Page 117 - The Love Hypothesis

food left. Her stomach had been growling for the past two hours, and there

was no way everyone in the car hadn’t noticed.
After her argument with Adam three days ago, she’d been tempted to
just skip the picnic. Hole herself up in the lab and continue with what she

had been doing the whole weekend—ignore the fact that she had told him to
fuck off, and with very little reason. She could use the time to work on

Tom’s report, which was proving to be trickier and more time-consuming
than she’d initially thought—probably because Olive couldn’t forget how

much was at stake and kept rerunning analyses and agonizing over every
single sentence. But she’d changed her mind last minute, telling herself that

she’d promised Adam that they’d put on a show for the department chair. It
would be unfair of her to back out after he’d done more than his share of
the deal when it came to convincing Anh.

That was, of course, in the very unlikely case that he still wanted
anything to do with Olive.

“Don’t worry, Malcolm,” Anh said. “We’ll get there eventually. If
anyone asks, let’s just say that a mountain lion attacked us. God, why is it

so hot? I brought sunblock, by the way. SPF thirty and fifty. No one is going
anywhere before putting it on.”

In the back seat Olive and Jeremy exchanged a resigned look, well
acquainted with Anh’s sunscreen obsession.
The picnic was in full swing when they finally arrived, as crowded as

most academic events with free food. Olive made a beeline for the tables
and waved at Dr. Aslan, who was sitting in the shade of a giant oak with

other faculty members. Dr. Aslan waved back, no doubt pleased to note that
her authority extended to commandeering her grads’ free time on top of the

eighty hours a week they already spent in the lab. Olive smiled weakly in a
valiant attempt not to look resentful, grabbed a cluster of white grapes, and

popped one into her mouth while letting her gaze wander around the fields.
Anh was right. This September was uncommonly hot. There were
people everywhere, sitting on the lawn chairs, lying down in the grass,

walking in and out of the barns—all enjoying the weather. A few were
eating from plastic plates on folding tables close to the main house, and