Love According to Science

by Kingsley, Claire

  I’d have to figure it out. What could I say? Sorry Elliott, but can you assign me to work on something else? Every time I’m in the same room with Hazel, I can’t decide if I want to pick a fight with her or push her up against a wall and kiss the fuck out of her.

  Nope. I couldn’t say that to my boss. I didn’t always know the right thing to say—and I screwed up when it came to verbal communication pretty often—but I knew this one. I couldn’t tell Elliott I was in hate-lust with my coworker and would prefer to avoid her at all costs.

  I sat back in my chair, letting out a long breath. Sometimes I wondered if I’d done the right thing in pursuing psychology. I’d always been a math guy. Numbers were my thing. But working on that dating app had sparked a fascination—an obsession, really—with the reasons behind the numbers. Why did people do the things they did?

  What made a person reject a potential match? What made them accept? And ultimately, what made a couple go from a tentative connection to a committed couple?

  What made people fall in love?

  I’d started finding patterns in the data, and it had only increased my curiosity. So I’d started taking psychology classes online. A few years later, I’d earned a second master’s degree.

  My sister said I was over the top. Who accidentally earned a second master’s degree in their spare time?

  Me. I did stuff like that. And it didn’t seem weird to me. Which was probably part of my problem.

  If I hadn’t jumped down the social psychology rabbit hole, I’d have still been tucked safely away in an office where no one bothered me, running advanced algorithms and churning out an endless stream of charts and graphs. Not starting a new job at a college where I had to work closely with other people—which wasn’t exactly my best skill.

  But then I thought about Molly and her husband. They’d fallen in love because of my questionnaire—because of the research I’d done—and now they were happily married and having a baby soon. When I thought about it like that, it was hard to have any regrets. Even if sometimes I looked around and wondered how I’d gotten here.

  Something buzzed against the desk. Right, my phone. That was weird, I had a ton of new messages, but none of them were from numbers I recognized.

  Scanning through the dozen or so texts, I furrowed my brow, thoroughly confused. The messages were all similar, asking about my schedule or when I had an available time slot. Time for what? Who were these people?

  They had to be wrong numbers, but why were there so many? Another one came in while I was scanning through the others, so I replied, asking who it was. A few seconds later, I got a reply, saying his name was Aaron. That wasn’t exactly helpful information—I didn’t know an Aaron—but maybe I could get to the bottom of this.

  Me: Sorry, not sure what this is about.

  Aaron: Is this Corban Nash?

  Me: Yes. Where’d you get my number?

  Aaron: Your flier.

  Me: What flier?

  Aaron: The one posted outside the English department. Don’t you offer free tutoring?

  My brow furrowed as I stared down at my phone. A flier? Free tutoring? What was he talking about?

  Oh my god. Hazel. This was retaliation for putting her lunch in the freezer. I was sure of it.

  I tossed my phone on my desk and went out to find the English department. It was across the courtyard from the psych building and sure enough, tacked up among the other notices fluttering in the breeze was a flier that read, Free tutoring, math, science, literature, foreign languages, contact Corban Nash. Most of the little tabs with my phone number had been ripped off already.

  Grinding my teeth together, I ripped down the flier, crumpled it into a tight ball, and tossed it in a nearby trashcan.

  Judging by the number of texts I’d already gotten, there had to be more of these around campus. I found another one outside the math department, and two more just inside the main campus cafeteria. I checked outside every building, speed walking past students and staff, my head down, my fists clenched.

  After taking down what I hoped were the rest of the fake fliers, I went back to the psych building. Furious. Fuming. Grinding my teeth and ready to snap like a dry twig.

  I stopped in the doorway of Hazel’s office and held up one of the fliers. “What is this?”

  She calmly looked up from her laptop and blinked once, her eyes bright behind her dark-rimmed glasses. “I don’t know. I can’t read it from here.”

  “I know you did this.” I shook the flier, making the paper crinkle. “My phone’s blowing up with texts.”

  Her lip twitched like she was trying not to smile. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Growling with frustration, I crumpled the paper. “I’ve been all over campus tearing them down. This was really unnecessary.”

  She turned her attention back to her laptop, her fingers clicking on the keys as she spoke. Her voice was infuriatingly monotone. “So was freezing my lunch.”

  “It couldn’t have been in there long enough to actually freeze.”

  Her eyes snapped back to me. “So you did do it.”

  Damn it.

  “You know what? You’re not a swan. You’re a crow.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”

  “Crows have been shown to hold grudges and to exhibit retaliatory behavior. They also remember human faces, but that’s beside the point because you’re a human and we all know humans can remember faces.”

  “Unless a subject has prosopagnosia. Then they can’t recognize faces.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Obviously in cases of prosopagnosia the subject is essentially face-blind. But I don’t know if that has any impact on revenge-seeking behavior.”

  “That’s an interesting question.” She leaned back a little and tapped her lips with her finger. “My understanding of the disorder is that other brain functions remain intact. So it stands to reason that if a prosopagnosiac felt the need to exact revenge, their inability to recognize the face of their target wouldn’t negate the revenge-seeking impulse.”

  “But that assumes their face-blindness doesn’t impact their perceived needs. A person with a brain disorder that inhibits their ability to recognize facial features is likely to be focused on other things.”

  “Such as learning alternative cues for recognition and coping with the social impact of their condition.”

  “Which could push their desire for revenge out of their needs hierarchy, rendering it unimportant to them.”

  Wait, were we agreeing on something? We stared at each other for a few seconds. I couldn’t read her expression, but the way she pursed her lips drew my attention to her mouth. Which made me think about kissing her.

  Which made me wonder if she’d ever thought about kissing me.

  Which reminded me that she hated me.

  And had posted fliers with my phone number all over campus.

  And I was mad.

  I held up the piece of paper. “I’m going to tell them all it was a wrong number and they should text you.”

  “That won’t work. Your name is on the flier, too. Unless you’d like me to pretend to be you in my interactions with them?”

  I growled again. “Never mind. But remember, you started this.”

  “I most certainly did not,” she said, sounding offended. “You started it by freezing my lunch.”

  “This started well before I made your sandwich a little frosty.”

  “It was yogurt.”

  “Are you serious? Damn it, frozen yogurt is delicious.”

  Her lips twitched again. “Indeed.”

  “But you started it, Hazel. You came after me online before I ever set foot on this campus.”

  “Someone had to raise the important questions.”

  “You said if you could rate the quality of my research, you’d give it negative ten stars and that I needed to stop spreading nonsensical fantasies wrapped in the guise of science.”

  Her eyes flick
ed back and forth a few times. “I don’t seem to recall that particular comment.”

  “Well, you said it. Or typed it. You know what I mean.”

  She pursed her lips again. It was probably the single most aggravating thing she did. Worse than her online comments, or scathing looks, or the flier. Those things were irritating, but that was all. There was no confusion as to how I felt about them.

  But when she looked at me like that, her eyebrows drawn together like she was trying to solve a puzzle, her lips puckering slightly, I felt a thousand things at once. And the strongest two—anger and attraction—shouldn’t have been able to exist simultaneously.

  I wanted to hate her, not feel like I’d do just about anything to get my hands on her.

  “Stop doing that,” I snapped.

  “Doing what?”

  Closing my eyes, I let out an agitated breath. “Never mind. Don’t put up any more fliers.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  I turned to go, but she spoke up again before I’d taken a step toward my office.

  “Did you find the one by the restrooms on the first floor?”

  I groaned. “No.”

  She stood. “I have to go down there anyway.”

  I stepped aside as she swept past me and headed for the stairs, her heels clicking on the floor in the empty hallway. She was wearing a polka dot skirt that showed off the curve of her ass. God, what an ass. Her hips swayed as she walked, a sultry back and forth motion that was at odds with the straightness of her spine and the typical stiffness of her posture.

  Why did she have to be so fucking sexy?

  At least she isn’t married or dating someone else.

  Scowling, I tightened my fist around the crumpled flier. Why had I thought that? It probably would have been better if she was married, or at least dating someone. Maybe then my brain would quit being stupid, thinking about her ass. And kissing her. And… other things.

  I glanced down at the bulge in my pants. No. No kissing. No sexy ass. We don’t like her.

  Unsurprisingly, my dick didn’t listen.

  And I didn’t actually know if she was dating anyone. Was she?

  Damn it. I didn’t care.

  With another roll of my eyes and a low groan in my throat, I adjusted my pants. I was just about to stalk into my office when the nameplate on the wall caught my attention. The one with Hazel’s name on it.

  I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then slid the nameplate out of its holder. Turned it backwards, so the blank side faced out, and replaced it.

  Petty? Yep. But the urge to annoy her was an impulse I couldn’t control.

  Because if I didn’t indulge that impulse, it would be a lot harder to keep from giving in to the other impulses I was having.

  And that absolutely could not happen.

  9

  Corban

  “I think lovemaking is a lost art.” ~Pedram Shojai

  Hazel’s presence behind me made it hard to concentrate. Her pen scratched against her notepad while I recalibrated the motion capture equipment. We were running preliminary tests today, using grad students as our subjects. The data wouldn’t be included in the official study, but we’d agreed it would be beneficial to gain some experience with the equipment.

  At least we’d agreed on something.

  She was dressed in her typical button-up blouse—pale blue today—with a matching blue cardigan and dark gray skirt. Her hair was down, loose around her shoulders. Every bit the hot librarian.

  The texts from her stupid flier had died down. Hazel had come back to my office that afternoon and offered to reply to each, explaining that the fliers had been falsified. I’d told her it wasn’t necessary.

  Truthfully, I’d snapped at her, saying I’d deal with it myself.

  I wasn’t exactly proud of that. But the woman made me crazy. I considered myself a reasonable guy, but every time I was near her, reasonableness went right out the window, replaced by that potent mix of hate-lust I couldn’t seem to shake.

  Case in point, I couldn’t stop thinking about how good she smelled, even though the sound of her writing notes was driving me nuts. She smelled like vanilla frosting and it was stupidly delicious.

  “What are you doing over there? Writing another dissertation?”

  “No. I’m working on an initial draft of the pre-study questionnaire. We’ll need to collect a variety of information on the test subjects.”

  I grumbled something incoherent. She was right, we did need to do that, and it was good she was being proactive about getting it ready.

  She was quiet for a long moment. Not even her pen made a sound. “Would you like to see what I have so far?”

  I turned my chair around. “Sure.”

  She ripped off a piece of paper and handed it to me. I recognized the same messy handwriting I’d seen on her lunch bag. I could read it, but only just. It was a little bit gratifying to know she wasn’t perfect.

  I scanned down her list of questions. She’d covered just about everything. “This is good. Did you add anything in here about their relationship status? That might be something we’ll need to know.”

  She wrote on a fresh sheet of paper. “Of course. What’s yours?”

  “My what?”

  Her voice was matter of fact. “Relationship status.”

  “Why?”

  She looked up, blinking as if something had surprised her. “I don’t know.”

  Was she really asking me if I was dating someone? That was weird. But there wasn’t any harm answering. “It’s fine, it’s not like I keep it a secret. I just don’t know why you asked.”

  “No reason,” she said quickly. “I was just writing down the words relationship status and it occurred to me that I don’t know very much about you on a personal level, including whether or not you’re in a relationship. So, I asked.”

  “I’m single.”

  “Oh.” She gave a little nod and wrote something else on her notepad. “So am I.”

  I chewed the inside of my lip and shifted uncomfortably in my chair. The impulse to analyze every detail of what she’d just said—from her body language to her tone of voice—sent my brain running in multiple directions. Was she making idle conversation? Was she trying to get information out of me? Had she offered the fact that she was single as a signal?

  I hated it when I did this. It reminded me of the insecure shy kid I’d been in high school and how much time I’d spent over-analyzing my interactions with girls—especially Paisley Hayes. Whenever she’d been at our house to hang out with Molly, I’d looked for hidden meaning in every word she said to me. Not that she spoke to me very much. But that hadn’t stopped me from wondering if I could find a hint that she liked me.

  She hadn’t liked me. She’d mostly ignored me, or rolled her eyes at me. And all these years later, I still felt like an idiot for how much time I’d spent looking for clues that she had a secret crush on her best friend’s brother. They hadn’t been there. It had all been wishful thinking.

  What was I wishing for with Hazel, anyway? That this attraction that made no sense wasn’t one-sided? Regardless of the way I reacted to her physically, we didn’t like each other. Pondering what her comments meant was a waste of energy.

  “Corban?”

  I startled, my attention coming back to reality. Damn, I hadn’t been listening. What had she just said? “Sorry, what?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, fine I was just thinking about…” I paused, searching for a believable topic. “Data collection techniques.”

  She eyed me for a second, her pen hovering above her notepad. “Okay.”

  As we got deeper into the logistics of running the next phase of the study, my brain stopped circling around Hazel and focused. We didn’t argue over any of the details. Just got to work, both of us bringing our experience and expertise to the table. We divided up areas of responsibility, at least enough to get us started, and set preli
minary goals and deadlines.

  I tried not to dwell on it, but I didn’t hate working with Hazel. She was organized, intelligent, and passionate about her work. So passionate, it made me wonder what else she had going on in her life.

  She tapped her pen against her notepad. “This looks good. I think Elliott will be pleased.”

  She was right, we’d gotten a lot done. “Yeah.”

  Our eyes met and suddenly I wasn’t thinking about work anymore. My brain darted back to her eyes and how they lit up when she was excited about something. Her lips and the way they puckered when she was annoyed with me. I wondered what those lips tasted like.

  She glanced at the pen in her hand, as if remembering it was there, then touched the tip to the side of her neck. Moving her hand slowly, she absently traced it down her skin, toward the open collar of her shirt.

  My eyes followed, drawn toward the swell of her breasts behind that tantalizingly proper blouse.

  Then I noticed she’d drawn a blue line down her skin.

  I cleared my throat, hoping she couldn’t tell how turned on I was. Why did she have such an effect on me? “You got some ink on your… right, um, there.”

  “Oh god.” She looked at the pen and abruptly opened her fingers like she’d been burned. The pen bounced off her lap, landing on the floor. She touched her neck, muttering to herself.

  I was still too distracted by her chest to think clearly. Because noticing how good her boobs looked in that shirt made me think about ripping it off, sending her buttons flying in all directions. Burying my face in her tits. Licking the hard peaks of her nipples and—

  “Did you know a male pufferfish can spend days creating patterns in the sand on the ocean floor to attract a mate?” I blurted out, talking fast.

  She’d grabbed a tissue from somewhere—her purse, maybe; I wasn’t sure what had just happened—and her hand froze in the act of trying to rub the ink off her neck. “Really?”

  “Yeah. If a female likes his work, she’ll lay her eggs in the middle so he can fertilize them.”