Three seconds. For something Cece and I have been putting off for three years.

“Nice place,” he says, dusting off his hands on his jeans.

I laugh softly. “It’s not.”

He leans against the table where I’ve worked, eaten, laughed, cried for the past seven years. “Then you really should move in with me.”

I laugh again. I should thank him for the credenza. It’s just . . .

“I wasn’t joking. This place is . . .” There’s a bug, belly-up on the floor. “Don’t those live in tropical areas?”

“Mmm. Our working theory is that this place is a 4D nexus where multiple climate regions exist at once and . . . Were you serious? About moving in?”

He shrugs. “Would save you money.”

“Pretty sure half of your rent is more expensive than half of this.”

“I don’t rent. So you wouldn’t have to pay me. I don’t care about that.”

Right. He doesn’t care about money. Because he has money. “I can’t leave Cece,” I say lightly. “Want to take her in, too?”

“I have an extra room.”

I snort. And then realize the look he’s giving me.

Like he’s serious serious. And waiting for an answer.

“I can’t move in with you,” I tell him. “We’re not even . . .” We’re not even what? I look away. I feel like total shit, and I cannot understand if he’s joking, though he must be, but he looks weirdly earnest, and . . .

A few steps over the cheap vinyl and he’s standing right in front of me. I’m trapped between him and the kitchen sink, and strong fingers come up to my chin, angle it back.

“I think we are.”

My heart trembles. That blue slice cuts into me like a knife, and what comes out of me is “Andrea wouldn’t agree.” I didn’t mean to bring her up. In fact, I actively meant to avoid the topic forever. But I guess this honesty thing is a little addictive.

Jack closes his eyes and swears softly under his breath. “You heard her.”

“I . . .” I free my chin, and he understands that I need space. He takes a step back, but I still cannot breathe. “I didn’t mean to. I . . .” I exhale. “Yes, I did.”

Jack sighs. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to her when she’s calmed down.”

I nod, and it should be the end of it—a resolution, nicely wrapped. Instead I hear myself ask, “What about Crowley and Pereira? And Cole. And the rest of your students. Will you talk to them, too?”

His lips press together, expression shifting to something opaque. Like he’s bracing for something. “What is this, Elsie?”

All of a sudden, the million balls that have been lazily rolling around in the back of my head for the past two weeks are bouncing against my skull. And they hurt. “Do you know what the problem is? That these people—they admire you. They really, really like you. Your students, your colleagues, your friends. They all want to please you. And for most of them, pleasing you means showing that they dislike what you dislike. And just like that, everything goes back to that Annals article.”

He exhales. “Elsie—”

“To be fair, I did the same.” I begin pacing around the kitchen. “I like you so much, I’ve been avoiding thinking about it for as long as I could. And to give you credit, you’re good at letting me forget. You never feel like the person who wrote it, which makes it easy to pretend that you didn’t exist before I met you, that your past actions don’t matter. But what Andrea said today . . . I owe it to my mentor to remember. I can’t forget that Laurendeau was the editor of the Annals at the time. That he was censured. And . . .” I feel the same mix of anger and embarrassment I always do when I think about what happened. “The thing is, Jack . . . you go through life with your man-with-money confidence, never second-guessing your actions. But there were lots of unintentional victims to what you did—”

“Laurendeau wasn’t that,” he says flatly.

“Yes, he was. His career was hugely impacted by—”

“He wasn’t unintentional.”

“He . . .” I stop pacing. The words don’t immediately sink in. And when they do, I’m still left confused. “What?”

Jack wets his lips. “Laurendeau was the target.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I wrote the article because I wanted Laurendeau’s career to be over.” His throat moves. “It was everything else that was unintentional.”

My mind spins a million circles, then halts abruptly. “Everything else?”

“I didn’t want to become the poster boy for the rift between theorists and experimentalists.” He throws up one hand, impatient. For a moment I sense hesitation, but his eyes harden, stubborn in a way that’s almost . . . young. Seventeen again. “I wasn’t making a statement. All I wanted was Laurendeau out of physics—and I failed, clearly. Since after screwing over my mother, he’s been busy fucking up the life of the single person I’ve ever been in love with.”

What did he . . . His mother? The single person he . . .

“I—”

“He was my mother’s main collaborator, Elsie. He was the reason she couldn’t go back to work after I was born. He was the reason she felt—it was the most important thing for her, Elsie. Her work defined her, and he took it away and—” His voice rises and rises and then abruptly stops, like he suddenly realized how loud he had gotten.

“Why did he . . . ?”

“Because he was envious. Because he felt superior. Because of control. He’s like that with you, too.”

“What?” I shake my head. “No. No, he helps me.”

“To the point that you don’t feel allowed to accept your dream job without his permission? This is not a normal mentor-mentee relationship.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jack simply doesn’t get it. Dr. L. is the only reason I was able to get into grad school. The reason I was able to pursue my dreams. The reason I’m not currently unemployed.

Jack takes a step forward. “Laurendeau has isolated you and made it impossible for you to realize it. Just like he did with my mother.” He rubs his forehead, and I wonder when he last talked about all of this. “It’s all in her diaries.”

“Oh my God.” I cannot believe it. “Is that why you wrote the article? Because of those diaries?”

He exhales a humorless laugh. “No. I wrote it because I went to Northeastern and tried to report Laurendeau. I was told that I couldn’t file a complaint, because I wasn’t the victim. It fizzled into nothing. And Elsie, I was . . .” His eyes hold mine for a second, and I see everything. He was young and he was tired. He was sad. He was angry. He was lonely; he was alone; he was the odd Smith out. He was helpless. He wanted revenge. “Then I wrote the article.” His big shoulders rise and fall. “I used what I knew of physics to make it believable, and I still didn’t think it’d get accepted. But somehow it did, and when I read that Laurendeau was removed as editor . . .” He shakes his head. “It didn’t make me feel any better about the fact that I couldn’t remember shit of my mother, or about the things Caroline did to me.” His eyes are full of sorrow. “So I stopped thinking about it. And whenever someone reminded me, I ignored them. Until I met you.”

My expression hardens. “Because I kept bringing it up.”

“No, Elsie.” His voice is calm, firm. “Because the idea of Laurendeau doing to you what he did to my mother terrified me.”

I scoff. “Why didn’t you warn me, then? We talked about him. About your mother. You had countless opportunities.” There’s a piece of me, somewhere in the back of my head, that knows how much Jack’s admission of vulnerability must have cost. But the larger piece thought this was the first relationship in my life based on honesty, and now . . . I feel incredibly stupid. “You lied to me. Over and over.”

“Would you have believed me if I’d told you?” he asks, taking a single step closer. “In fact, do you believe me now?”