Page 19 of The Spark Between Us

“Of course he didn’t. Guys don’t do that.”

“You saying that girls do?”

“Of course. If you’re a high school girl and you’re smart, like smarter than average, you have a choice. You can be smart and alienate ninety percent of your peers, go on very few dates, win lots of awards, and find your true calling in college. Or you can hide what you know, work hard to fit in, and have a good time.”

“Which one were you?” I’d have put good money on the first one. She didn’t seem like one to suffer fools, so I couldn’t imagine her hiding.

She raised her eyebrows like the answer was obvious. “The second one.”

“Really? You didn’t let people know you were smart?” I frowned, disliking that women felt they had to do that.

She took a bite of a slider, and a little drip of barbecue sauce ran down her chin. It was all I could do not to reach over and wipe it away. Or lick it. I was evolved in my feminist thinking, but come on.

A second later, she caught it with a napkin and smiled. “I was smart quietly. I studied and did well on my assignments and the tests, but if I knew the answer in class, I kept it to myself. I never told people what grades I got. And I had a life—dates, stupid teenage fun, broke curfew, got grounded. All of that. Then I went to college and found other physicists who were way smarter than me, and I needed to work to keep up. I didn’t give a crap what people thought anymore. I wanted to be a scientist. And here we are.”

I had a feeling it wasn’t quite as easy as that. “So you majored in physics?” She nodded. “Then you went to grad school?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“I’ve spent the last ten years studying and working on my PhD, then studying and publishing and teaching. It’s been tough.” She frowned at the recollection. Then she perked up and raised a finger in the air. “But! This fellowship at the lab could change everything. I’ll be doing work in a new area of physics, which means I’ll publish the shit out of whatever I discover, and that will earn me tenure track.”

“And that’s what you want? To be a tenured professor?”

“Yes. It’s been my dream since I started grad school. I know it sounds dorky, but...” She tipped her hands to the sides and pointed her fingers at herself.

“You’re not a dork. Tell me what you’ll be doing at the lab.”

This was a helluva lot more interesting than most dinners I had, which admittedly were just a small talk prelude to sex. If we even bothered with the dinner.

She shook her head and waved her hands like she’d rather shut down the line of questioning. “You’re kind to ask, but we don’t have to get into that whole thing. Trust me, it’s a snooze if you’re not interested in lasers and nuclear materials.”

“Try me,” I said, beckoning with my hand.

She took a deep breath and hit me with an enthusiastic grin. “Okay, so, the lab has a visiting scientists program, where they bring in people with specialized knowledge to apply it in a real-world study. So I’m doing something called diode laser-assisted friction stir welding.”

My brain tapped out. That was too much science.

Not to mention that at the word welding, my brain was off and running, picturing Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, welding in a tight tank top before leaving work to dance in a club. “Um, okay, so what does it mean you’re actually doing?”

She laughed. “Well, it’s literally welding. You know, fusing two sheets of metal together, but the novelty is the process. I’m a physicist, but I also studied mechanical engineering. Then I got into friction stir welding, which is a way of joining two pieces without melting the metal. But the lab has these incredibly powerful lasers, and I want to use them to weld more efficiently.”

The way she said it made it sound like she was adjusting seasoning in a bread recipe, and I knew she was downplaying her intelligence. My mind was officially blown.

It was also still very preoccupied with Flashdance, only now I pictured Sarah welding in a tank top. “And just so I understand, what’s the reason you need to fuse the metal without melting it?”

“It makes the bond stronger, and it allows us to join different types of metal alloys. Some of the private space exploration companies are really interested.”

“So the work you’re doing could end up in a rocket?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Could be cool, right?”

“Wow. Yes. Very cool. I’m impressed, Sarah.”

She blushed, and the creep of pink that spread over her cheeks made me want to brush my fingers over them. “Anyway, that’s why I’m here, roomie.”

I held my hands in my lap, far away from her cheeks. “Awesome. Well, it’s a great place. I hope you like it. Lots to do here, outdoorsy and good weather most of the time.” I speared some meat and cheese from the platter in front of us. “Don’t know if you have any hobbies.”

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