Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            “Ah, right. My bad.”

            “No problem. Get it checked out at Student Health, okay?” I smile—externally. Internally, it’s a bloodbath. “Please, don’t say anything,” I beg George.

            “Let’s go.” She closes her hand around my elbow. “You deserve a twelve-course meal.”

            She takes me to a Turkish café near campus. “Very well,” she says between dolmas. “I think we both know the reason I asked you here.”

            “Do we?”

            “Of course.” She leans forward, hands steepled, eyes burning into mine. “Jack’s my closest friend. Hurt him, and I’m going full Tonya Harding. Though you’re probably not as attached to your knees as Nancy was, so I’ll do it on the knuckles. You won’t be able to pick up chalk without experiencing agonizing pain. You’ll have to hold it between your teeth, and all that hydrous magnesium silicate will fuck up your bowel movements forever.” My blood drains. I’m planning to flee to a remote Latvian village, alter my fingertips with a cheese grater, dye my hair black, then blond, then back to brown again just to throw people off—when George bursts out laughing. “Oh my God, your face.”

            I blink at her.

            “I’m sorry, that was so inappropriate. I just couldn’t pass it up.”

            I blink again. “So you didn’t want to meet because—”

            “Nope, nothing to do with Jack. You can pull his heart out of his chest, grill it, and eat it with a side of creamed corn if you want. I mean, I am fond of him, but relationships are like assholes. Shouldn’t go around and smell other people’s, yada yada.” Her smile is mischievous. “Sorry?”

            I sip on my ayran. “It’s okay. Just . . . Nancy Kerrigan is my cousin. And my father was diagnosed with chalk-induced lung disease.”

            She pales. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I feel horrible about—” She notices my small smile. “You just made that up, didn’t you?”

            I shrug, stealing one of her dolmas.

            “Not only are you perfect for Jack, I think I might like you more than he does, and that’s a lot. Anyway—this is why I asked you to meet.” She moves my drink to the side. Then sets down a piece of paper.

            She sips her water as I read and read—without understanding a single word. Mrs. Whitecotton from second grade would be so disappointed.

            “Is this a . . . ?”

            She nods.

            “It’s not . . . I didn’t interview.”

            “But you did get to the final round of an MIT interview. Somebody who will remain nameless—let’s just call them Jack—told me that over three hundred candidates applied. I’m going to trust that your credentials checked out and that you didn’t try to spin an associate degree from Bible college into a physics doctorate.”

            “You . . . you are offering me a job? In your lab?”

            “As a postdoc. There are two specific liquid crystals projects I’d have you work on.”

            “Jack put you up to this,” I say. A little accusing.

            “Nope. In my relationship with Jack, usually, and by ‘usually’ I mean always, I harass him into doing what I want.”

            She must be lying. “Listen, thank you. This is kind. But I already told him no. And now that he and I are kind of . . . It wouldn’t be a good idea to—”

            “Wait.” She frowns. “What do you mean, you already told him no?”

            “He already offered me the position.”

            “He what?” George explodes. The waiter and about fifteen other patrons turn to us. “Jack offered you a job?”

            “You . . . didn’t know?”

            “That is so inappropriate.” She is face-palming. Hard. “You don’t offer a job to your brother’s ex, whom you’ve been gone over for months.” The face-palming graduates to both hands. “God. Men. Even the good ones are just—”