The cabin smells like leather, Jack, and bad ideas. I should say something. Hi, how are you? Did you have a good week? Favorite Teletubby? Off-year elections thoughts? I’ve done this a million times—gone out with people. A million fake dates. Then why? Why? Why can’t I . . . Why?

“I think,” he drawls, “I just heard your head explode.”

I turn to him. He’s handsome in a near-painful way, and my head is still in mid-explosion.

“Want to go back up?” The smile. Uneven. Amused. All-knowing. “Try this another day?”

I shake my head before I change my mind. “I want to do this now.” I swallow. Face straight ahead. “I think.”

He starts the engine. “Look at you.”

“Look at me?”

He puts his hand on the headrest of the seat to back out of the spot. His fingers brush against my hair, soft, distracted.

“Yeah. Look at you, telling the truth.”

•   •   •

“Two friends are in town for a conference,” he tells me, “and another friend is hosting a small get-together. I figured with witnesses you’d be more . . . relaxed.”

He’s probably right, but also: “I don’t want to intrude.”

“I’d love for you to meet them.”

Is it a good idea, hanging out when his friends are around? I’m probably very lame in comparison. I’m just not that entertaining—not at my best, and definitely not with Jack, who so far has gotten my worst. “Are all your friends scientists?” I ask.

“Some.” A pause. “Jesus. I can’t think of one who isn’t.”

I nod. It’s truly hard to expand one’s social circle. Academics become friends, hang out, and above all sleep almost exclusively with other academics. Because academia is a bit like the Olympic Village—sans opening ceremony with condom distribution.

We park in front of a narrow brownstone, and after ringing the bell at a yellow door, he turns to me. “Hey.”

I turn, too. Under his coat he’s wearing jeans and a dark henley, and he’s big and attractive, and it occurs to me for the first time in years that nights in which people go out together—not all nights, but some nights, maybe several nights—don’t just end with a hug and good night.

I shiver.

“Honesty,” he reminds me. “You don’t need to impress anyone. No need for the usual party tricks.”

I smile. “I was going to carve a recorder out of a carrot and play it for your friends.”

He gives me a long look, like I’m the single most charming person he’s ever met. “Not gonna lie, that’d be pretty cool.”

Even before I knew about his mother, Jack always seemed to me like a lone wolf, set apart from the rest of the Smiths. It’s instantly clear, though, that his friend group is his chosen family. There are over fifteen people in the house, and not only are they all delighted to see him, they welcome me just as warmly. The single exception: Andrea, Jack’s MIT colleague. She stares at me like a vaguely displeased gargoyle, probably feeling awkward about the fact that I didn’t get the job.

“Beer?” Sunny, the engineer who owns the house, asks. She’s a dark-haired ball of energy. “Wine?”

I’m ready to spend the rest of the night holding a drink I don’t want just to avoid looking out of place, but Jack says, “I’ll have one. Elsie doesn’t drink.”

I never told him, but of course he knows. “Anything else, then? Water? Soda? OJ? Maple syrup?” Sunny frowns into her fridge. “Milk?”

“Whole?” Jack asks.

“Two percent.”

“Keep your white water.”

“You spoiled little Smith brat, raised with unpasteurized emu tit juice.” She punches his arm. “Remember when Caitie was pumping and kept her bottles in the fridge of the student lounge?”

“And Kroll used it.”

“For his coffee.” Sunny shakes her head. “Good times.”

Jack has friends, inside jokes that go back a decade, and a whole group of smart, kind people who tease him because they care about him, and . . . I’m not sure what to do with this piece of information, aside from being mind-numbingly fascinated. I briefly wonder if they know about the article Jack wrote, whether they support him, what their opinion of theoretical physics is, and then force my brain to shut up for once. I should learn how to have fun at some point in my life.

One of the people visiting town is a biologist from Stanford. He’s as tall as Jack—an impossibility, I thought, especially within the nerd community.

“This is Adam,” Jack says after they shake hands warmly, in that affectionate but understated way of men who like each other a lot but will probably never openly admit it. Adam looks like he might be a few years older. Dark. Frowny. Intimidating, though the beautiful girl next to him looks anything but intimidated. “And this is—”

She takes a step forward and enfolds Jack in a tight hug. “Jack!”

He hugs her back with a smile. “Hey, Ol. Nice to see you’re still putting up with this guy—thank you for your service. Elsie, this is Olive Smith—no relation to my terrible family, lucky her. She’s Adam’s . . . Adam, is she still your fiancée?”

Adam nods with a mildly irritated expression.

Jack grins. “Haven’t picked a date yet?”

“She has not,” Adam whines. Sternly, though.

“Ol. Put him out of his misery.”

“At twenty-eight? What am I, a child bride?” Olive looks between me and Jack. “Have you guys picked a date?”

I wish to die on the spot. I wish to melt into the sweet respite of nothingness. “Oh, we . . .” I glance at Jack, hoping he’ll come to my rescue. He just gives me a look halfway between pleased and amused, holds my eyes, and says, “Not yet.” I step closer to pinch him hard in the ribs. He stops me with a hand on my wrist and a delighted smile.

“How did you and Adam meet?” I ask him in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

“In undergrad I did a summer internship at Harvard, in the lab where Adam was a Ph.D. student.”

“He ran the worst Southern blot I’ve ever seen,” Adam says.

“It was a rough three months. I was gently discouraged from going into biophysics. Then a few years later I moved to Pasadena, and he was in Palo Alto, and we started hanging out. Hiked our way around California. And then he introduced me to Olive when . . . Ol, how did you and Adam meet again?” he asks with the tone of someone who knows the answer full well.

She grins. “Why, Jack, Adam was a tenured professor. And I was but a lowly student.”

“Graduate student,” Adam interjects, speaking to me. “And not my student.”

“But in his department,” Olive adds impishly. “It was all very, very scandalous.”

Jack smiles. “You should sell the movie rights, Ol.”

“I’m hoping for a Netflix miniseries. Something sexy like Bridgerton, you know?”

It’s clearly a bit Jack and Olive do a lot. Adam lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Anyway.” He changes the topic. “How are you, Jack?”

“Very entertained.”

Jack and Adam are somewhere north of circumstantial friends. In a couple of minutes they are absorbed in conversation, talking about people, things, places I’m not familiar with. Olive and I gravitate toward each other, sitting on the couch while all around us Jack’s friends laugh and joke and embody the epitome of successful adulthood.

“Do you also not know anyone else and feel like the dumbest person in the room?” she whispers at me.

I nod. Everyone here is a bit older, and I try not to imagine the academic positions they might have. “What do you do?” I ask Olive.

“Cancer biology. Just finished the first year of my postdoc. I’m probably going on the job market in the next couple.” She makes a face, sipping on her beer.

“Are you planning on staying in California?”

“Would be nice, since my friends are there. But honestly, academic jobs are so rare, it’ll be hard enough to make sure Adam and I are in the same city.”