Page 100 - The Love Hypothesis

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TALK, Olive considered walking down to the podium to
AFTER THE
compliment Tom and ask him one or two questions she already knew the

answers to. Sadly, there were dozens of people waiting to speak to him, and
she decided that the ass-kissing wasn’t worth standing in line. So she said

goodbye to Adam, waited for Anh to wake up from her nap while
contemplating getting revenge by drawing a dick on her face, and then
slowly headed with her across campus back to the biology building.

“Is it going to be a lot of work, the report Benton asked for?”
“A fair amount. I need to run a few control studies to make my results

stronger. Plus there’s other stuff I should be working on—the TA’ing, and
my poster presentation for the SBD conference in Boston.” Olive bent her
head back, felt the sun warm her skin, and smiled. “If I hole up in the lab

every night this week and the next, I should be able to finish it on time.”
“SBD is something to look forward to, at least.”

Olive nodded. She usually wasn’t a fan of academic conferences, given
how prohibitively expensive registration, travel, and lodgings could be. But

Malcolm and Anh were going to be at SBD, too, and Olive was excited to
explore Boston with them. Plus, the intradepartmental drama that always

happened at academic functions with open bars was sure to be A+
entertainment.
“I am organizing this outreach event for BIPOC women in STEM from

all over the country—I’m going to get Ph.D. students like me to talk face-
to-face with undergrads who are applying and reassure them that if they

come to grad school they won’t be alone.”
“Anh, this is amazing. You are amazing.”

“I know.” Anh winked, sliding her arm through Olive’s. “We can all
share a hotel room. And get free gadgets from the exhibit booths, and get

sloshed together. Remember at Human Genetics, when Malcolm got wasted
and began hitting random passersby with his poster tube— What’s going on
there?”