One by one, she called off names, pairing up students with the research supervisors. With each name she recited, the person in question stood or raised a hand. They were almost at the end of the roll by the time she got to Adam, and it didn’t escape his attention that there was just one other student she had yet to call.
“Mr. Adam McCay? You’ll be working with Dr. Lisa Hernandez.”
Adam stood and looked over at the small, middle-aged woman raising her hand.
“And Ms. Josephine Kramer has the privilege of working with Lisa’s research partner, Dr. Heather Simms.”
Adam’s stomach lurched as Jo—or Josephine—stood. If their advisors were research partners, odds were good their projects would be at least tangentially linked. Which meant they’d probably end up working together. The tender spot between his shoulders twinged, but he managed to keep his expression neutral. This would be fine. Peachy, even.
As P.J. moved on, Jo sat back down. The whole time, she never looked at him. Not once. But somehow, her lack of attention felt almost more intentional than a backward glance could ever have been. Like she was ignoring him so hard he could feel it in his bones.
Chapter Three
This day was never going to end.
Jo stared down the choices in front of her in their steam trays, each less appealing than the last.
The man behind the counter smiled at her, his accent thick but comprehensible as he asked, “What can I get for you, miss?”
“Is there a… a vegetarian option?” At his frown, she clarified, “No meat?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, miss.”
She probably should have known this was going to be an issue, and she had some contingency plans, but the stash of protein bars in her suitcase was going to get old fast. “Um. Just the rice and the vegetable, then.”
She resolutely ignored the way each of them shone with what was probably lard. Not something she could be picky about right now if she wanted to eat at all.
He passed over a plate full of just what she’d requested, and she gritted out a smile of thanks as she accepted it and placed it on her tray. She grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge to round out her feast and got in line to pay, looking on in both disgust and envy at the girl in front of her, whose plate was swimming in some sort of greasy-looking gravy.
“Vegetarian?” the girl asked, eyeing Jo’s food.
“Yup.”
“Ouch. Sucks to be you.”
The girl had no idea.
Fortunately, her meeting with her advisor—who’d insisted on being called Heather, as opposed to Dr. Simms—had gone well enough. Mostly because Jo had made an effort to keep her trap shut before she made any more shitty first impressions. Her project seemed interesting, and when she’d expressed her hopes about getting something publishable out of the experience, Heather had been receptive. She’d been clear that it would require some extra work, but that was one thing Jo had never shied away from.
Unlike awkward social situations. Which she’d more than had her fill of at this point.
Keeping a stiff upper lip about how annoyed she was to be forking over money for a plate of rice and broccoli, she paid for her meal, then followed the girl who’d been in front of her out the door of the little cafeteria, toward the picnic bench outside where all the other people from her program had assembled.
As the last one there, she had about as many options in her choice of seating arrangements as she had in her menu. Or her room. Taking the open spot on the end, she set down her tray and looked around. She remembered her roommate, Carol’s, name, and she was pretty sure the girl who’d spoken to her in line was Anna. The asshole who kept checking out everybody’s tits was definitely Jared, and the one who never made eye contact was… Tom? Tim? She wasn’t sure.
And two seats down from her was the guy who’d snuck up on her when she’d arrived. The one with the pretty blond hair and the dimples and the shoulders of a god. The one whose advisor was BFFs with hers. Adam. She sure as hell remembered him. He glanced over at her as she settled in but didn’t linger long enough to actually make eye contact, and that didn’t bother her at all. At least he didn’t seem to have mentioned their less-than-awesome meeting to anyone else, because no one had given her any shit for being a total sociopath who couldn’t handle a guy getting within two feet of her without her self-defense training kicking in.
Thank fuck for small favors.
The others were all involved in some sort of conversation, and as she dug in, she kept half an ear open, trying to pick up the thread.
“Dude,” the hornball, Jared, said. “I don’t know anything about astronomy. I don’t even know much physics. I’m an engineer.”
Excuse me?
The redhead at the end of the table seemed to have the same thought, crinkling her brow. “Then how the hell did you end up here?”
Jared shrugged. “My advisor back home was college roommates with P.J. I didn’t have anything going on this summer, so she managed to snag this for me.”
Oh hell no. Indignation rose up, hot and volatile in Jo’s chest. The sciences were supposed to be a meritocracy, but there wasn’t any getting away from all the BS of politics and connections, was there?
It was almost enough to make her regret severing her very best one. Almost.
“Wow,” Carol said. “That was lucky.”
“I guess so,” Jared said.
“I mean, this program is really hard to get into,” Carol argued.
Jared held his hands up in front of him. “As long as it looks good on my résumé. That’s all I really care about.”
Great. Just great. Jo was plenty mindful about the credentials she was building up for herself, too, but you didn’t come to one of the best observatories in the world just for a line on your CV. Not if you didn’t care about the work they were doing there.
Swallowing down the hundred comments she could have made, she concentrated on her food. She just had to sit through this crap for a little while, pretend to be part of the group for as long as it took to finish her dinner, and then she could go back to the lab. Start digging into the binder full of articles Heather had assembled for her. Prove that she was here to do her job.
“It’ll definitely look good on a résumé,” the redhead said after a long pause. “I’m still a little surprised they took you if you don’t have any background in astronomy.”
“My major is physics,” one of the other girls said. “I like astronomy, but we don’t really have a separate department for it, so I haven’t taken any classes in it.”
“Still, though.” The redhead pointed her fork at the girl. “You’re open to the idea of going into it.”
“Sure.” She frowned for a second. “Though I wonder if I would have gotten in if I hadn’t had a connection, too. I met Marcos—the guy I’m working with this summer—at a conference last spring, and we got to talking, and I told him I was looking for a summer thing. He told me to apply here.”
Antisocial boy piped in, “I did my last summer research position at a collaborating university. That probably helped me.”
A beat of quiet passed before another girl said, “The professor I got to write my letter of recommendation used to work here a few years ago. I’m sure it’s not the only reason I’m here, but connections do help.”
“I don’t have any.” Not anymore. Jo heard the words before she’d fully decided to chime in. But then all the faces around the table were pointing at her, and the base of her neck flashed hot. She stared at her last spear of broccoli like it might have the power to turn the clock back a minute or two, but the time stream stayed intact. Stupid broccoli. She clenched her jaw. “I just filled in the application.”
And then she’d cried when she’d gotten her letter, because this was exactly what she’d wanted. This summer here—this was succeeding beyond her wildest dreams. This was getting somewhere on her own blood, sweat, and tears. Long hours in the lab and going half blind from reading textbooks and hunching over a computer screen.