Intermediate Thermodynamics: A Romantic Comedy (Chemistry Lessons Book 2)

by Susannah Nix

  “What’s wrong with you?” Yemi asked. “You look weird today.”

  “Thanks,” she muttered irritably. So much for New Improved Work Esther.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you have an interview?”

  “No, I’m just trying to dress a little nicer.”

  “Why?”

  “No reason, apparently.” She tugged her skirt down for the one thousandth time that morning. “What time do you want to do lunch?”

  “Um.” Yemi’s shoulders hunched as his eyes skated away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Why do you assume something’s wrong?”

  “You’re making your turtle face.”

  “I’m not—I don’t have a turtle face.”

  “Yes, you do. Whenever you don’t want to do something, your head starts trying to retract into your body like a turtle. What don’t you want to do?”

  He pressed his lips into an expression that might have been intended as a smile, but looked more like a rictus of pain. “I told Jinny I’d eat lunch with her today.”

  “Oh.” Esther felt like someone had pulled her chair out from under her, right as she was about to sit down.

  Yemi looked miserable. “I’m sorry if—”

  “No. Don’t be.” She shook her head. “You should have lunch with Jinny.” They were work friends too. The three of them had been eating lunch together for the better part of a year. It wasn’t like Esther had a monopoly on Yemi.

  “Are you sure?” He was clearly having a hard time with this. Navigating interpersonal drama made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t exactly Esther’s favorite pastime either.

  “It’s fine,” she told him, trying to sound more sincere.

  Yemi looked down at his shoes. “There’s something else I should probably tell you.”

  Esther watched him squirm and waited for the other shoe to drop. Whatever it was, he really didn’t want to have to say it.

  “Jinny asked me out last week. We’re sort of…dating, I guess.”

  “Oh. Wow. That’s—wow.” Esther couldn’t form a better response. She should be happy for them. She should be ecstatic. Two weeks ago, she would have been jumping up and down at the news. She would have thrown them a party to celebrate. Now she just felt emptier than before. Abandoned.

  Yemi’s mouth turned down unhappily. “This is weird, I know.”

  “It’s not,” Esther said, doing a poor job of selling it. “It’s great.” It was great. “I’m happy for you both.” She was trying to be, anyway.

  “You should really talk to her.”

  “I’ve tried.”

  “Maybe I could—”

  “Don’t. Don’t try to get in the middle.”

  “We could eat lunch tomorrow,” Yemi suggested.

  “I don’t need a pity lunch.” The words came out sounding bitter, and Yemi flinched. She forced herself to smile. “I mean, we see each other all day, right? You should spend lunch with Jinny.”

  Yemi looked uncertain. “Okay.”

  “It’s fine.” Esther smiled wider. She was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. Maybe if she kept doing it they’d freeze that way. “Really. Enjoy your lunch.”

  She turned around and went back to work. Or tried to, anyway. What she actually did was spend most of the morning staring into space and feeling sorry for herself.

  She shouldn’t be this upset. Yemi was just a work friend. It wasn’t as if they hung out regularly outside the office. Nothing had to change between them. They’d still sit beside each other all day, and still be able to talk about work stuff.

  So why did she feel like she’d lost something important?

  Because Jinny had staked her claim on Yemi. She’d played a trump card that beat everything Esther was holding. If push came to shove, he would choose Jinny now. As he should.

  At 11:55, Yemi got up to go to lunch. “I’ll see you later,” he said, sounding sheepish.

  Esther nodded. “Yep.”

  She didn’t go to the cafeteria. Instead, she cobbled together a measly lunch of snack foods from the vending machine down the hall. She stayed at her desk, munching on salt and vinegar potato chips and Famous Amos cookies while she caught up on the work she should have been doing all morning.

  Yemi came back an hour later. He looked happy. Glowing, almost. The glow faded a little when he saw Esther. His eyes took in the empty potato chip bag on her desk and he frowned.

  “How was lunch?” she asked, pushing the evidence of her own dismal, solitary lunch into the trash.

  “The enchilada pie was under-salted today.”

  “That sucks.”

  “I’ll eat lunch with you tomorrow,” Yemi offered again. A consolation prize.

  Esther didn’t want it. She shook her head. “Thanks, but I can’t tomorrow. I’ve got a call with one of the offsite testing teams.” It was a lie, but Yemi wouldn’t know that. He’d be off at lunch with Jinny tomorrow. And every day after that, probably.

  Esther packed her own lunch on Tuesday, even though it was kung pao chicken day. Instead of enjoying delicious kung pao chicken and egg rolls with everyone else, she’d be eating peanut butter and jelly at her desk. A sad, pathetic lunch for a sad, pathetic loser.

  She’d already abandoned her dressing-up initiative and reverted back to her old, comfy work wardrobe. What was the point? If she was going to be miserable, she might as well be comfortable in her misery.

  At 11:55 on the dot, Yemi got up from his desk and gave Esther a sheepish nod on his way to lunch. She nodded back. Neither of them said anything.

  When he came back an hour later, Esther had her headphones on. She pretended to be engrossed in her work so she wouldn’t have to see the pitying look on his face.

  They didn’t talk the rest of the day. Esther kept her headphones on and buried her head in a spreadsheet. When five o’clock rolled around, Yemi packed his stuff and stood up. He tapped her on the shoulder and waved. She waved back, and he left.

  Wednesday was meatloaf day. The meatloaf wasn’t anything special, but they served it with macaroni and cheese. Esther loved the cafeteria macaroni and cheese.

  She figured she couldn’t hide from Jinny and Yemi forever, so she worked up the courage to brave the cafeteria alone.

  She had a strategy all worked out. First, she waited for Yemi to leave, and then she let him get a five-minute head start before heading down herself. By the time Esther got in line, Jinny and Yemi had already gotten their food and were sitting at a table by themselves.

  It was the first time Esther had seen Jinny since their fight. She and Yemi were huddled together talking and smiling at each other—beaming, more like. In their own little world. So caught up in each other they hadn’t noticed Esther walk in. Jinny had her full-on smitten face going, and Yemi was gazing back at her with his heart in his eyes. Esther had never seen him like this before. It was a revelation. She never would have pegged him for such a hopeless romantic.

  They both looked so happy.

  By the time Esther got to the front of the line, they were out of macaroni and cheese.

  She got her meatloaf to go and took it back to her desk to eat alone.

  Esther’s headphones were on again when Yemi returned from lunch. She’d cleaned up the remnants of her lunch, carrying the trash into the ladies’ room. She told herself it was so she wouldn’t have to smell meatloaf for the rest of the day, but it was also so Yemi wouldn’t know she’d eaten at her desk. She wasn’t sure why she cared. But she did.

  She purposely didn’t look up when he sat down. After a few minutes, she felt him kick her chair.

  Spinning around, she lifted one headphone off her ear—just the one, to send the message she didn’t want to talk. Jesus, she was being petty. She couldn’t seem to help it though.

  Yemi frowned at her. “You’re upset with me.”

  Esther forced a smile that probably looked as fake as it felt. “No, I’m not. I’m just behind on these design notes.”

 
Yemi’s frown got deeper. “Are you mad that Jinny and I are dating?”

  “No, of course not.” Esther smiled wider. It felt like her face was going to crack and fall away, revealing a hideous lizard monster underneath.

  “What do you want me to do?” Yemi asked.

  “I don’t want you to do anything. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “I could talk to her for you,” he offered again.

  “Please don’t.” The last thing Esther wanted was to be responsible for causing tension in their brand-new relationship. “It’s better if you leave it alone. I’m glad you’re together. I’m glad you’re happy.”

  The words rang hollow in the air between them, but it was the best she could mange. She wanted to be happy for them. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?

  Before Yemi could say anything else, she yanked her headphones on and turned her back on him.

  That night, Penny called to check on Esther. “You’ve missed knitting two weeks in a row. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Esther said, brushing pizza crumbs off her pajama pants.

  It was seven o’clock and she was already in her pajamas, eating pizza on her couch and watching mushy Hallmark movies. Because she was a loser with nowhere to be except at home with her cat. Not that she’d made a habit of going out much on weeknights before. But still. What a cliché she’d become. She didn’t even have the heart to watch any of her favorite horror movies, because they reminded her too much of Jonathan. Instead, she was watching some heartwarming atrocity starring Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence. Which was a different sort of horror movie, but a horror movie nonetheless.

  “Are you ever coming back?” Penny asked.

  “Has Jinny been coming?”

  Penny hesitated. “She came on Monday.”

  “Did she tell you she’s not currently speaking to me?”

  “She…might have mentioned something about that.”

  Esther squeezed the phone. “Did she tell you why?”

  “Yes, and I’m not taking sides, but you guys need to make up.”

  “I’ve tried. She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

  “It’s not the same without you there. Everyone misses you.”

  “Jinny doesn’t.”

  “She does. Even if she’s too proud to say it.”

  “Well, the ball’s in her court. I’m trying to respect her boundaries and give her space. Which is why I’ve given her full custody of you guys.”

  It was fine. Okay, so maybe her life felt a little like a movie montage about a lonely spinster who did nothing but go to work, eat lunch by herself at her desk, and spend her evenings knitting in front of the TV with her cat—which wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, because Sally always tried to bite her yarn ends.

  She’d finished Jonathan’s hat last week, but she obviously couldn’t give it to him, so she’d stuffed it in the bottom of her dresser and started a new pair of socks for herself. They didn’t follow any kind of pattern. She was using up all the leftover sock yarn from other projects—all the random, miscellaneous bits and pieces in all different colorways. She’d reach into her stash and grab the first thing that came to hand, knit until she got tired of it, and then switch to something else. They were the ugliest socks she’d ever seen. Messy and tragic, like Esther’s life.

  “I hate this,” Penny said unhappily. “Drama stresses me out.”

  Esther scowled at the Hallmark movie on her TV screen. “I’m not exactly a fan either.”

  “We’re your friends too, and you’ll always be welcome. You can come back whenever you want.”

  It was a nice sentiment, but Esther couldn’t imagine going back as long as Jinny was refusing to speak to her. It would be awful and uncomfortable for everyone. They didn’t deserve to be dragged into the middle of it.

  “Promise you’ll call if you need anything,” Penny said.

  “I will.” Hearing Penny’s voice drove home just how much Esther had missed the group. Vilma was like the mother figure she’d always wanted, and the others were like sisters. They were like a little family. The only family Esther had in LA. “I’ll be back eventually. Assuming the divorce isn’t permanent.”

  “You’re not getting divorced,” Penny insisted. “You two will work it out.”

  Esther wished she could believe that. She hadn’t expected the fight with Jinny to go on this long. It had already been a week and a half. She’d tried texting Jinny again on Monday as a test balloon, but it had gone unanswered, like the others.

  She toyed with the idea of going over to Jinny’s apartment and seeing if she’d let her in. It was a trigger she might have to pull eventually, but for now it seemed like an endeavor with a high probability of rejection. She’d give her a few more days, and then she’d reevaluate.

  Esther got off the phone with Penny and went back to watching her terrible Hallmark movie and knitting her ugly socks.

  An hour later, there was a knock on her door.

  Her heart leapt into her throat as Sally bolted for the bedroom. What if it was Jonathan? She couldn’t talk to him right now. Not in her pajamas. There was probably pizza sauce on her chin and she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  She got up and peered through the peephole. There was no one there. Creepy. This was exactly how a lot of horror movies started. She waited, listening for any sounds of murderers skulking nearby. When she didn’t hear anything, she opened the door a crack.

  There was a manila envelope lying on the doorstep with her name written on it in a familiar black Pilot gel pen scrawl.

  Jonathan had left her something.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Her heart thudded in her chest as she stooped to retrieve the envelope. There was no sign of him. He must have hightailed it back into his apartment, so he wouldn’t have to face her.

  She carried the envelope inside and closed the door. Inside it was a copy of Jonathan’s first script. American Dreamers. The love story he’d promised to show her when it was finished.

  Esther sank down on the couch and flipped to the first page. The Hallmark movie she’d been watching faded into distant background noise as she pored over every word. Fascinated. Mesmerized. Stunned.

  The more she read, the louder her pulse pounded in her ears.

  It was about her. About them.

  Jonathan had completely rewritten the female lead, Emily, and remade her in Esther’s image. Instead of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, she was grounded, sarcastic, pragmatic, and a little closed off. Distrustful and averse to emotional attachments. She even had a degree in engineering and a disdain for good coffee.

  Jonas, the male lead, was mostly unchanged. He was still loosely autobiographical, but with a lot of the character’s annoyingly quirky traits excised. Instead of a busker, he was a writer now, like Jonathan. He was less smug in this draft, and kinder. More vulnerable. He wore his heart on his sleeve, quick to love and unafraid to express it.

  The whole story had been overhauled. For one thing, there actually was one now. Jonas and Emily still met the same way—only in an airport instead of a train station, like Esther had suggested—but there was more purpose to their interactions. In this new draft, Jonas fell head over heels for Emily in the first act, and spent the rest of the screenplay trying to convince her that love at first sight was real, despite Emily’s insistence that love was a fantasy. She even called it “a delusion caused by rising cortisol levels and depleted serotonin,” like Esther had.

  A lot of the conversations in the script mirrored conversations she’d had with Jonathan. It was almost like reading a diary of their friendship.

  In the last act, Jonas begged Emily to postpone her trip and stay one more day. If she’d just give him one more day, he told her, he could prove they were meant to be together. She just needed to take a chance on him. Open herself up to the possibility of love.

  It ended on a cliffhanger, just before Emily—clearly torn—made her decision. You didn’t know whether or n
ot she was going to say yes.

  The words blurred before Esther’s eyes as she stared at the page. Jonathan was using this script to tell her how he felt about her. Every page, every word, was about them. He was asking her to give them a chance.

  Esther’s stomach hurt. She felt like she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. It was possible she might be hyperventilating.

  This thing between us is real, Jonas pleaded with Emily on the last page. I know you can feel it too. Don’t walk away from us.

  Esther closed her eyes and waited for her breathing to go back to normal. Then she picked up her phone and scrolled to Jonathan’s name in her contacts. She needed to talk to him. He’d bared his soul by sharing this with her. She couldn’t ignore that. It would be cruel. Heartless. She wasn’t heartless. If anything, her heart was too full to fit inside her chest.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “Esther?” The sound of his voice made her eyes burn all the way down the back of her throat to the pit of her stomach. God, she’d missed him. So much.

  She swallowed and stood up, pacing back and forth across her living room. “I read American Dreamers.”

  “Yeah?” He sounded wary.

  “I loved it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  She stopped pacing. “Jonathan?”

  “I’m here.” His voice was hoarse. “You really liked it?”

  “No, I loved it. It’s so good. Your professor has to give you an A.” She started pacing again, making circuits of her apartment from the living room to the kitchen and back.

  “It’s about you,” he said. “About us.”

  She blew out a breath. “Yeah, I figured that out.”

  “Esther—”

  “Don’t,” she said, her voice breaking in two. “Please. I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “Do this. With you.”

  “Why?”