Answering his smile with a grin of her own that she knewdefinitelydistracted him, she tugged him a step closer, and as Dr. Tomasz Szymanski opened the Modern Physics doors to hustle the gawking interns inside, she asked, “But what if we didn’t wait?”
“You said—”
“Ethan. Didn’t Ted Chiang’s ‘The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling’ teach us that perfect recall is inexcusable? But if you’re really set on remembering every single thing I say for the rest of my life,”—she extracted a ragged sheet of paper from her pocket, though she looked at him rather than her illegible notes—“then remember this from Aaron Forster’s ‘The Lonely Lunacy of Lactose’, too.”
I took the Neapolitans. I confess it. I destroyed this last Earthly pleasure of ours. Why? Because I saw how we two measured our lives by what we had left behind, how we judged ourselves by servings of ice cream, how we suffocated beneath vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry flavors, beneath the flavor of our fear. Our fear of losing ourselves, and who we had been. I saw how we clung to that fear. But I saw also who we might become, if only we were not afraid. I saw who we might become if—instead of fear—we chose stardust. So rather than ice cream, I give you my hand now—now—looking not into dehydrated foil packets for our joy but outside, to the brilliant void. And I ask: will you brave the darkness to burn brightly with me?
He listened to her in patient silence through the hot sunlight beating down upon their shoulders, through the rumble of traffic and the slam of vehicle doors. But the instant she finished, Ethan said:
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Did you think I’d say no?”
“No, but… justyes? No questions, no challenges, no…”
The tip of his nose brushed hers when he shook his head. “Our rivalry has been beneficial. It’s provided us with the opportunity to head SVLAC’s quantum gravity research, and I’ve done good work to keep ahead of your funding numbers. But I didn’t discover the synchronicity between my quantum unit measurements and Dr. Tuinstra’s electron hop distances alone.”
“I didn’t discover LIGO’s Hawking radiation signals in a vacuum, either.”
“Technically spaceisa vacuum—”
“I appreciate that very valuable insight, Meyer.”
“You’re welcome, Monaghan.” They traded crooked smirks for a moment. Then, “So even though we’ve received permanent head damage in paradoxical fields, does your electron hop distance revelation and my Hawking radiation discovery prove that we’re better together than in opposition?”
She bumped her shoulder into his. “All extant data substantiates your theory, yes. And even if we occasionally get distracted from our research—”
“Essential work–life balance,” he said.
“In this economy?”
“For science,” Ethan reminded her, and then he finally closed the invisible distance between them to kiss her, one hand slipping around her waist, the other wreaking havoc with her ponytail while she stepped up onto his feet to draw him closer still…
Clap. Clap. Clap.
They raised their middle fingers in answer.
“Thank you, Dr. Monaghan and Dr. Meyer. This might be the first National Lab observational experiment that’s ever ended both on budget and on schedule.” Elias Schulz strolled past them into the Modern Physics building.
Thatbroke them apart.
“Did we just flip off…?”
“…yes.”
“Everyone at SVLAC—up to and including the director!—knew foryears, except…”
“…us?”
“It’s almost humiliating, being blindsided by data like this.” Her indignation turned to laughter against his stubble. “But,um… that does mean I should probably notify you about one other historical data point, just so you know. Promise you won’t mock me?”
“No.”
“Fine.” She would’ve shuffled her feet if she hadn’t been standing on his sneakers. “You know that I didn’t mean to sabotage yourNature Physicspaper. What you don’t know is that I did all that research on you for my introductory email because I was excited to collaborate with you. I admired your work so much, and had so many questions. I even wanted to ask you about quantum gravity.”
Ethan drew back a full inch. “You just wanted to impress me?”
