“I’m not even—” He grimaced. “I’m not going to address this.”
She sighed. “Okay. Don’t address this. You don’t have to. But can you just not hate me? Please? I know he’s been a nightmare to half the grads in the program, you included. But he’s helping me out. You and Anh are the only ones I care about knowing the truth. But I can’t tell Anh—”
“—for obvious reasons.”
“—for obvious reasons,” she finished at the same time, and smiled. He just shook his head disapprovingly, but his expression had softened.
“Ol. You’re amazing. And kind, way too kind. You should find someone better than Carlsen. Someone to date for real.”
“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. “Because it went so well with Jeremy. Who, by the way, I only agreed to date following your advice! ‘Give the boy a chance,’ you said. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ you said.”
Malcolm glared, and she laughed.
“Listen, I’m clearly bad at real dating. Maybe fake dating will be different. Maybe I’ve found my niche.”
He sighed. “Does it have to be Carlsen? There are better faculty members to fake-date.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know. Dr. McCoy?”
“Didn’t her wife just give birth to triplets?”
“Oh, yeah. What about Holden Rodrigues? He’s hot. Cute smile, too. I would know—he always smiles at me.”
Olive burst into laughter. “I could never fake-date Dr. Rodrigues, not with how assiduously you’ve been thirsting after him for the past two years.”
“I have, haven’t I? Did I ever tell you about the serious flirting that happened between us at the undergrad research fair? I’m pretty sure he winked at me multiple times from the other side of the room. Now, some say he just had something in his eye, but—”
“Me. I said that he probably had something in his eye. And you tell me about it every other day.”
“Right.” He sighed. “You know, Ol, I would have fake-dated you myself in a heartbeat, to spare you from goddamned Carlsen. I would have held hands with you, and given you my jacket when you were cold, and very publicly gifted you chocolate roses and teddy bears on Valentine’s Day.”
How refreshing, to talk with someone who’d watched a rom-com. Or ten. “I know. But you also bring home a different person every week, and you love it, and I love that you love it. I don’t want to cramp your style.”
“Fair.” Malcolm looked pleased—whether at the fact that he really did get around a fair bit or at Olive’s thorough understanding of his dating habits, she wasn’t sure.
“Can you please not hate me, then?”
He tossed the kitchen cloth onto the counter and stepped closer. “Ol. I could never hate you. You’ll always be my kalamata.” He pulled her into his chest, hugging her tight. At the beginning, when they’d just met, Olive had been constantly disoriented by how physical he was, probably because it had been years since she’d experienced such affectionate contact. Now, Malcolm’s hugs were her happy place.
She laid her head on his shoulder and smiled into the cotton of his T-shirt. “Thanks.”
Malcolm held her tighter.
“And I promise if I ever bring Adam home, I’ll put a sock on my door— Ouch!”
“You evil creature.”
“I was kidding! Wait, don’t leave, I have something important to tell you.”
He paused by the door, scowling. “I’ve reached my maximum daily intake of Carlsen-related conversation. Anything further will be lethal, so—”
“Tom Benton, the cancer researcher from Harvard, reached out to me! It’s not decided yet, but he might be interested in having me in his lab next year.”
“Oh my God.” Malcolm walked back to her, delighted. “Ol, this is amazing! I thought none of the researchers you contacted had gotten back to you?”
“Not for the longest time. But now Benton has, and you know how famous and well-known he is. He probably has more research funds than I could ever dream of. It would be—”
“Fantastic. It would really be fantastic. Ol. I am so proud of you.” Malcolm took her hands in his. His face-splitting grin slowly gentled. “And your mom would be so proud, too.”
Olive looked away, blinking rapidly. She didn’t want to cry, not tonight. “Nothing is set in stone. I’ll have to persuade him. It will involve quite a bit of politicking and going through the whole ‘pitch me your research’ bit. Which as you know is not my forte. It might still not work out—”
“It will work out.”
Right. Yes. She needed to be optimistic. She nodded, attempting a smile.
“But even if it didn’t . . . she would still be proud.”
Olive nodded again. When a single tear managed to slide down her cheek, she decided to let it be.
Forty-five minutes later, she and Malcolm sat on their minuscule couch, arms pressed together, watching reruns of American Ninja Warrior while they ate a very undersalted veggie casserole.
Chapter Four
HYPOTHESIS: Adam Carlsen and I have absolutely nothing in common, and having coffee with him will be twice as painful as a root canal. Without anesthesia.
Olive arrived to the first fake-dating Wednesday late and in the foulest of moods, after a morning spent growling at her cheap, knockoff reagents for not dissolving, then not precipitating, then not sonicating, then not being enough for her to run her entire assay.
She paused outside the coffee shop’s door and took a deep breath. She needed a better lab if she wanted to produce decent science. Better equipment. Better reagents. Better bacteria cultures. Better everything. Next week, when Tom Benton arrived, she had to be on top of her game. She needed to prepare her spiel, not waste time on a coffee she didn’t particularly want, with a person she most definitely didn’t want to talk to, halfway through her experimental protocol.
Ugh.
When she stepped inside the café, Adam was already there, wearing a black Henley that looked like it was ideated, designed, and produced specifically with the upper half of his body in mind. Olive was momentarily bemused, not so much that his clothes fit him well, but that she’d noticed what someone was wearing to begin with. It was not like her. She’d been seeing Adam traipse around the biology building for the better part of two years, after all, not to mention that in the past couple of weeks they’d spoken an inordinate amount of times. They had even kissed, if one counted what had happened on The Night as a proper kiss. It was dizzying and a little unsettling, the realization that sank into her as they got in line to order their coffee.
Adam Carlsen was handsome.
Adam Carlsen, with his long nose and wavy hair, with his full lips and angular face that shouldn’t have fit together but somehow did, was really, really, really handsome. Olive had no clue why it hadn’t registered before, or why what made her realize it was him putting on a plain black shirt.
She willed herself to stare ahead at the drink menu instead of his chest. In the coffee shop, there were a total of three biology grad students, one pharmacology postdoc, and one undergraduate research assistant eyeing them. Perfect.
“So. How are you?” she asked, because it was the thing to do.
“Fine. You?”
“Fine.”
It occurred to Olive that maybe she hadn’t thought this through as thoroughly as she should have. Because being seen together might have been their goal, but standing next to each other in silence was not going to fool anyone into thinking that they were blissfully dating. And Adam was . . . well. He seemed unlikely to initiate any kind of conversation.
“So.” Olive shifted her weight to the balls of her feet a couple of times. “What’s your favorite color?”
He looked at her, confused. “What?”
“Your favorite color.”
“My favorite color?
”
“Yep.”
There was a crease between his eyes. “I—don’t know?”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“They’re colors. They’re all the same.”
“There must be one you like most.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Red?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yellow? Vomit green?”
His eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking?”
Olive shrugged. “It feels like something I should know.”
“Why?”
“Because. If someone tries to figure out whether we’re really dating, it might be one of the first questions they ask. Top five, for sure.”
He studied her for a few seconds. “Does that seem like a likely scenario to you?”
“About as likely as me fake-dating you.”
He nodded, as if conceding her point. “Okay. Black, I guess.”
She snorted. “Figures.”
“What’s wrong with black?” He frowned.
“It’s not even a color. It’s no colors, technically.”
“It’s better than vomit green.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Of course it is.”
“Yeah, well. It suits your scion-of-darkness personality.”
“What does that even—”
“Good morning.” The barista smiled at them cheerfully. “What will you have today?”
Olive smiled back, gesturing at Adam to order first.
“Coffee.” He darted a glance at her before adding, sheepishly, “Black.”
She had to duck her head to hide her smile, but when she glanced at him again, the corner of his mouth was curved upward. Which, she reluctantly admitted to herself, was not a bad look for him. She ignored it and ordered the most fatty, sugary thing on the drink menu, asking for extra whipped cream. She was wondering if she should try to make up for it by buying an apple, too, or if she should just lean into it and top it off with a cookie, when Adam took a credit card out of his wallet and held it to the cashier.
“Oh, no. No, no, no. No.” Olive put her hand in front of his and lowered her voice. “You can’t pay for my stuff.”
He blinked. “I can’t?”
“That’s not the kind of fake relationship we’re having.”
He looked surprised. “It isn’t?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I would never fake-date a dude who thinks that he has to pay for my coffee just because he’s a dude.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I doubt a language exists in which the thing you just ordered could be referred to as ‘coffee.’ ”
“Hey—”
“And it’s not about me being a ‘dude’ ”—the word came out a touch pained—“but about you still being a grad student. And your yearly income.”
For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she should be offended. Was Adam being his well-known ass self? Was he patronizing her? Did he think she was poor? Then she remembered that she was, in fact, poor, and that he probably made five times as much as her. She shrugged, adding a chocolate chip cookie, a banana, and a pack of gum to her coffee. To his credit, Adam said nothing and paid the resulting $21.39 without batting an eye.
While they were waiting for their drinks, Olive’s mind began drifting off to her project and to whether she could convince Dr. Aslan to buy her better reagents soon. She looked distractedly around the coffee shop, finding that even though the research assistant, the postdoc, and one of the students were gone, two grads (one of whom serendipitously happened to work in Anh’s lab) were still sitting at a table by the door, glancing toward them every few minutes. Excellent.
She leaned her hip against the counter and looked up at Adam. Thank God this thing was only going to be ten minutes a week, or she’d develop a permanent crick in her neck.
“Where were you born?” she asked.
“Is this another one of your green card marriage interview questions?”
She giggled. He smiled in response, as if pleased to have made her laugh. Though it was certainly for some other reason.
“Netherlands. The Hague.”
“Oh.”
He leaned against the counter, too, directly in front of her. “Why ‘oh’?”
“I don’t know.” Olive shrugged. “I think I expected . . . New York? Or maybe Kansas?”
He shook his head. “My mother used to be a US ambassador to the Netherlands.”
“Wow.” Weird, to imagine that Adam had a mother. A family. That before being tall and scary and infamous, he’d been a kid. Maybe he spoke Dutch. Maybe he had smoked herring for breakfast on the reg. Maybe his mother had wanted him to follow in her footsteps and become a diplomat, but his shiny personality had emerged and she’d given up on that dream. Olive found herself acutely eager to know more about his upbringing, which was . . . weird. Very weird.
“Here you go.” Their drinks appeared on the counter. Olive told herself that the way the blond barista was obviously checking out Adam as he turned to retrieve a lid for his cup was none of her business. She also reminded herself that as curious as she was about his diplomat mother, how many languages he spoke, and whether he liked tulips, it was information that went well beyond their arrangement.
People had seen them together. They were going to go back to their labs and tell improbable tales of Dr. Adam Carlsen and the random, unremarkable student they’d spotted him with. Time for Olive to go back to her science.
She cleared her throat. “Well. This was fun.”
He looked up from his cup, surprised. “Is fake-dating Wednesday over?”
“Yep. Great job, team, now hit the showers. You’re free until next week.” Olive stabbed her straw into her drink and took a sip, feeling the sugar explode in her mouth. Whatever she’d ordered, it was disgustingly good. She was probably developing diabetes as she spoke. “I’ll see you—”
“Where were you born?” Adam asked before she could leave.
Oh. They were doing this, then. He was probably just trying to be polite, and Olive sighed inwardly, thinking longingly of her lab bench. “Toronto.”
“Right. You’re Canadian,” he said, like he’d already known.
“Yep.”
“When did you move here?”
“Eight years ago. For college.”
He nodded, as if storing up the information. “Why the US? Canada has excellent schools.”
“I got a full ride.” It was true. If not the whole truth.
He fidgeted with the cardboard cup holder. “Do you go back a lot?”
“Not really, no.” Olive licked some whipped cream off her straw. She was puzzled when he immediately looked away from her.
“Do you plan to move back home once you graduate?”
She tensed. “Not if I can help it.” She had lots of painful memories in Canada, and her only family, the people she wanted nearby, were Anh and Malcolm, both US citizens. Olive and Anh had even made a pact that if Olive was ever on the verge of losing her visa, Anh would marry her. In hindsight, this entire fake-dating business with Adam was going to be great practice for when Olive leveled up and started defrauding the Department of Homeland Security in earnest.
Adam nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. “Favorite color?”
Olive opened her mouth to tell him her favorite color, which was so much better than his, and . . . “Dammit.”
He gave her a knowing look. “Difficult, isn’t it?”
“There are so many good ones.”
“Yup.”
“I’m going to go with blue. Light blue. No, wait!”
“Mmm.”
“Let’s say white. Okay, white.”
He clucked his tongue. “You know, I don’t think I can accept that. White’s not really a co
lor. More like all colors put together—”
Olive pinched him on the fleshy part of his forearm.
“Ow,” he said, clearly not in pain. With a sly smile, he waved goodbye and turned away, heading for the biology building.
“Hey, Adam?” she called after him.
He paused and looked back at her.
“Thanks for buying me three days’ worth of food.”
He hesitated and then nodded, once. That thing he was doing with his mouth—he was definitely smiling down at her. A little begrudgingly, but still.
“My pleasure, Olive.”
* * *
—
Today, 2:40 p.m.
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Re: Pancreatic Cancer Screening Project
Olive,
I’ll be flying in on Tuesday afternoon. How about we meet on Wednesday around 3:00 p.m. in Aysegul Aslan’s lab? My collaborator can point me in its direction.
TB
Sent from my iPhone
* * *
—
OLIVE WAS LATE for her second fake-dating Wednesday, too, but for different reasons—all Tom Benton related.
First, she’d overslept after staying up late the previous night rehearsing how she was going to sell him her project. She’d repeated her spiel so many times that Malcolm had started finishing her sentences, and then, at 1:00 a.m., he’d hurled a nectarine at her and begged her to go practice in her room. Which she had, until 3:00 a.m.
Then, in the morning, she’d realized that her usual lab outfit (leggings, ratty 5K T-shirt, and very, very messy bun) would probably not communicate “valuable future colleague” to Dr. Benton, and spent an excessive amount of time looking for something appropriate. Dress for success and all that.
Finally, it occurred to her that she had no idea what Dr. Benton—arguably the most important person in her life at the moment, and yes, she was aware of how sad that sounded but decided not to dwell on it—even looked like. She looked him up on her phone and found out that he was somewhere in his late thirties, blond with blue eyes, and had very straight, very white teeth. When she arrived at the campus Starbucks, Olive was whispering to his Harvard headshot, “Please, let me come work in your lab.” Then she noticed Adam.
The Love Hypothesis Page 7