Page 6 of Love and the Laws of Motion
He chuckled, and the sound sent a shiver down her spine.“I’m sure you don’t.And that is the difference between me and you.”
That was far from the only difference between them.Maybe Nick came from the same neighborhood as her, and he had an Italian last name, but the similarities began and ended there.
He was so...she couldn’t even come up with the right words to describe him.Good-looking for sure, but there was something more, some undeniable presence, something that pulled her in—enthralled her—in spite of his annoying arrogance.Charisma?That hinted at his power, but it didn’t fully explain it.
She didn’t know what to do with all this nervous, humming awareness, as it had literally never happened to her before.Men—they were definitely out of her area of expertise.She wasn’t even casually familiar with the whole men/dating/sex thing.She hadn’t avoided men and sex on purpose, but she’d never felt compelled to explore it with anyone she’d met.And she wasn’t going to do anything just to say she did it.Now here she was, twenty-five and completely inexperienced with men.That had never once bothered her—until now.
How did you talk to a guy like Nick?Oh, they were already talking—about her work and his life.But how did shetalkto him?How did she—as a woman—engage with a guy like Nick—as a man?If there was an instruction manual on flirting with the opposite sex, Livie’s had gone missing the day they handed them out.
Now, after all these years, she finally liked a guy and she had absolutely no idea what to do about it.Why did she like him anyway?Sure, he was attractive, but he was also practically a felon—arrogant, cocky—and then there was his alarming moral flexibility.But despite all that, she did like him.To a dangerous degree.
And now they’d be working together, for who knew how long.She suspected he was way out of her league, but she couldn’t help the tiny spark of excitement—hope—that flamed to life in her chest.
“So you’ll help me with my coding?”
“Can’t wait to get started.”His grin turned that spark into a bonfire.He was talking about the computer program, but it felt like he could be alluding to so much more.“So tell me what you’re looking for out there in the stars, Livie.”
She could feel herself smiling back at him, feel her body beginning to lean toward him.She might not have a clue what to do next, but she was definitely going to grill Jess tonight to find out.“Well—”
Out in the other room, a door opened and closed, and a voice called out, “Hello?”
A high, lilting voice.
In moments, the owner of the voice appeared in the doorway to Nick’s office.She was tall, impossibly skinny, and stunning, with long, pin-straight silky dark blond hair and large blue eyes.
“Oh, hello,” she said in surprise when she spotted Livie.“I didn’t know Nick was working.”
She was British, too.Of course.Her accent was like something fromMasterpiece Theatre.
Nick hopped up out of his chair, practically sprinting across the room to the willowy goddess.If Livie had a single doubt left about who she was, the next moments crushed that.He leaned down to kiss her cheek before turning to Livie with a smile that lit him up from the inside.“Livie, this is Poppy, my fiancée.”
Chapter Three
The halls of the Astronomy building were barely controlled chaos on the first official day of classes.Undergrads wandered slowly, scanning room numbers looking for the correct classrooms, or they sprinted, desperate to be the first to throw themselves on a professor’s mercy and beg to be let in to an already full section.Livie neatly sidestepped one after another as she made her way to Janet Finch’s office.
Her door was cracked open when she reached it, but Livie rapped lightly, out of politeness.“Janet?”
“Livie?”she called out.“Come in!Come in!”
Her heart sank as she stepped inside and looked around.Janet’s office looked like a bomb had gone off in it.She’d had this whole place organized and perfectly clean at the beginning of summer.All of Janet’s notes scanned and filed, all the books back on the shelves, organized first by subject, then alphabetically by author.Everything had been ready for their return to classes this fall, so they could dive right into Janet’s research without delay.
Now she couldn’t even see her behind all the clutter.
“Janet?”As the chair of the Astronomy department, the professor had one of the bigger offices in the building, but still, it shouldn’t be possible toloseher in it.
Then Livie spotted her light brown flyaway hair, streaked with gray, behind a stack of books and a second later she popped up from behind her paper-strewn desk.“Livie!Sorry, I dropped my pen and then I couldn’t seem to find it.”Janet looked around as if she’d just noticed the mess.
She seemed to exist on another plane for 99 percent of her life, which was why, Livie suspected, she was so brilliant.It was like she had some direct connection to the stars, seeing the universe with her naked eyes while everybody else had to guess at its shape by the tiny clues it left behind.
During her senior year, she’d attended a lecture Dr.Janet Finch had given about her new line of research, and her imagination had been captured by all the potential.Livie had stayed behind afterward to ask some questions, and she’d liked Janet right from the start.When the offer came from Adams—delivered by Janet personally—Livie hadn’t been able to say no.
There had been other offers, but shouldn’t you be passionate about the work, first and foremost?In the end, Livie had followed her heart and Janet and she’d chosen Adams.And now that they had the Skylight grant, it felt as if her gamble had paid off.
“It does seem to have gotten a little cluttered in here,” Janet murmured, as if the papers mysteriously flung themselves around the room.“And after you had everything tidied up.”
“No problem.I’ll get it sorted out.”Again.“You wanted me to stop by?”
Janet looked down at the papers strewn around her desk and then back up at Livie.“I did?”
