4. Jonah
JONAH
My phone hasn't stopped buzzing all morning with Lucas's texts. Each one more apologetic than the last. Each one I ignore. Three days of this, and he has yet to get the hint.
I stare at the latest message:
Come on, man. I said I was sorry. How long are you going to ice me out?
Forever seems like a good starting point.
I toss my phone onto my desk. The grant proposal on my screen blurs into meaningless symbols. I've been staring at the same paragraph for an hour, making zero progress since I arrived at my office before dawn.
“Think that might be important?”
I look up to find Eleanor leaning against my doorframe, a knowing smile on her face.
“No,” I answer, straightening papers that don't need straightening. “I'll respond when I’m not busy.”
Eleanor sips her tea, unconvinced. “Busy avoiding talking about what happened at the Meteorological Society meeting? The whole department heard about Lucas's little social blunder. I’m assuming that’s him,” she nods towards my yet again buzzing phone on my desk.
“It wasn't a blunder. It was sabotage.” The words burst out before I can stop them. “He deliberately undermined me. Made me look like I was—” I cut myself off, the embarrassment still fresh.
“Like you were what? Interested in Lila Brooks for reasons beyond her research?” Eleanor raises an eyebrow. “And were you?”
“Are you asking me that as my boss or a friend?”
“Both,” she shrugs. “As your boss, I expect you to be professional. As your friend, on the other hand, you need a life outside of your lab, Jonah.”
“That’s not helpful,” I argue, feeling heat rise to my face. “Her field data could have validated years of my work. Do you know how rare that kind of observational expertise is?”
Eleanor's expression softens. “Have you tried contacting her directly? Without Lucas as your social coordinator?”
I shake my head, turning back to my computer screen. “What would be the point? She clearly wants nothing to do with me or my research now.”
“You don't know that.” Eleanor sets her mug down on my desk and crosses her arms. “One misunderstanding doesn't have to derail a potentially groundbreaking collaboration.”
“It wasn't just a misunderstanding. You didn't see her face.” The memory makes me wince. “She looked disgusted. Like I was just another scientist trying to use her for field data while secretly laughing at her credentials.”
“Were you?”
“No!” I push back from my desk, frustrated. “Her work complements mine. That’s all.”
Eleanor studies me for a moment. “Then tell her that. Directly. No Lucas, no university formalities. Just scientist to scientist.”
“I don't even know how to reach her,” I mumble, though it's not entirely true. I could find her contact information easily enough.
“For a man who can calculate the probability of a tornado forming based on seventeen different atmospheric variables,” Eleanor says, “you're remarkably inept at solving simple human equations.”
I slump back in my chair. She’s right, of course. I can model atmospheric dynamics, but interpersonal dynamics remain stubbornly chaotic and unpredictable.
Storms obey physics. People don’t.
Relationships never came easily to me. Girls gravitated toward future doctors and athletes, not the awkward meteorology geek who spent lunch breaks reading storm journals. By college, I’d mostly accepted I wasn’t the kind of man women noticed that way.
Then I met Claire in grad school.
She was different. Quiet. Brilliant. Socially awkward in the same way I was. We fit together naturally—late nights in the lab, conference papers, research projects. Loving her felt easy because it existed alongside the work, not in competition with it.
Until she started wanting more. Marriage. Kids. A life outside the university walls. And every time she talked about the future, all I could think about was my research. The grants. The models. The work unfinished. I kept assuming there would be time later.
Eventually, Claire realized later was never going to come for me. She left four years ago. The last I heard, she was married with a baby now.
After that, throwing myself entirely into work became easy. Research made sense. It had structure. Predictability.
Which is why my reaction to Lila Brooks is so deeply inconvenient.
Because she doesn’t fit anywhere inside the carefully controlled life I built after Claire left.
Lila is chaos. Instinct. Motion. And somehow, after years of avoiding emotional complications entirely, one conversation with her has already thrown my entire internal equilibrium off balance.
“What would I even say? 'Sorry my friend made you think I'm a creep who's only interested in your looks, not your groundbreaking research'?”
Eleanor picks up her mug. “That's a start. Though perhaps with less self-pity.” She pauses at my door. “I’d start with sorry for my poor friend’s choices.” After she leaves, I stare at my phone, Lucas's text glowing on the screen. With a sigh, I pick it up and finally respond.
I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. There's a difference.
His reply comes instantly.
So you ARE alive! Look, I know I screwed up. Let me make it right. Dinner tonight? My treat.
I'm tempted to ignore him again, but we've been friends too long. Despite his occasional social clumsiness, Lucas has been there for me through some of my darkest moments—particularly after Claire left.
Fine. Usual place. 7pm.
I turn back to my grant proposal. My mind has other ideas.
The grant proposal does not have dark hair that falls in messy waves around her face after a storm, making me wonder what it would feel like wrapped around my hand.
Is her hair soft? Does it smell like her shampoo or does it smell like rain after a thunderstorm?
It does not have green eyes sharp enough to pin me in place one second and soften unexpectedly the next, leaving me completely incapable of remembering my own train of thought.
The grant proposal has never tilted its chin up right before saying something cutting, like she already knows exactly how the words are going to land.
It has never caught me staring and held eye contact just a second too long before looking away again, like she’s fully aware of what she’s doing to me and hasn’t decided whether to stop.
And worst of all, the grant proposal has never looked at me the way Lila does when I start talking about meteorology.
Like I’m interesting. Like she’s trying not to be fascinated and failing a little anyway.
This is absurd.
I should not be this distracted by a woman I’ve spoken to exactly once.
And yet every time I try to reread the same paragraph, my brain replaces atmospheric modeling equations with the image of Lila leaning against the bar, looking at me like she was halfway between intrigued and ready to start a fight.
Worse, my body has apparently decided to participate in this humiliation.
The growing hardness pressing uncomfortably against my slacks is deeply inconvenient.
I shift again, irritation flaring as my dick stubbornly refuses to cooperate.
Apparently all it takes is remembering the way she stepped closer and accused me of staring at her mouth for my entire nervous system to betray me.
And the truly infuriating part?
After she stormed out because Lucas apparently lost all higher brain function and turned our conversation into a public rom-com trailer, all I was left with was an unresolved erection and increasingly vivid fantasies about murdering my best friend.
Fantastic.
Four years without a relationship, and now my penis chooses a storm chaser with a talent for verbal warfare as its grand return to active duty.
I exhale hard through my nose and scrub a hand over my face.
Thinking about her only makes it worse. The memory of her laugh. The way she leaned closer at the bar. The challenge in her eyes every time she pushed at me just to see how I’d react. Even angry, she’d looked impossible to ignore.
I shift again, jaw tightening as another pulse of arousal hits me out of nowhere.
This is exactly why I avoid complications. Storms are easier. Storms don’t walk into your life wearing tight pants and emotional damage and suddenly make you question every carefully constructed routine you’ve built over the last four years.
After twenty more minutes of staring at the same paragraph without absorbing a single word, I grab my phone and do what I should have done three days ago. I look up Lila’s website. Her contact page lists an email address for “research inquiries only.”
I click on the email address and stare at the blank composition window. My cursor blinks expectantly.
Subject:
What do I even put as the subject line? Apology for my idiot friend? Research proposal from that guy whose wingman humiliated you?
I type, Potential Research Collaboration and then delete it immediately. Too formal. Too much like I'm trying to pretend nothing happened.
I try again, Apology and Research Proposal.
No, that sounds like I'm using the apology just to get to the proposal. Which I am, sort of, but I shouldn't advertise that fact.
“I'm not a creep, I swear.”
Definitely not.
After five more attempts, I settle on, Regarding our conversation at the Met Society meeting.
Vague enough that curiosity might compel her to open it rather than delete it outright.
Now for the actual email.
Dear Ms. Brooks.
Too formal?
Lila.
Too familiar.
Dr. Brooks.
She's not a doctor, you idiot. This is exactly the kind of academic elitism she probably despises.
I settle back on Ms. Brooks, and forge ahead.
I wanted to reach out regarding our conversation at the Meteorological Society meeting, which was unfortunately cut short.
First, I want to apologize for Lucas's inappropriate comments.
They were completely out of line and misrepresented my intentions entirely.
I assure you my interest in your work is purely scientific and professional.