Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            “Um.” Make necklaces out of baby teeth? Deadlift an anvil? “Work?”

            He slides his key in the back pocket of his jeans and sizes me up from five feet above me. I feel ridiculously overdressed, even though I’m the one wearing proper professional attire. “I can make the time to show around a potential future colleague.”

            Don’t snort, Elsie. Don’t snort. “There really is no need—”

            He tuts. “If you keep repeating that, I’ll figure that you don’t want to hang out with me.”

            I don’t. But I’d love to hang you.

            He pushes me down the hallway with a hand between my shoulder blades, and for a second his many feet and inches and pounds feel tantalizingly, inexplicably inviting. I’m tired. A little weary. I could sink against him and . . .

            Whoa.

            I think I’m getting woozy. Maybe I need to eat. I shouldn’t, though. I had vitamin-enriched gummy rabbits between interviews to keep my blood sugar from dropping—unwise, letting yourself get hangry when you’re with someone you daydream of slaughtering at baseline. I take out my phone, meaning to check my glycemic levels. Except Jack is staring at it, eyes on the crack splitting the lock screen. (A selfie of Cece and me laughing as we hold up a block of cranberry goat cheese. It was on New Year’s Eve, before we spent four hours watching a Belgian movie about cannibalism, then one more hour discussing its emotional throughline. I wanted to die. The cheese was good, though.)

            My glucose monitor looks fine, but I want to check my pod. I need a minute alone. Maybe I can pretend I forgot something in Jack’s office? I turn around to give the door one longing look, and my eyes fall on his nameplate.

            “Where’s the Turner from, anyway?” Jack gives me a curious glance. I suspect that his leisure pace is faster than my full-on sprint, but he slows down to match me. How gracious. “Greg’s last name is just Smith.”

            “Turner’s my mom’s last name.”

            “And Greg didn’t take it?”

            “See, this seems like the exact type of information that someone who’s in a loving relationship with my brother would already have.” Okay. That’s not untrue. “Where was Volkov supposed to take you?”

            I take my itinerary out of my minuscule pocket. I have to unfold it about twenty times, which seems to amuse Jack. Dick. “Wait. It says here that Dr. Crowley was going to give me the tour.” I look up, hopeful. “You don’t need to—”

            “Crowley—and Pereira—are no longer on the search committee.”

            “What?” The very two assholes I overheard in the bathroom? “Why?”

            “Something came up. They had to step back.” He says it in a monotone, like it’s not weird that two faculty members would pull out in the middle of a search. “But I’m happy to take over.” He holds my eyes, final, blue-quartered. “What does the schedule say?”

            Dammit. “Tour of the labs.”

            He huffs a laugh. “You sure you want to see those? They’re crawling with experimentalists.”

            I stifle an eye roll. “I’d love to see the labs. Like I said, I firmly believe in the collaboration between experimental and theoretical physics, and I value . . .” Jack’s eyebrow lifts (subtext: You’re full of shit), and I trail off.

            “Should I just show you the offices, Elsie?”

            I press my lips together (subtext: Stop saying my name). “Yes, please.”

            The thing about theoretical physics is, it mostly involves thinking. And reading. And scribbling equations on a chalkboard. And contemplating a hemlock salad when you realize that the last three months of your work don’t jive with the Bekenstein-Hawking formula. While writing my dissertation, I spent the bulk of my time in my apartment, staring at the wall, trying to make sense of the segregation of crystals into chiral domains. Every few hours Cece would poke me with the Swiffer to make sure I was alive; Hedgie was perched on her shoulder, eagerly awaiting the green light to feast on my corpse.

            We theorists don’t really do labs, and the fanciest equipment we need is computers to run simulations. I’ve never even worn a lab coat—except for the year J.J. made me dress like a sexy neurosurgeon for a Halloween party. Even then, it was 80 percent fishnets.