Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(43)

Maybe the blueprints and I will common-law tie the knot. Who’s to say?

Anyhoo. All of this to say: I haven’t really dated a whole lot, which is the sole reason I haven’t developed weird, ritualistic habits around the process. Or I hadn’t. Till right now.

Because I am about fifteen minutes into the night, and I’m thinking that I’ll have to keep these black jeans for the rest of my life. The lightweight green sweater I put on? Can’t throw it away. Ever. This is now my lucky-date outfit. Because the second I sit down at the bistro, where everything smells delicious and our narrow window table has the cutest little succulent in its center, Erik’s phone pings.

“Sorry. I’ll mute it.” He does, but not before rolling his eyes. Which is such a far cry from his usual stoic, nonplussed vibe, I cannot help but burst into laughter. “Please, do not mock my pain,” he deadpans, taking the seat across from mine. I’m not sure how, but I know that he’s joking. Maybe I’m developing telepathic powers.

“Work?” I ask.

“I wish.” He shakes his head, resigned. “Way more important stuff.”

Oh. Maybe he wasn’t joking. “Is everything okay?”

“No.” He slides his phone in his pocket and leans back in his seat. “My brother texted that my football team just traded one of our best players. We’re never going to win a game again.”

I smile into my water. I never really got into American football. It seems kind of boring—a bunch of overgrown dudes standing around in ’80s shoulder pads and bashing their heads toward chronic traumatic encephalopathy—but I’m way too soccer mad to judge fans of other sports. Maybe Erik used to play. He’s big enough, I guess. “Then they should really invest in lucky underwear.”

He gives me a lingering look. “Purple.”

“Lavender.”

“Right. Yes.” He glances away, and I think that this is nice. I’m sitting across from someone who’s not Oscar, and I’m not feeling too nervous, or too much weirder than usual. For all that he’s a blond steely mountain of muscles, Erik is surprisingly easy to be around.

“What’s your team? Giants? Jets?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not that kind of football.”

I cock my head. “Is it, like, a minor league?”

“No, it’s European football. Soccer, you’d call it. But we don’t need to talk about—”

I nearly do a spit take. “You follow soccer?”

“An intervention-worthy amount, according to my family and friends. But don’t worry, I do have other topics of conversation. Like pastries. Or the practical implementation of smart factory technology. Or . . . that’s about it.”

“No! No, I—” I don’t even know where to start. “I love soccer. Like, love love. I stay up till ridiculous hours to watch games in Europe. My parents always get me fancy jerseys for my birthday because that’s literally my only interest. I went to college on a soccer scholarship.”

He frowns. “So did I.”

“No way.” We stare at each other for a long moment, a million and one words running through the eye contact. Impossible. Amazing. Really? Really, for real? “You used to play?”

“I still play. Tuesday nights and weekends, mostly. There are lots of amateur clubs here.”

“I know! On Wednesdays I go to this gym near my place, and . . . Soccer was my first career choice. The engineering Ph.D. was definitely my plan B. I really, really wanted to go pro.”

“But?”

“I wasn’t quite good enough.”

He nods. “I’d have loved to go pro, too.”

“What stopped you?”

He chuckles. It sounds like a hug. “I wasn’t nearly good enough.”

I laugh. “So, what’s your team and who did they trade?”

“F.C. Copenhagen. And they got rid of—”

“Don’t say Halvorsen.”

He closes his eyes. “Halvorsen.”

I wince. “Yeah, you’re never gonna win another game, not for all the purple underwear in the world. But you weren’t gonna win much with him, anyway. You need a better coach, honestly. No offense.”

“Plenty of offense.” He’s glaring.

“You follow women’s soccer, too?” I ask.

He nods. “Proud OL Reign supporter since 2012.”

“Me, too!” I beam. “So you don’t always have terrible taste.”

“What’s your men’s team?” A cute, charming vertical line has appeared between his brows.

I rest my chin on my hands. “Guess. I’ll give you three tries.”

“Honestly, I can accept any club except for Real Madrid.”

I continue with my chin hands, unperturbed.

“It’s Real Madrid, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“Outrageous.”

“You’re just jelly because we can afford to buy decent players.”

“Right.” He sighs and hands me one of the menus I never even noticed the waiter dropped off. “I’m going to need food for this conversation. And so will you.”

We spend the rest of the night arguing, and it’s . . . fantastic. The best. I suspect the food is as good as he promised, but I don’t pay very much attention, because Erik has incredibly incorrect opinions on the way Orlando Pride is using Alex Morgan and on the Premier League trajectory of Liverpool, and I must dedicate all my efforts to talking him out of them.