Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(99)

“I’m— I—” He points at Erik. To no one’s surprise, his finger is shaking. “His younger brother—”

“I know who you are.” Sadie’s eyes narrow. “What I asked is: Who do you think you are, to come into my house and steal my cat?”

“Um, technically, Garfield is my—”

“His name is Cat.”

Anders blinks. “Pretty sure I named him Garfield.”

“You named him Garfield. Past tense. Then Erik took him in because you were Eat Pray Loving your way through Europe. Erik opened his home and his heart, and renamed him Cat. And Cat likes it much better than Garfield. Don’t you, babe?”

On the windowsill, Cat licks his orange paw in what almost looks like a nod. Mmm.

“Knowing Erik, I seriously doubt he opened his heart to—”

“Things have changed around here, Anders.” Sadie’s tone is so sharp, Erik’s six-foot-something, two-hundred-pound brother presses himself deeper into his chair. Yeah, Erik thinks, watching little wisps of hair come undone from her bun and frame her face. She’s terrifying. And cute. “Especially between Erik and Cat. They are bonded now.”

They are not. Cat hates Erik, and Erik hates Cat, especially after watching him scoot his asshole against Erik’s toothbrush less than twelve hours ago. However, they are both very fond of Sadie, and have therefore established a truce of sorts.

To facilitate peaceful cohabitation, Erik has disseminated decoy toothbrushes all around the house.

“Okay, listen . . .” Anders scratches his neck. “Don’t you guys have a budding engineering firm to run? Do you even have time to take care of Garf— Cat?”

“We have nothing but time,” Sadie cuts in, as though Grantham & Nowak is not growing exponentially, as though they haven’t been busier than ever. Erik fondly remembers how anxious Sadie was when they both left their previous jobs. What if, with working and living together, you get tired of me? It sounded so unlikely, he could only laugh. “And as you know, the house we’re building upstate is almost finished. Cat could come up with us on weekends. In fact, we’ve been thinking about getting a dog—and I think we can all agree that Cat would love to torment a puppy. Wouldn’t you, Cat?”

“Meow.”

Erik’s phone buzzes again. This time he takes his eyes off Sadie to check his texts.

Clearly, Mara told Liam about the baby. Clearly, she told him last.

    Erik: Congrats, man.

Erik: Unrelated question: Are you guys ever scared of your wives?



The replies are instantaneous.

    Liam: 100%.

Ian: Hannah’s still not my wife, but yeah. Shitless.



Erik sighs, slides his phone back into his pocket, and decides to intervene. He goes to Sadie, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Her slight weight settles into his side. Sorry, Erik tells his brother with a look. But she’s very cute and very terrifying. “What about joint custody?” he proposes.

Anders glares at him, and then nods, defeated.

Sadie smiles, triumphant.

Cat is nowhere to be seen. Must be in the bathroom, Erik thinks. Looking for toothbrushes.





IAN


The words come out of Ian’s mouth before he’s fully processed them. By the time he notices Hannah’s raised eyebrows and her dubious expression, it’s just too late to take them back.

She stops in the middle of the hallway.

Ian stops, too.

She looks at him, skeptical.

Ian tries not to avert his eyes.

It’s not easy: The Jet Propulsion Lab is crawling with interns, students, engineers. They’re all at the end of their workday, and they’re all trying to exit the building from that door over there. The one that’s maybe ten feet away.

And, apparently, Ian and Hannah are about to have this conversation right in front of it. Perfect.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Let’s just go home. Forget that I—”

“Did you just ask me why we are not married?”

“No. Well, yes, but . . .”

“In response to me asking you if we should get Thai tonight?”

Ian scratches his temple and looks at his feet. “Perhaps not my best segue.” His hand lifts to her back, and he tries to nudge her toward the parking lot. “Let’s go home.”

Hannah stays put. “Where’s this coming from?” she asks, just as NASA’s deputy administrator strolls in and out of Ian’s field of view, waving cheerfully. Hannah’s eyes fall on the phone in his hand. “Aah.”

“Aah?”

“Aah.” She nods knowingly. “You’ve been talking with Erik and Liam.”

Ian frowns. “What does that have to do with it?”

“You get like this when you talk to them.” She grins and grabs his sleeve, pulling him into the parking lot.

“I get like what?”

“Homey. Marriagey.”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve never mentioned marriage before.” In fact, he’s been very careful not to mention anything that’s even remotely connected. Everyone knows that Ian and Hannah are together, but when Ian’s manager asked him if he’d be taking his “wife” to her barbecue—Dr. Arroyo, right, who leads the A & PE team?—he made sure to say, Yes, I’ll bring my partner. When Sadie pushed her bridal bouquet of Danish lilies into Hannah’s very unreceptive, mostly slack hands, he made sure to nod while Hannah listed the reasons marriage is an archaic institution grounded in a capitalistic landscape.