Page 16 of Love and the Laws of Motion
“Water, please.How can Poppy lose ten pounds?There’s hardly any of her there as it is.”
Nick chuckled as he passed her a bottle of water.Livie could be surprisingly funny.“Trust me, in Poppy’s world, you can always lose ten more pounds.She’s a model.They think differently about that stuff.”
“Wow, she’s a model.Not that it’s surprising.She’s very pretty.”
“I happen to agree,” he said, grinning at Livie, who looked down, fiddling with the cap of her water bottle.Her hair was so long and thick you couldn’t see her face behind it when she hid herself like that.He suspected she did it on purpose, to hide what she was thinking, and Livie thoughta lot.
On the surface, she was another socially awkward genius.He’d certainly been around enough of those growing up.But every now and then, he’d catch a look in her eyes and realize she was noting everything happening around her, even if she didn’t comment on it.Sometimes he’d catch her watchinghimthat way and he’d suddenly feel like she could see every one of his secrets and fears as clear as day.That was not a comfortable sensation.
The way she’d grabbed onto his family issues just now—how did she sniff that out?He didn’t mention his family toanyone, not even Poppy.He shouldn’t have snapped at her like that.She was just being kind, worrying because he was on his own.
He’d never met anyone so solidlynicebefore in his life.It was a novelty.Even her crazy sense of honor was growing on him.In his experience, the world was full of truly shitty human beings.As for himself, he’d always thought he was fairly morally neutral.Not the best person alive, but by no means the worst—certainly better than a lot of the borderline sociopath tech geniuses he knew back in Palo Alto.But that was before he met Livie.She made him feel like he lurked down in the worst muck of humanity.Who knows?Maybe she was right, and he did.
As disconcerting as her ethics and mind reading could be, he still liked hanging out with her.She was easy to be around.Smart enough to keep up with his own zigzagging train of thought, while still coming up with the odd observation or comment that would surprise him or make him see something in a new way.In Nick’s life, very few people had proved any sort of intellectual challenge to him.It was criminal that she was being wasted at a place like Adams University.
“So you’re smart.”
“Um.Thank you?I guess?”
“No, more than usual.Smart even by Ivy League standards.”
“Um...yes?”
“Why Adams?You could have gone anywhere.”
“Dr.Finch was here.”
“You came to Adams for her?”
“During my senior year of undergrad, I saw her give a lecture about her black hole theory.After that, there was nothing else I wanted to study, and nobody else I wanted to work with, so I came to Adams.Plus it’s in Brooklyn, so I can live at home.”
Nick let out a huff of laughter.“You live at home?”
He could almost see her prickle with defensiveness.“Sure.It’s cheaper.”
“You moved away for undergrad, though, right?”
“I went to Columbia.I commuted.”
“You’ve seriously lived at home your whole life?”
More prickling.“I like it.My sisters live at home, too.”
“How many sisters?”
“Two.And they’re my best friends.So yeah, I like living at home.I know that’s lame.”
Ah, hell, he’d pushed too much and pissed her off.“No, it’s not.Sorry, Livie, I can be a dick sometimes.It’s great that you’re close to your family.You’re a much nicer person than me.”
“You’re nice,” she said.“When you want to be.”
He chuckled softly.“No, I’m really not.”
“Cyberspace Robin Hood, remember?”
“You’re the one who took down an international ring of black hat hackers with a politely worded email.I think that makes you asuperheroof niceness.”
She lifted her head to look at him, her large dark eyes lighting up, and a brilliant smile spreading across her face.A revelation made itself known in Nick’s brain.Livie waspretty.Very pretty.How had he missed that up until now?Those large, glittering dark eyes, that dazzling smile...they were surprisingly potent.It was like she hid them inside, along with most of what she was thinking and feeling.But when she unleashed it all...well, the effect was kind of a punch in the chest.
