Love on the Brain(33)

“But in the paper—”

“Fred,” Levi says. He’s sitting back in his chair, dwarfing it, holding a half-eaten apple in his right hand. “I think we can take the word of a Ph.D.-trained neuroscientist with dozens of publications on this,” he adds, calm but authoritative. Then he takes another bite of his apple, and that’s the end of the conversation.

See? Sausage Referencing?. Works every time. And every time it makes me want to flip a table, but I just move on to the next topic. What can I say? I’m tired.

And now I crave an apple.

My stomach growls when I slip out to fill my water bottle. I’m thinking wistfully of the Lean Cuisine currently unthawing at my desk when I hear it.

“Meow.”

I recognize the chirpy quality of it immediately. It’s my calico—well, the calico—peeking at me from behind the water fountain.

“Hey, sweetie.” I go down on my knees to pet her. “Where did you go the other day?”

Chirp, meow. Some purrs.

“What are you doing all alone?”

A headbutt.

“Are you hunting mice? Do you work as c-law enforcement?” I laugh at my own pun. The cat gives me a scathing look and wanders away. “Oh, come on, it was a good joke. It was hiss-terical!”

One last indignant glare, and she turns the corner. I giggle, then hear steps coming up behind me. I don’t look back. I don’t need to, since I already know who it is. “There was a cat,” I say weakly.

Levi walks past me to fill his water bottle. He’s so tall, he needs to hunch over the fountain. His biceps shift under the cotton of his shirt. Was he this big in grad school? Or did I get even shorter? Maybe it’s the stress. Maybe early onset osteoporosis is kicking in. Gotta buy some calcium-set tofu. “Right,” he says, noncommittal. His eyes are on the water.

“No, for real.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious. She went that way.” I point to my right. Levi looks in that direction with a polite nod and then walks back inside the room, sipping his water.

I stay on my knees in the dead middle of the hallway and sigh. I don’t care if Levi Wardass believes me.

He probably hates cats anyway.



* * *



? ? ?

“EQUIPMENT’S READY. AND Guy set up our computers,” Rocío says as we walk back to our apartments.

I smile into the soupy afternoon air. “Awesome. How was working with Guy and Kaylee?”

“How was working with your lifelong sworn archfoe?”

I give her the stink eye. “Ro.” My time with her is perfect practice for the adolescent daughter I might never have.

“It was fine,” she mutters. I frown at her tone.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“It doesn’t sound fine. Is there a problem?”

“Yes. Several. Global warming, systemic racism, the overpopulation of ecological niches, the unnecessary American remake of Swedish romantic horror masterpiece Let the Right One In—”

“Rocío.” I stop on the sidewalk. “If there’s something off in the way you’re being treated, if Guy’s making you uncomfortable, please feel free to—”

“Have you seen Guy?” she scoffs. “He looks like the harmless love child of a meerkat and an altar boy.”

“That is very rude and”—I blink—“disturbingly accurate, but it sounds like you had an unpleasant day, so if there’s anything that bothers you, I—” She mutters something I can’t hear. I lean closer. “What did you say?”

Another mumbled reply.

“What? I can’t—”

“I said, I hate Kaylee.” She screams it so loud, a man pushing a stroller on the other side of the street turns to look at us.

“You hate . . . Kaylee?”

She whirls around and starts walking. “I said what I said.” I hurry after her.

“Wait—are you serious?”

“I’m always serious.”

She’s not. “Did she do something to you?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me, please.” I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to be reassuring. “I’m here for you, whatever it is—”

“Her stupid curls,” Rocío spits out. “They look like a damn Fibonacci spiral. They’re logarithmic, and their growth factor is the golden ratio—not to mention that they even look like spun gold. Is she Cinderella? Is this Disneyland Paris?”

I blink. “Ro, are you—”

“And what self-respecting person wears that much glitter? Unironically?”

“I like glitter—”

“No, you don’t,” she growls. I can only nod. Okay. Don’t like glitter anymore. “And earlier she dropped something and you know what she said?”

“Oops?”

“?‘Lordy.’ She said, ‘Oh, Lordy!’—do you understand why I cannot work with her?”

I nod to buy time. This is . . . interesting. At the very least. “I, um, understand that you two are very different and might never be friends, but I need you to overcome your . . . revulsion for sequins—”

“Pink sequins.”