“Thank you.” I take a step back and barely catch sight of Jacob’s receding shape, and suddenly Lewis’s behavior makes more sense. He was only teasing me because we had an audience.
I push my disappointment aside as he turns to the lectern and join Brady, who waves me over. Lewis is getting too good at this, with his little gestures and lopsided smiles, the snagging gazes and casual touches.
So good that evenIam beginning to believe there might be something there.
A quiet hush settles over the auditorium as Jacob introduces Lewis, listing the steps of his academic career and the young investigator’s award he received from the German Academy of Sciences. Lewis’s blush is strong enough that I can spot it from my seat in the third row, though now I know that his lack of a smile and the tense set of his eyebrows are not because of a stick up his ass, but because he’s trying to rein in his nerves. What’s worse, now I also feel those nerves bubbling in my stomach as I witness him speed through the first slide of his lecture. The only reason I can keep track is because after last night’s rundown I know what he’s talking about, but a glance over my shoulder tells me some of the students are struggling to follow his introduction.
I push my hand up and clear my throat.
He pinches his lips together, either annoyed or amused that I’ve barely waited a minute to butt in. “Yes, Dr. Silberstein?”
“Could you go back to this theta-gamma coupling you were talking about?” I ask, then continue with a question he alreadyexplained to me in detail yesterday, one that will hopefully slow him down enough to get everyone else back on track.
When he’s done answering my question, the redness has faded from his face, and he blinks back at me with an expression I can only interpret as gratitude. From then on, his lecture goes smoothly, and people’s arms go up to ask questions stemming from curiosity rather than confusion. I hold myself back until the last moment to make good on the “more of a comment than a question” remark he requested, which makes him break into a grin. And then his lecture is over, and it’s easy to imagine the relief he must be feeling, because the tension melts from my muscles, too.
The only thing that gets me through the afternoon workshops is the prospect of a long climbing session in the evening to release all the energy Lewis’s presence stokes in me. For a moment I consider inviting him to come with, but that would defeat the entire purpose of going.
At the gym on 125th Street, with my hands dusted in chalk and my mind puzzling through the different bouldering problems, I gradually start to put Lewis out of my mind, but on the subway ride back, I see a new paper that makes me want to call him.
Academia is a marathon of obsessing over the most minuscule questions, the ones you tackle deep into the quiet hours of the night with only your computer at your fingertips. It can get lonely inside your brain. Too much time there can fill you with doubts, but then, sometimes, occasionally, a cool result, a new insight, feels like the most potent drug in the world.
When Jacob and I broke up, I didn’t only lose my boyfriend, but the person I considered my scientific partner in crime. The person I called whenever any of those breakthroughs happened, that were so far and few between. Before Lewis failed to include me in that paper four years ago, our emails were on course to fill the gap Jacob had left—not that of a boyfriend,but of someone I could share my thoughts and passions with—and now I want to reach for my phone again, to forward him this article and hear what he thinks.
I make a split-second decision. Right before the tunnel swallows my signal, I press send.
Lewis’s call comes through as I’m stepping out of the shower a half hour later, his words racing like he’s just finished reading. “They got such good coverage of the hippocampus. And the whole design? It’s so fucking elegant.”
I’m already whirring with excitement, but I get an extra boost from his enthusiasm. As we discuss the paper, his voice sounds a little deeper than in real life, and I can’t stop myself from pressing the phone closer to my ear. I curl my toes to release the electricity buzzing under my skin, but it doesn’t help.
After we hang up and I lie down in bed, my brain colors in the map of my body with all the new places Lewis touched today. It tucks away the new pieces of knowledge I learned about him, then calculates the hours until I’ll get to see him again.
And as much as I want to stamp it off as surface-level attraction, blame the kiss and some overdose of hormones, I know that whatever I’m feeling runs deeper than that. I’m starting to like Lewis. I want to kiss him again, but I also want to keep talking to him past the eight hours I spend glued to his side daily. I want to learn everything there is to know about him.
Thisis what Karo had warned me about when she said fake dating would be messy. Now I know that instead of ignoring her, I should’ve listened.
Chapter Fifteen
After another day packed to the brim with science, the only thing that separates me from my Lewis-free weekend is the Q and A session with the students, which takes place at Second Draft, a microbrewery-slash-bar located in East Williamsburg. Once Lewis and I get there, we push through the crowd of patrons with mustaches and rolled-up jeans, all the way to the back where, below one of the huge factory windows, most of the students are already seated at a long beer table.
Too focused on pushing down my inconvenient feelings for Lewis, I don’t pay much attention when one of the staff members explains how our beer tasting will proceed. I make sure to put a few students between our seats: François, who lifts his head whenever someone calls my name; Selin, who’s a first-year PhD in Lewis’s lab; and Daina, who’s outgoing enough to start asking questions. Everyone else seems a little shy.
I smile at them encouragingly, the encounter with Rosanna Alderkamp—and how much it meant to me—still fresh in my mind. In the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t been that long since I stood in their shoes: nervous about talking to anybodymore senior and experienced than me, wishing someone would notice and reach out to me. I hope I can do the same for them now. Soon enough—and perhaps with some liquid courage—more students join the conversation, and while we taste test through the menu, we drift off into small groups. I pinball back a few of the questions to get an idea of this new generation of scientists, and all the while, I marvel at the fact that this is also my job: mentoring and encouraging the younger students, paying forward the favor that enabled me to get to this position in the first place. As much as I love typing out code and exploring my data, this social side of the job is what keeps me going. It’s why I want to become a professor eventually, with my own lab, advising students and helping them figure out their passion within research.
Throughout the evening, the groups mix and rematch, until our conversations drift away from science. At some point, as I survey the room, I find Lewis looking back at me. He holds my gaze across the table, drawing warmth from my core all the way to my cheeks, and it makes me feel like we’re in this together, for real.This is temporary,I remind myself. But after the I-don’t-know-how-many-glasses-of-beer I’ve had, I don’t care. Even if it’s temporary and only pretend, I can enjoy it, if just for this evening.
Daina—PhD student at University College London—is sharing their favorite brain-related fun facts they usually unpack at family parties, when my phone vibrates in my purse.
My heart starts to pound. News on the grant?
But no. It’s Friday night, past 8:00 p.m. here, and the middle of the night in Central Europe. Academia is brutal, but not that brutal.
I chance a glance nonetheless. It’s Karo. “I need to take this,” I apologize. The restrooms are packed, and smokers cluster outside the bar, but a few steps beyond, the sidewalk isempty and quiet enough, now that the stores and cafés in the surrounding buildings have closed for the night.
The hot and humid night air presses in on my skin as I lean against the brick wall. “You’re back! Finally! Did you get back okay?”
Karo laughs. “It’s only been five days, but yeah, we did get back okay. Probably with a few more mosquito bites than physically tolerable, but we’re good.”
I’m soothed by the sound of her voice, the knowledge of her presence, even if it’s only virtual. “No bears then?”
