Page 35 of Starrily

It was the type of thing scientists lost sleep over.

From his line, a few feet away, Simon leaned toward her. “You need any pointers?”

“Huh?”

“For the dinner.”

“I know how to eat, thanks.”

“You’ll have to converse, though.”

“I’ll befine. Stick to your line.” She raised her chin and looked ahead, but not before she caught a teasing smile from Simon.

Callie won the line race, although she’d have to repeat the experiment many more times for it to gain any scientific validity. “First,” she proudly announced as Simon joined her, and raised her cup of coffee.

“Perhaps, but you lose a point for having your name spelled wrong.” He pointed to the sleeve of her coffee cup, where the nameKellywas written in a barely legible cursive.

“That wasn’t in the rules!”

“I’m not really a rules person, kind of prefer to go with the flow …”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You tell me that every day.”

As she glanced around her gaze stopped on two girls—mid-teens, probably—who were looking at them, giggling.

“Oh, no,” she murmured.

“Did they give you too much sugar?”

“No. I think you have fans.” She discreetly gestured toward the girls.

Simon strained to look out of the corner of his eye, trying not to move his head. “I hope not. They look a little young to waste their life fangirling over tech moguls. Surely there’s a boy band out there they could be obsessed with instead.”

One of the girls whispered to another, who nodded, then started to approach, clutching a notebook. But before she was about to reach Simon, she turned to Callie.

“You’re … you’re Dr. Guidry, aren’t you? From the articles?”

Callie was too stunned to respond.

“She is, indeed,” Simon said instead, flashing Callie a smile.

“I’ve read all of them. What you do is so cool! I’d like to study astrophysics one day, too, although I’m not sure if I want to go more into astronomy, or theory …” The girl’s eyes shone as she gushed, allowing Callie to come to her senses.

“Would you sign my notebook?” the girl said.

“M-me?”

“I think she’s been talking to you,” Simon whispered near her ear.

The girl handed her the worn-out, cloth-bound book. “I use it for my ideas. And, uh, doodling during the class,” she quickly added, as the book opened to a page with sketches of people and planets. “The name’s Brianna.”

“Sure.” In a slightly shaky hand, Callie signed the first page. She was still processing the event by the time Brianna thanked her and bounced off to her friend.

“Would you look at that.” Simon sounded pleased. “Our Dr. Guidry is becoming famous.”

“I—no. I don’t … I don’t understand. It’s not like I’m Stephen Hawking.”