says.
“Yeah. Well. She’d have to talk to you about me first.”
He doesn’t seem to register my muttered complaint. He sets his hand on the table—just a little bit too hard. “And Maria can take care of herself. She’s not a little girl anymore. She doesn’t take shit, and—” He blows out a breath, and gives up on pretending not to interfere. “Dammit, Jay. You do not have the best track record.”
“Thanks.” I don’t quite keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“You work all the fucking time.”
“I’m sure she hasn’t noticed, since she’s remarkably unobservant.”
“And you told me to kick your ass if you ever dated anyone I knew. I know Maria is capable of pushing back on your bullshit, but she’s more vulnerable than she lets on, and—”
“You know what?” I’m not going to listen to this anymore. “We can make a list of all my faults—and trust me, Maria is more than aware of their existence—but how many times have you talked to your sister in the last month?”
“I don’t know. A dozen? Two?”
That’s about what I figured.
“Don’t give me shit about my track record,” I tell him. “If she didn’t tell you, how seriously do you think she’s taking this? Do you really think I have the capacity to hurt her?”
He considers this. “Huh. Probably not.”
“We’re not going to make this weird by having me talk exactly about how much and in what ways I like your sister,” I say. “So let’s talk about what kind of first-year research support you’re getting.”
He exhales. His face darkens. “Fine.”
It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
24
MARIA
“Hey.” It’s cool and dark when I meet Jay outside his office. I can’t see his expression. At first, I don’t think anything is weird when he doesn’t kiss me—I am completely onboard with his “no PDA near the college of chemistry” rule.
“How was your study group?” he asks.
“I know as much as I’m going to know.” I shrug.
Maybe he sees through my nonchalance.
“Of course you do.” He doesn’t take my hand, though, not as we pass through a darkened mass of trees. The nearest light i
s an emergency call box. It tinges his face in an eery blue light. “It’s easy for you, isn’t it?”
Easy isn’t the right word. I frown. “No. That’s not it. Game theory was hard the first time I encountered it. And the second. It’s just that I’ve always been interested in a lot of stuff, so this isn’t really fair. I’m seeing things the tenth time when my classmates are encountering it for the first. It’s not easy. I’m just lucky.”
He snorts.
“It’s like the guy who got a five in AP chemistry,” I say, “and takes Chem 1A anyway. Of course he’s going to get a good grade.”
“Sure,” Jay says.
“Or it’s like Blake. When he was five, he’d build a space station at Cyclone and the engineers would help him calculate the rotational G-forces to determine the appropriate scale.”
“That sounds like ‘it’s easy’ to me.”
He still hasn’t taken my hand. I stop and turn to him. “Is something wrong?”
He exhales slowly. “Look. I don’t want to be weird about this. But I had beers with Gabe today.”
My heart gives a little thump, and a little prickle of anxious energy surges through me.
“And you have a test first thing tomorrow morning, and—”
“It’s okay. We can talk.”
“I don’t know if I should apologize for spilling the beans about us or be pissed that you didn’t tell him we’re together.”
I glance over at him. “Sounds like you’ve already decided.”
“It’s okay,” he mutters, putting his hands in his pockets. “I mean, we haven’t talked about where we are, not really, and it’s not like I can get mad. I just thought…you talk to him all the time. If I was important to you, you would tell him.”
He doesn’t actually need my permission to get mad, and despite his words, I suspect he didn’t wait for it.
“It wasn’t like that.”
He stops walking and turns to me. In the darkness, I can’t see his eyes. I can barely see him. Still, he faces me, and I can feel the intensity of his regard.
I shrink away.
