Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(39)

“I always thought of plasma coolant. Point is, she was here ten years ago, when I started working in that building, and she’ll be here long after you and I are gone. Despite that.” He points at the croissant I’m still clutching. Honestly, I should just bite the bullet and choke it down. My hand sweat is not going to make it any tastier. “There is no valid entrepreneurial reason for her to still be in business.”

I nod thoughtfully. He might have a point. “Aside from money laundering operations and ties to organized crime?”

“Precisely.” Okay, his grammar might be perfect, but I’m starting to pick up a vague foreign accent. I want to ask a million and ten questions about it—a wish in direct competition with my desire to not come across as a weirdo. A lofty goal, as I am, in fact, a weirdo.

“I see your theory. But. Hear me out.” I blow my bangs out of my eyes. Erik’s expression doesn’t move a nanometer, but I know he’s listening. There is something about him, like his attention is something physically tangible, like he’s good at seeing and hearing and knowing. “So, remember how I talked about my . . . problem?”

“The magical-thinking one? Where you believe that your professional success relates to the items you ate for breakfast?”

I cannot believe I admitted to it. God, he already knows I’m a weirdo. Though, to his credit, he seems to be taking it in stride. “Okay, listen, I know it sounds like I’m foolishly clutching the atavistic remnants of ancient times.”

“Sounds?” His eyebrow lifts.

I might be flushing. “I like to think of it as . . . more of a way to bind myself and celebrate the traditions of my previous successes, you know? And less as establishing an empirical causal connection between the color of my underwear and future events.”

“I see.” The corner of his mouth twitches upward. Just barely, though—still not a smile. Maybe he’s not capable. Maybe he has a debilitating medical condition. Smilopathy: now with its very own ICD-10 code. “So, what’s the lucky color?”

“What?”

“Of underwear.”

“Oh. Um . . . lavender.”

He seems briefly stumped. “Purple?”

“Kind of, yeah.” I forgot that most men can’t name more than five colors. “A little lighter. Between purple and pink. Pastel-like.”

He nods slowly, like he’s trying to picture it. “Cute,” he says, and his tone is as simple and straightforward as it’s been in the last few minutes. There is absolutely no creepy lasciviousness, as though he’s complimenting a flower or a puppy. My heart skips a beat nonetheless.

Would he . . . ? If he saw me wearing my . . . would he still think that . . . ?

Oh my God. What is wrong with me? This poor man just gave me his croissant.

“Anyway,” I hasten to add, “maybe there’re a lot of people buying good luck croissants, because I’m not alone in my . . . magical thinking—nice way to put it, by the way. For example, my friend Hannah works at NASA, and she says that the engineers there have had whole complex routines involving Planters peanuts and mission launches for the past, like, fifty years. And I’m an engineer. Basically, I’m professionally required to—”

“You’re an engineer?” His eyes widen in surprise.

My heart sinks with disappointment. Oh God. He’s one of those. I can’t believe he’s one of those.

I scowl and stand from the bench, looking down at him with a frown. “FYI, in the U.S., fifteen percent of the engineering workforce is made up of women. And that number has been steadily increasing, so there is no need to be so shocked that—”

“I’m not.”

My frown deepens. “You sure looked like—”

“I’m an engineer myself, and it seemed like a coincidence of sorts.” His mouth twitches again. “I thought your magical thinking might be tickled.”

“Oh.” My cheeks burn. “Oh.” Wow. Am I the Asshole, Reddit? Why, you kind of are, Sadie. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Where did you study?” he asks, unruffled, pulling at my wrist till I sit again. I end up a little closer to him than I was before, but it’s fine. It’s okay. Siri, how many times can I utterly humiliate myself in the span of thirty minutes? Infinite, you say? Thank you, that’s what I figured.

“Um, Caltech. I finished my Ph.D. last year. You?”

“NYU. Got my master’s . . . ten, eleven years ago?”

We stare at each other, me calculating his age, him . . . I don’t know. Maybe he’s calculating, too. He must be six or seven years older than me. Not that it’s in any way relevant. We’re just chatting. We’re going our separate ways in twelve seconds.

“Where do you work?” he asks.

“GreenFrame. You?”

“ProBld.”

I scrunch my nose, instantly recognizing the name—from both the plaques in the lobby of my office building and the New York engineering grapevine. There are lots of firms in this area, and he works at my least favorite. The big jellyfish that keeps expanding by eating the smaller jellyfish. Not that they’re terrible—they’re fine. But they’re old-school and don’t focus on sustainability nearly as much as we do. But they do have a solid rep, and some of our potential clients even choose them over us because of that. Which: bleh.