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“Hey.” Jack shifts and then does something I don’t fully understand. He—
Oh.
Somehow, he pulls me up. And somehow, I’m on the couch.Lyingon the couch. Next tohim. My head nestles under his chin, his arms surround mine, our thighs tangle together. I open my mouth to say something likeWhat the hell?orOh my Godor?!??, but nothing comes out.
Instead, I burrow deeper.
“Assholes,” he says.
I’m still asleep. This is a dream. A nightmare. A blend. “Who?”
“The people who didn’t like you winning theForbesaward.” Howdoes he know that’s the award I was talking about? “You should report them.”
“For what?” I ask against his throat. He’s warm and smells nice. Like sleep. Like clean. Like he could easily change my sink, save kittens stuck in a tree, extinguish a fire. “For being dicks?”
“Yes. Though HR would call it sexual discrimination and building a hostile work environment.”
“It’s not that simple,” I mumble.
“It should be.” His chin brushes my hair every time he speaks, and I remember trying to mention what happened to Dr. L. The way he commiserated with me but also said that it would be better if I just forgot it happened and focused my energies on physics.
“What wouldyoudo if your students said something like that?”
“I’d make sure they can never have a career in physics.”
The words vibrate from his skin through mine, and I know he means it. I don’t have a single doubt. And that’s how I start crying again, like a stupid Versailles fountain, and how his hold on me tightens, legs twisting further with mine. His fingers twine in the hair at my nape and press me deeper into him, shielding me from the cold and everything that’s bad.
“I just...” I sniffle. “Ireallywanted a chance to finish my molecular theory of two-dimensional liquid crystals.”
“I know.” His lips press against my hair. Maybe on purpose. “We’ll figure out a way.”
There is no we, I think. And Jack says, “Not yet, no,” with a small sigh that lifts his big chest. “It’ll be fine, Elsie. I promise.”
He cannot. Promise, that is. There are no reliable sources, no known quantities. We’re in a sea of measurement uncertainty. “Maybe this rejection will be my supervillain origin story.”
He chuckles. “It won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because this is not your character arc, Elsie. More like a... character bump.”
I laugh wetly against his Adam’s apple. I need to go back upstairs. I’ve never slept with anyone, never even considered it. I can’t control what I do at night—what if I move too much or snore or take up too much space? A cover hog is the Elsie no one wants. But with Jack I have nothing to lose, right? We’re past all that. “I can’t believe I woke you up at four and you didn’t murder me.”
“Why would I murder you?”
“Because. It’s late.”
“Nah. I’m kind of into it.” He yawns against the crown of my hair.
“You’ll really enjoy the thrill of frequent nighttime urination as a senior citizen, then.”
“It’s not that.” I think he might be about to conk out. “This... It fits nicely in a bunch of really weird fantasies I have about you.”
I remember the picture in his nightstand. His earnest face in Greg’s apartment. I’m breathing the same air as Jack Smith, but I don’t feel scared or unsafe.
Just comforted, really. Warm and so sleepy.
“Do these fantasies involve giant tentacle dildos?” I’m yawning, too. Fading fast.
