The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, shes an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. Byotherday, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people-pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.

Honestly, its a pretty sweet giguntil her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and arrogant older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentors career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And hes the same Jack Smith who rules over the physics department at MIT, standing right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage butthose long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when shes with him? Will falling into an experimentalists orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?