Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            My first thought is a familiar one: I can’t believe they’re related. If they played siblings in an HBO Max miniseries, I’d call bullshit on the casting director. My second is, of course, Fuck.

            Fucking fuck. Why is he here?

            I look to the nurse. “Did you . . . did you call both of us to pick Greg up?”

            “Yup. Because the first person I called was his mom, who told me she’d be here in fifteen and then canceled because of a mani appointment.” Her lifted eyebrow is 100 percent judgment. I blame her 0 percent. “I decided to hedge my bets.”

            “Right,” I say. Greg yaps on about his fantabulous quinoa discovery, and I don’t want to meet Jack’s eyes. I cannot bear for him to see me, not after yesterday’s mess at Monica’s and that last look. “Understandable.” I smile weakly at the nurse. Then I turn, meticulously keeping my eyes on Greg. “Your big bro’s here to take you home, so I’m leaving. I’ll call tomorrow when you’re feeling better, and—”

            “Oh, no.” Greg looks at me like I’m pouring liquid glue on a brown pelican. “You can’t leave. That’d be awful!”

            “But—”

            “You have to come!”

            “I suggest you do what he says,” the nurse tells me. “His tooth was abscessing. They pumped him full.”

            “Greg, I—”

            “Come on, Elsie. I’ll pay the usual rate—”

            “No. No, no, I—” Shit. Shit. I chance a look at Jack, expecting to see . . . I don’t know. A sneer of disgust. The usual smirk. A SWAT team barging from behind him to handcuff me for solicitation. But he’s waiting patiently, hands in the pockets of his jeans, the dark blue of his shirt pulling out the color in his eye. He’s not wearing a coat, because he’s physically unable to feel cold. Born without thermoreceptors—a tragedy. “Sure. I’ll come for a bit. Let’s go, Greg.” I turn to the nurse, whose interest perked up at usual rate. “Is there anything we should know?”

            “Here are his meds—starting tomorrow morning. Just put him to bed to sleep the drugs off. And don’t let him make any major life decisions for the next four to six hours—no puppy adoption, no MLMs. Also, I googled it: quinoa’s a seed.”

            Greg gasps. “We should get a puppy!”

            Jack presses his lips together, but the dimple is right there. “My car’s this way. I’ll drive you to the humane society.”

            Buckling Greg up in the back seat of Jack’s hybrid SUV takes so long, I contemplate never having kids. As the other not-under-the-influence adult, I’m probably expected to ride in the passenger seat next to Jack, but . . .

            Nope.

            “I’ll sit in the back in case Greg needs anything.”

            Jack’s look clearly says, I know you’re avoiding me, because of course he does. He knows everything—and what he doesn’t know is his for the taking, because I’m translucent. Fun.

            I realize how bad an idea this was twenty seconds into the ride: whatever they gave Greg is messing with his working memory. He’s able to focus only on what’s right in front of his eyes, and catastrophically, 70 percent of his field of view happens to be me.

            The other 30 is, of course, Jack.

            “You guys, this is fun. Is it not fun? Just the three of us. No Mom, no Dad, no Uncle Paul.”

            “Very fun,” Jack says, navigating out of the lot.

            Greg’s head lolls back against the seat. “Jacky, you can ask Elsie all those things you wanted to know. Hey, Elsie.” He attempts to whisper in my ear, though it comes out slurred and very loud. “Jacky has a thing for you. Like, he stares all the time. And he asks so many questions about you.”

            “Oh, Greg.” This is mortifying. “That’s . . . really not what’s happening.”

            In the front seat, Jack’s silence is quietly, painfully loud.

            “Full disclosure, Jacky,” Greg continues with a loopy grin, “I made up all the answers. I dunno if she likes to travel, if she wants kids, if she’s into movies. Like, how’m I s’posed to know?”