“I know. I worked with Professor Holberg while I was interning with NASA and he liked to remind us that he won one there regularly.”
Elio grunted, rolling his eyes. “I’m not surprised. He was an arrogant twat,” he muttered, making Milo giggle.
“He was but you shouldn’t be throwing stones,” he said and Elio shrugged.
“You could win an eighth if you chose to work there.”
“Don’t get carried away,” Milo replied with a shake of his head.
“We’ll see.” Elio winked but he was looking forward to a more immediate victory as the van crawled through traffic. They were nearly out of the city and tonight would be the night that Milo showed everyone that he was in a league of his own. Elio was about to ask what snacks he had packed for the ride but Milo’s eyes glittered and his lip wobbled. “What’s wrong? Did Tyler say something?” he started to sit up but Milo grabbed his arm.
“No, it wasn’t Tyler. It’s…” Milo sniffed hard and swiped at the corner of his right eye. “You have no idea how much it means to me, knowing you believe that Icouldwin something that big. But this thing with time…it’s impossible, Eli,” he whispered sadly, knocking the wind out of Elio. “Iwant toand I’m going to give it everything I have but the odds are beyond?—!”
“I know!” Elio shushed and checked to make sure no one was eavesdropping. The Mean Guys in the two rows in front of them were all entertained with a new villain filter on Instagram and were practicing their evil laughs. Elio turned Milo so they were facing each other and cupped his cheek. “It’s impossible and dangerous—I get it—but all that matters is that you’re willing to try.”
“Are you sure?” Milo countered, his whisper rising to a nervous hiss. “It’s the whole reason why you came to Manhattan and Starlight and why you picked me. You’ve waitedyearsfor this and it might be several more years before they let us conduct that kind of study.Ifthey ever let us. But the likelihood of us actually accomplishing it is less than nil.”
“Do you think I haven’t realized this?” Elio said, his tone stubborn and defiant. “I spend almost as much time calculating the odds and looking foranyfactor that might swing them in my favor but all I’ve found is you. And still, I know that it’s impossible,” he admitted but that wasn’t true.
Not anymore. He had stopped worrying about the odds and spent more time thinking about Milo than his parents lately. He wasn’t thinking of them when he arranged for the “tour” of Brookhaven or when he said that Milo could win a Nobel. All Elio had thought of was proving that Milo was the best astrophysicist of their day. Aside from Elio, of course. And Elio wanted Milo to win a Nobel so his name would stand alongside the other great minds of science.
“I still have to try, for my parents and my brothers,” Elio said and Milo took his hand again and gave it a squeeze.
“I promise I’ll do everything I can but we could spend the rest of our lives working on this and never find the answer or a way to bring them back,” Milo warned gently. “That doesn’t scare me but I am afraid of letting you down. You think I can do all these impossible things but will you still want me when you realize I can’t?”
“Milo, I—” Elio stopped, suddenly taken with the idea of spending the rest of their lives together.
He imagined a warm, happy home like his brothers and Milo’s fathers had, but for him and Milo. Was he betraying his parents and his brothers by wanting something else? Elio felthopefulbut he was torn. Since he was a teenager, Elio had believed that his purpose was to find his parents and put his family back together.
Now, Elio wondered if there was a far more attainable way to honor his parents and make his family whole again. His heart ached as he missed them and wished they could see how far he had come. But Elio knew without a doubt that he would disappoint his parents so much more if he lost Milo. They were opposites in nearly every way but Elio would never find anyone who understood him better or made him happier.
“I’d still want you,” he said and captured Milo’s lips for a deep, lingering kiss. He wanted to tell Milo more, that he wastheoneand that nothing would change that, but Bryan made a loud gagging sound from the second row.
“My eyes!” Chad complained as the rest of the Mean Guys laughed and acted like children.
Elio pulled the tennis ball from his pocket and scanned for the clearest target but Milo elbowed him. “Don’t even think about it,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “It’ll ricochet off the roof and windows and I’ll end up with a bloody nose or broken glasses.”
“Fine,” Elio grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. “How much longer until we get there?”
It was probably best if he waited until they were alone and near a bed to make that kind of declaration. Plus, Elio needed to talk this out with Matteo first. Was it too soon to be saying “I love you” and how much would it freak Milo out? He was adjusting well to having his first boyfriend and being the subject of office gossip. But Elio wanted to know what came next and when he should ask Milo about his plans for the future.
“He’s going to be such a shite, though,” Elio predicted and Milo’s brows furrowed.
“Who?”
“Matteo,” Elio said as he rubbed the studs in the bridge of his nose, already regretting the decision but there was no one else to turn to. Leo and Theo would be too romantic and sentimental to be of any use, where Matteo would be blunt and objective. After he laughed and questioned Milo’s taste and judgement. “I need to call him as soon as we get back to the city. He’ll be a wank about this at first, but I can’t decide something like this without him.”
Twenty
Ahuge weight had been taken off of Milo’s shoulders during the ride to Brookhaven. He hadn’t realized just how much pressure he had been feeling aboutsolving timeuntil Elio said he had arranged the trip for Milo and mentioned Nobel prizes. You had to be a contender for a major prize like the Nobel or have a massive grant to gain approval from the Department of Energy to run a study at Brookhaven.
But…it wastime!
Milo was flattered but his heart sank whenever he considered how huge and how impossible of a task it was. Physicists had struggled with the problem of time since the philosopher Bergson and Einstein first debated about the natureof time, back in 1922. For Einstein, time was relative and measurable through physics. Bergson argued that Einstein was merely describing the behavior of clocks and that time was a human concept and immeasurable. Bohr and Einstein continued the debate on time and quantum mechanics throughout the 1920swith Bohr theorizing that quantum systems didn’t have definite properties until they were measured.
That conflict had been accepted as unsolvable but Elio wanted to prove that time—spacetime—operated in loops and that those loops entangled in infinite ways. With access to a collider, Elio could—in theory—produce the Higgs boson particle and a second particle, called the Higgs singlet, at the same time. Elio believed those singlets had the ability to jump into an extra, fifth dimension where they could move either forward or backward in time and reappear in the future or the past due to the entanglement of those spacetime loops.
Milo had nothing but time and was happy to dedicate the rest of his life to Elio’s cause, regardless of the risks. The only thing Milo truly feared was the fading of Elio’s trust and respect. Would he grow frustrated and distant if they didn’t make progress or would Elio lose interest if someone smarter than Milo came along?
