Page 24 of Love and the Laws of Motion
“Serious understatement.”
His bowl was empty in a matter of moments.Then he sat back and exhaled heavily.“I don’t feel so good.”
“You drank half a bottle of vodka.”
“That might have been unwise.I should go.”
“I’ll call you a Lyft,” Livie offered, pulling out her phone.“Where are you going?”
He rubbed at his eyebrow with his thumb, face screwing up as he attempted to concentrate.“Ummm, I don’t know.”
“Do you want to text a friend, see if you can crash with someone tonight?”
He looked lost as he thought about it.“There isn’t really anybody I could ask.”
“Surely you have friends.”Someone like Nick couldn’t possibly be friendless.He was too charismatic, too charming.
“I do.But not here.I know loads of people out in California.And there’s Kurt, but he’s in Berlin.And Mitul, but he’s in New Delhi.”
“You don’t have any friends in the city?”
“I spend a lot of time online, okay?And since I moved back, I’ve been hanging out with Poppy’s friends, mostly.I’mnotcalling one of them.”
“But you’re from Brooklyn.You could call your parents and—”
“No,” he snapped.“I’m not calling them.”
Okay...Livie carefully edged past that land mine.“You don’t have any childhood friends from around here?”
“I kind of lost touch with everybody when I left for DeWitt.Not that I had a lot of close friends before that.Going to college at sixteen puts you in kind of rarefied company.”
Well, she understood that well enough.She’d always been an odd duck, moving through the world in her own little bubble.Without her family, she’d have nobody, really.
Nick was alone.Losing Poppy was just the tip of the iceberg.He wasalone.For all his charm and confidence, he didn’t have anyone he could reach out to in a crisis.Her heart ached for him.Because despite her being a square peg, Livie’s family and community had happily made room for her pointy edges.It didn’t matter if they didn’t understand her.They loved her anyway.She’d always have a place to come home to, people who would accept and love her, no questions asked.And Nick didn’t.
“Why don’t you stay with me?”
“You?”
“Our house is right around the corner, and we have a spare room.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“It’s not an imposition.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Damn.Are you always this nice?”He was looking at her like she was some rare species of bird.Honestly, it was no wonder he had so few friends if a little kindness was such a shock to him.
“Um, I guess?It doesn’t seem extraordinarily nice to me.You need someplace to stay.I have room.That’s just basic decency.”
“Huh.Decency.Haven’t run into that one in a while.”
“Maybe it’s time to hang around new people, then.Now, come on.You need to sleep this off.”
When he fumbled for his wallet, she stilled him with a hand on his arm.“It’s on the house.”
