Page 20 of Love, Theoretically
“Go,” he orders.
“No! I can’t just—”
I must hesitate too long, because Jack’s hands close around my waist. He lifts me effortlessly, like I weigh less than a Higgs boson, and carries me inside the stall, depositing my feet on the rim of the toilet. My brain blanks—no thoughts, head empty—and I don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on. What is he—
The stall door closes.
The bathroom door opens.
Two men enter, discussing quantum advantage. “—scale the error correction by the number of qubits?”
“You don’t. Scaled-up system behavior is erratic. How do you account for that?”
Shit. Shit,shit—
“Calm down,” Jack murmurs against the shell of my ear, like he knows that I’m on the verge of popping an aneurysm.
“They’re from the MIT table,” I whisper under my breath.
“Shh.” His giant paws tighten around me, as if to contain me and my panic. They span my waist. Our size difference sits somewhere between absurd and obscene. “Settle down.”
I feel dizzy. “Why am I standing on the toilet?”
“I figured you’d rather Dr. Pereira and Dr. Crowley keep on chatting about superpolynomial speedups and not see your heels under the stall. Was I wrong?”
I close my eyes, mortified. This is not my life. I’m a discerningscientist with insightful opinions on spintronic tech, not this blighted creature clinging to Jonathan Smith-Turner’s shoulders on top of a latrine.
Oh, who am I kidding? This is exactly my brand. Improbable. Cringeworthy. Botched.
“Settle down,” Jack repeats, gruffly reassuring. We’re way too close. I want his breath to be garlic and sauerkraut, but it’s vaguely minty and pleasantly warm. I want his skin to smell ridiculous, like mango tanning mousse, but all my nose picks up on isnice,clean,good. I want his grip to be creepy and knee-in-the-groin worthy, but it’s just what I need to avoid slipping in the toilet. “Stop fidgeting.”
“I’m not—” Pereira and Crowley are still talking physics—can’t believe all the fuss with the quantum Hadamard transform—with the added background of a stream trickling. Oh God, they’re peeing. I’m eavesdropping on one of the world’s foremost solar neutrinos scholarspeeing. I can’t come back from this, can I?
“Elsie.” Jack’s lips graze my cheekbone. “Calm down. They’ll leave as soon as they’re done, and you can go back to the table. Laugh at Volkov’s puns till he votes for you. Tell a few more lies.”
“I’m notlying.” I pull back, and our eyes are at the same level. The slice of blue in the deep brown is icy, weird, beautiful. “I can’t explain, but this is...notthe way you think it is. It’s... different.”
“From what?”
“From the way you think it is.”
He nods. Our noses nearly brush together. “That was remarkably articulate.”
I roll my eyes.
“Monica will love to hear about your secret librarian identity—”
“No!” I barely keep my voice down. “Please, just call Greg before you talk to Monica. He’ll explain.”
“Convenient, given that I can’t get in touch with him while he’s on his retreat, and he won’t be back until your interview is over.”
Shit. I’d forgotten about Woodacre. “There must be a way to reach him. Can you tell him it’s an emergency? That, um, he left his porch light on? You need his alarm code to go turn it off. Save the environment.”
“No.”
“Please. At least—”
“No.”