Page 14 of Love on the Brain

“Boris and I are in the conference room. You ready to meet?” he asks, his voice a deep, severe baritone. My heart thuds. I rack my brain for something to say in response.

Then Guy speaks and I realize that Levi isn’t even addressing me. He is, in fact, completely ignoring me and what I just said. “Yep. We were just about to head there. Got sidetracked.”

Levi nods once and turns around, a silent but clear order to follow him that everyone seems eager to obey. He was like that in grad school, too. Natural leader. Commanding presence. Someone whose bad side you wouldn’t want to be on.

Enter me. A proud resident of his bad side for several years, who just renewed her housing permit with a few simple words.

“Is that Dr. Ward?” Rocío whispers as we enter the conference room.

“Yup.”

“Welp. That was excellent timing, boss.”

I wince. “What are the chances that he didn’t hear me?”

“I don’t know. What are the chances that his personal hygiene is very poor and he has huge wax balls in his ear canal?”

The room is already crowded. I sigh and take the first empty seat I can find, only to realize that it’s across from Levi. Awkwardness level: nuclear. I’m making better and better choices today. Cheering erupts when someone deposits two large boxes of donuts in the center of the table—NASA employees are clearly as enthused by free food as regular academics. People start calling dibs and elbowing each other, and Guy yells over the chaos, “The one in the corner, with the blue frosting, is vegan.” I shoot him a grateful smile and he winks at me. He’s such a nice guy, my almost-co-leader.

As I wait for the crowd to disperse, I take stock of the room. Levi’s team appears to be WurstFest™ material. The well-known Meatwave. A Dicksplosion in the Testosteroven. The good old Brodeo. Aside from Rocío and I, there’s one single woman, a young blonde currently looking at her phone. My gaze is mesmerized by her perfect beach waves and the pink glitter of her nails. I have to force myself to look away.

Eh. WurstFest™ is bad, but it’s at least a small step up from Cockcluster™, which is what Annie and I called academic meetings with only one woman in the room. I’ve been in Cockcluster™ situations countless times in grad school, and they range from unpleasantly isolating to wildly terrifying. Annie and I used to coordinate to attend meetings together—not that hard, since we were symbiotic anyway.

Sadly, none of my male cohort ever got how awful WurstFest™ and Cockcluster™ are for women. “Grad school’s stressful for everyone,” Tim would say when I complained about my entirely male advisory committee. “You keep going on about Marie Curie—she was the only woman in all of science at the time, and she got two Nobel Prizes.”

Of course, Dr. Curie was not the only female scientist at the time. Dr. Lise Meitner, Dr. Emmy Noether, Alice Ball, Dr. Nettie Stevens, Henrietta Leavitt, and countless others were active, doing better science with the tip of their little fingers than Tim will ever manage with his sorry ass. But Tim didn’t know that. Because, as I now know, Tim was dumb.

“We’re ready to start.” The balding redheaded man at the head of the table claps his hands, and people scurry to their seats. I lean forward to grab my vegan donut, but my hand freezes in midair.

It’s not there anymore. I inspect the box several times, but there’s only cinnamon left. Then I lift my eyes and I see it: blue frosting disappearing behind Levi’s teeth as he takes a bite. A bite of my damn donut. There are dozens of alternatives, but behold: The Wardass chose the one I could eat. What kind of careless, inconsiderate boob steals the single available option from a starving, needy vegan?

“I am Dr. Boris Covington,” the redhead starts. He looks like an exhausted, disheveled ginger hard-boiled egg. Like he ran here for this meeting, but there are five stacks of paperwork on his desk waiting for him. “I’m in charge of overseeing all research projects here in the Discovery Institute—which makes me your boss.” Everyone laughs, with a few good-natured boos. The engineering team seems to be a rowdy bunch. “You guys already know that—with the notable exception of Dr. Königswasser and Ms. Cortoreal, who are here to make sure we don’t fail at one of our most ambitious projects yet. Levi’s going to be their point of contact, but, everyone, please make them feel welcome.” Everyone claps—except for Levi, who is busy finishing his (my) donut. What an absolute dingus. “Now let’s pretend that I gave an impressive speech and move on to everyone’s favorite activity: icebreakers.” Almost everyone groans, but I think I’m a fan of Boris. He seems much better than my NIH boss. For instance, he’s been speaking for one whole minute and hasn’t said anything overtly offensive. “I want your name, job, and... let’s do favorite movie.” More groans. “Hush, children. Levi, you start.”

Everyone in the room turns to him, but he takes his sweet time swallowing my donut. I stare at his throat, and an odd mix of phantom sensations hits me. His thigh pushing between mine. Being pressed into the wall. The woodsy smell at the base of his—

Wait. What?

“Levi Ward, head engineer. And...” He licks some sugar off his bottom lip. “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Oh—are you kidding me? First he steals my donut, and now my favorite movie?

“Kaylee Jackson,” the blonde picks up. “I’m project manager for BLINK, and Legally Blonde.” She talks a bit like she could be one of Elle Woods’s sorority sisters, which makes me like her instinctively. But Rocío tenses beside me. When I glance at her, her brows are furrowed.

Weird.

There are at least thirty people in the room, and the icebreakers get old very soon. I try to pay attention, but Lamar Evans and Mark Costello start fighting over whether Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is better than Vol. 1, and I feel a weird prickle in the center of my forehead.

When I turn, Levi’s staring hard at me, his eyes full of that something that I seem to awaken in him. I’m a bit resentful about the donut, not to mention that he still hasn’t answered my email, but I remind myself of what Boris just said: he’s my main collaborator. So I play nice and give him a cautious, slow-to-unfurl smile that I hope communicates Sorry about the angular gyrus jab, and I hope we’ll work well together, and Hey, thank you for saving my life!

He breaks eye contact without smiling back and takes a sip of his coffee. God, I hate him so—

“Bee.” Rocío elbows me. “It’s your turn.”

“Oh, um, right. Sorry. Bee Königswasser, head of neuroscience. And...” I hesitate. “Empire Strikes Back.” With the corner of my eye I see Levi’s fist clench on the table. Crap. I should have just said Avatar.

Once the meeting is over, Kaylee comes to speak to Rocío. “Ms. Cortoreal. May I call you Rocío? I need your signature on this document.” She smiles sweetly and holds out a pen, which Rocío doesn’t accept. Instead she freezes, staring at Kaylee with her mouth open for several seconds. I have to elbow her in the ribs to get her to defrost. Interesting.

“You’re left-handed,” Kaylee says while Rocío signs. “Me too. Lefties power, right?”

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