Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            She takes a step forward and enfolds Jack in a tight hug. “Jack!”

            He hugs her back with a smile. “Hey, Ol. Nice to see you’re still putting up with this guy—thank you for your service. Elsie, this is Olive Smith—no relation to my terrible family, lucky her. She’s Adam’s . . . Adam, is she still your fiancée?”

            Adam nods with a mildly irritated expression.

            Jack grins. “Haven’t picked a date yet?”

            “She has not,” Adam whines. Sternly, though.

            “Ol. Put him out of his misery.”

            “At twenty-eight? What am I, a child bride?” Olive looks between me and Jack. “Have you guys picked a date?”

            I wish to die on the spot. I wish to melt into the sweet respite of nothingness. “Oh, we . . .” I glance at Jack, hoping he’ll come to my rescue. He just gives me a look halfway between pleased and amused, holds my eyes, and says, “Not yet.” I step closer to pinch him hard in the ribs. He stops me with a hand on my wrist and a delighted smile.

            “How did you and Adam meet?” I ask him in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

            “In undergrad I did a summer internship at Harvard, in the lab where Adam was a Ph.D. student.”

            “He ran the worst Southern blot I’ve ever seen,” Adam says.

            “It was a rough three months. I was gently discouraged from going into biophysics. Then a few years later I moved to Pasadena, and he was in Palo Alto, and we started hanging out. Hiked our way around California. And then he introduced me to Olive when . . . Ol, how did you and Adam meet again?” he asks with the tone of someone who knows the answer full well.

            She grins. “Why, Jack, Adam was a tenured professor. And I was but a lowly student.”

            “Graduate student,” Adam interjects, speaking to me. “And not my student.”

            “But in his department,” Olive adds impishly. “It was all very, very scandalous.”

            Jack smiles. “You should sell the movie rights, Ol.”

            “I’m hoping for a Netflix miniseries. Something sexy like Bridgerton, you know?”

            It’s clearly a bit Jack and Olive do a lot. Adam lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Anyway.” He changes the topic. “How are you, Jack?”

            “Very entertained.”

            Jack and Adam are somewhere north of circumstantial friends. In a couple of minutes they are absorbed in conversation, talking about people, things, places I’m not familiar with. Olive and I gravitate toward each other, sitting on the couch while all around us Jack’s friends laugh and joke and embody the epitome of successful adulthood.

            “Do you also not know anyone else and feel like the dumbest person in the room?” she whispers at me.

            I nod. Everyone here is a bit older, and I try not to imagine the academic positions they might have. “What do you do?” I ask Olive.

            “Cancer biology. Just finished the first year of my postdoc. I’m probably going on the job market in the next couple.” She makes a face, sipping on her beer.

            “Are you planning on staying in California?”

            “Would be nice, since my friends are there. But honestly, academic jobs are so rare, it’ll be hard enough to make sure Adam and I are in the same city.”

            “Do you have a plan?”

            She shakes her head. “The good thing is, Adam has grants. We’re hoping that whatever institution wants me will take a look at the money and decide that we can be a package deal. But if they don’t . . .” She shrugs. “We might have to negotiate a spousal hire.”

            I smile. “Then you’ll set a date?”

            She leans closer with a surreptitious expression. Her skin is 90 percent freckles, and I’ve known her for five minutes, but I want to be her friend. “I’ve set it already. We’re getting married in April. During spring break. Adam just doesn’t know it yet.”