Page 17 of Love and the Laws of Motion
Suddenly—inexplicably—uncomfortable, Nick did what he always did when he felt out of his depth—he retreated back into his work.
“Okay, let’s get back to our Hubble problem.How do we teach it to speak a language that doesn’t exist yet?”
The sound of a key turning in the front door lock cut off Livie’s response.Poppy came in, a clutch of shopping bags slung over one arm.Some part of him was still disbelieving every time he laid eyes on her.She was gorgeous, and sophisticated, and she was withhim.Girls like Poppy and guys like him—it didn’t add up.Sure, he’d dated pretty girls in the past, but Poppy was in a league of her own.And here she was, in all her stunning glory, coming home to him every night, wearing his ring on her finger.Nick’s sixteen-year-old self would never have believed it.He might be fucked up in a million ways, but he must be doing something right to have landed a girl like Poppy.
“Hey, you,” he said with a grin.
Poppy dropped her shopping bags inside the door and drifted across the room that long-legged natural grace of hers.Poppy didn’t walk, she glided, like a feather drifting on a current of air.
“Hi.”She rested a hand on his shoulder and leaned in to brush a kiss across his cheek with the easy elegance of a girl who’d spent her entire life surrounded by money and sophistication.He’d never known anyone as effortlessly classy as her.
Her eyes slid to Livie.“Hello again.Libby, right?”
“Livie,” she corrected.
“Are you two still working?Nick, don’t forget, we have Klaus’s party tonight.”
“Ah, geez, is that tonight?”Hehadforgotten, and was now internally groaning at the reminder.The last thing he wanted was to spend the night with that Eurotrash poser and his vapid friends.But Poppy would sulk for days if he even hinted at not going, and it really wasn’t worth the drama.
She toyed with the zipper on his hoodie.“And please change into something a bit smarter?”
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”Nick protested.
“You’ll look like you’re working the door.”
“The guy working the door is probably more interesting than half the people inside.”
“Just becauseyoudon’t find them interesting doesn’t mean no one does.Ido.”
Livie silently watched them bantering—or were they arguing?It was hard to tell—and she wondered what it was that had made them fall in love with each other.Their lives seemed a little mismatched, Poppy’s centered on the fashion world and clubs, and Nick’s existing largely online.But they were engaged.There had to be something there connecting them, outside of physical attraction.
Even there, they seemed a little at odds.Poppy’s beauty was the kind you usually only saw in magazines, with her luminous, pale skin, ice-blue eyes, and flawless features.She had that kind of grace that made her look good no matter what she was wearing.Her shapeless light blue sundress should have looked like a piece of used Kleenex, but instead hung elegantly from her narrow shoulders and skimmed her angular body at all the perfect places.The hem brushed her upper thighs, leaving what looked like three full feet of her long thin legs exposed.And her hair.Poppy’s hair was like something out of a shampoo commercial, a long, satiny golden-blond sheet, seemingly impervious to NYC’s early September heat and humidity.
Nick was handsome, but in a much more real-life sort of way.Taken individually, his features were a little uneven, his eyes a bit too close together, his nose not perfectly straight.But there was a perpetual animation to his face that drew you in.It was like you could see his brilliant mind busily at work in his dark eyes.
He was in good shape, but he wasn’t some ripped bodybuilder.Certain parts of himwereoddly arresting, though.The sleeves of his black hoodie—the one Poppy was displeased with—were pushed up, and there was something about his smooth, tanned skin and the flex of the muscles in his forearms...Never in her life had Livie noticed a man’s forearms.She’d certainly never found anybody’s forearms sexy.How could forearms evenbesexy?They seemed like a distinctly unsexual body part.And maybe that was true of every other man on the planet, but Nick’s forearms were impossible to ignore.Nick definitely had sexy forearms.
And there she went again, having all kinds of wrong thoughts about him when he was standing five feet away with hisfiancée.It didn’t matter if she couldn’t figure out what drew them together, because theyhadbeen.The ring on Poppy’s finger proved it.She needed to get out of here and keep her mind on the work, where it belonged.
“I’d better get going,” she said.
“Hey,” Nick protested.“We’re getting to the good parts now.”
“You have plans—”
“Oh, don’t break up the fun on my account,” Poppy protested.“Klaus’s party won’t start for hours.But Nick, please don’t get lost in that computer all afternoon.You were going to add those new portfolio shots to my website for me.”
“Ah, hell, I forgot.I’ll get it done today.Promise.”
Poppy looked to Livie and winked conspiratorially.“Honestly, he’s impossible.”
She didn’t seem to be looking for a response from Livie, so Livie didn’t give one.
“That won’t take me long.We still have time to work,” Nick said to her.
“No, I really do need to go.I have quizzes to grade for my class.”
“Livie’s getting a PhD in astronomy,” Nick said to Poppy.
