Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(59)

“I realize that,” she says, with a tone that suggests a strong but. “But, I’m not positive that it’s Erik’s fault, either.”

“And he did apologize,” Hannah adds. “Also, the fact that he read your dissertation is kind of cute. How many of the guys I’ve slept with have read my stuff, do you think?”

“No clue. How many?”

“Well, as you know, I firmly believe that sex and conversation don’t mix well, but I’d estimate . . . a solid zero?”

“Sounds about right,” Mara says. “Plus, you said he offered to find a way to fix the situation. And that just doesn’t seem like something he would do if he didn’t care about you.”

“Agreed.” Hannah nods. “My vote is for no genital pimples.”

“Same. I am dissolving the summoning circle as we speak.”

“No, wait, no dissolving, I—” I scrub my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Whose side are you guys even on?”

“Yours, Sadie.”

“Unlike you,” Hannah adds.

“I— What does that even mean?”

They exchange a look. I know we’re on a Zoom call and it’s technically impossible for them to exchange a look, but they are exchanging a damn look. I can feel it. “Well,” Hannah says, “here’s the deal. You meet this guy. And you boink him. And it’s really good boinking—yay. The day after, you find out that he’s a dick, which sends you on a three-week downward curlicue of tears and Talenti gelato that’s about twelve times more intense than the time you broke up with a dude you’d been dating for years. But then you find out that it was all a misunderstanding, that things might be fixable, and . . . you leave? You said he wanted to talk more, and it’s obvious that you’re interested in hearing what he’s saying. So why did you leave, Sadie?”

I stare at Hannah’s implacable, matter-of-fact, kind eyes, which go very well with her implacable, matter-of-fact, kind voice, and mutter: “I liked it better when you were in Lapland.”

She grins. “I did, too, which is why I’m trying to get back there—but let us return to discussing your terrible communication skills.”

“They’re not that bad.”

“Eh. They kind of are,” Mara says.

I glare at Mara, too. I’m an equal-opportunity glarer. “You know what? I will accept that my communication skills are poor, but I refuse to be shamed by someone who’s on the verge of going ring shopping with the dude she once nearly called the cops on because he left a CVS receipt in the dryer.”

“Pfft, they’re not going ring shopping.” Hannah waves her hand dismissively. “I bet she’s going to get some kind of family heirloom.”

“Doesn’t he have older brothers?” I ask. “They probably already ran out of heirlooms four weddings ago.”

“Oh yeah. Maybe there will be some shopping. You think he’s going to call us from some D.C. mall’s Claire’s asking us which ring Mara would prefer?”

“Oh my God, you know what? Last week I read somewhere that Costco sells engagement rings— Oh, hi, Liam.”

Mara’s boyfriend enters the screen and comes to stand right behind her. In the past few weeks he’s become a sort of informal fourth in our calls—an occasional guest star, if you will, who mines for embarrassing grad school stories about Mara and kindly offers to murder our asshole male colleagues when we complain. Considering that our first introduction to him was Mara plotting to booby-trap his bathroom, it’s surprisingly fun to have him around.

“Really, guys?” he asks, all frowny and dark and cross-armed. “Claire’s? Costco?”

Hannah and I both gasp. “Costco is amazing.”

“Yeah, Liam. What do you have against Costco?”

He shakes his head at us, presses a kiss on the crown of Mara’s head, and exits the frame. I’m a fan, I must say.

“Okay,” Mara says, “going back to your poor communication skills.”

I roll my eyes.

“Are you still angry at Erik?” Hannah asks. “Because you spent weeks being sad, and furious, and sadly furious. Even if you now know that your reasons weren’t as valid, I feel like it would still be hard to let go of that. So maybe that’s the issue here?”

I think about Erik’s hand closing around my arm in the lobby. About the way he kept looking at me when the elevator restarted: focused, intent, like the world could spin twice as fast as normal and he still wouldn’t have cared, not if I were nearby. I don’t let myself recall the words he said, but a memory resurfaces, of us laughing and standing in his kitchen and eating Chinese leftovers, and I don’t push it down. For the first time in weeks, it’s not soaked in resentment and betrayal. Just the achy, poignant sweetness of the night we spent together. Of Erik turning up the thermostat when I said I was cold, then wrapping his large, warm hands around the soles of my feet. That feeling of being right there, on the brink of something.

I don’t think I’m angry, not anymore.

“It’s not that,” I say.

“Okay. So the problem is that you don’t believe him?”

“I . . . No. I do. I don’t think Gianna deliberately lied to me, but she didn’t have all the facts.”