Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            “My family is . . . embarrassing.”

            “More so than a dozen people in monogrammed shirts vulture-circling a ninety-year-old in the hope that she’ll drop dead and a few wads of cash will roll in their direction?”

            “My family would do the same, if there were any money to be had. If something happened to my grandma, my brothers would beat each other up over the six-pack of beer she left in the fridge.”

            “Is that what they’re fighting about? Beer?”

            “I wish. It’s . . .” I roll my eyes. It sounds too stupid to bear. “A girl.”

            “A girl.”

            “Well, she’s a woman now. But she was a girl when it all began.”

            He frowns. “How old are your brothers?”

            “Older than me. And honestly, I blame this entire mess on traumatic encephalopathy. Both of them were on the football team getting their brains oatmealed, and there were seventy million cheerleaders they could have, I don’t know, played D&D under the bleachers with, but no, they decided to choose the same one. Dana.”

            His mouth twitches. “I don’t think that’s what people do under the bleachers, Elsie.”

            “They’re my brothers, okay? For the purpose of this conversation, they’ve been fighting over the exclusive right to attend Dana’s decoupage classes. And the most ridiculous thing is, they fancy themselves in some kind of Legends of the Fall situation. They both think that the big love of their life is doomed to fail because of the machinations of their evil twin, but the truth is, it’s so obvious from the outside that no one loves anyone here. Dana gets ninety percent of her dopamine from watching two guys fight over her. Mom only cares about what her cousin’s husband’s sister’s nanny thinks, and is totally fine with them shanking each other as long as they do it privately. And the sad thing is, Lucas and Lance used to be best friends. They’d have fun trying to convince me that ChapStick was made of dromedary sperm and watching me gag. But by now . . . they’ve forgotten that they’re brothers, forgotten why they liked Dana in the first place, and are just chickens pecking at each other’s feed—like they’re two hydrogen atoms, and Dana is the electron they constantly steal back and forth. But they’re both nonmetals, and even though they wish they could pluck that electron out for good and keep it for themselves, nope, same electronegativity, sorry, it won’t work. And we’re back to square one every six damn months.”

            “And where do you come in?” Jack asks, voice quiet in the car after my bout of yelling. I feel guilty for unloading my entire life story on him, like he’s Oprah or something. I should be fun.

            “Mom sends me in to broker peace.” I squirm against the seat. Jack’s eyes slide to my legs, or maybe they don’t. The car is dark and I can’t tell.

            “Why?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “It sounds like your brothers are having issues with one another.” I nod. “Why does she send you?”

            “I—because—we—” It’s such a Why is the sky blue? question. Scattering of solar light through the atmosphere, duh. “It’s my family.”

            “It’s your mom’s family, too. And your dad’s, and your brothers’. And yet they’re fine with not addressing the issue and asking you to take care of it.” He takes a right turn, and the lights of the truck coming toward us hit his jaw at the perfect, most handsome angle. There’s the way he looks, his low voice, this smell of his. What does this man want with this? With me?

            “I owe it to them.”

            “You do?”

            “Yes. You don’t understand—I was . . . I gave them lots of problems growing up. My diagnosis was such a hassle for them, and the medical care was so expensive. I owe it to them.” My stomach drops. Now Mom is mad at me. I’m an ingrate.

            “So, to summarize: Because your pancreas stopped producing insulin when you were a child, you now owe your family a doula-worthy degree of emotional labor?”

            It sounds horrible, put like that. Downright horrifying. But. “Yeah, kind of.”

            “What does your family think of your job situation?”