Page 119 - The Love Hypothesis

Olive was already walking toward Malcolm to find something edible

and skip the whole sunscreen nonsense altogether, but when she heard
Adam’s name, she stopped dead in her tracks. Or maybe it wasn’t Adam’s
name but the way Anh was saying it. “What? Where?”

Jeremy pointed at the Ultimate Frisbee crowd. “That’s him, right?
Shirtless?”

“Holy shit,” Anh repeated, her vocabulary suddenly pretty limited, given
her twentysomething years of education. “Is that a six-pack?”

Jeremy blinked. “Might even be an eight-pack.”
“Are those his real shoulders?” Anh asked. “Did he have shoulder-

enhancement surgery?”
“That must be how he used the MacArthur grant,” Jeremy said. “I don’t
think shoulders like that exist in nature.”

“God, is that Carlsen’s chest?” Malcolm leaned his chin over Olive’s
shoulder. “Was that thing under his shirt while he was ripping my

dissertation proposal a new one? Ol. Why didn’t you say that he was
shredded?”

Olive just stood there, rooted to the ground, arms dangling uselessly at
her sides. Because I didn’t know. Because I had no idea. Or maybe she had,

a bit, from seeing him push that truck the other day—though she’d been
trying to suppress that particular mental image.
“Unbelievable.” Anh pulled Olive’s hand toward herself, overturning it

to squirt a healthy dose of lotion on her palm. “Here, put this on your
shoulders. And your legs. And your face, too—you’re probably at high risk

for all sorts of skin stuff, Freckles McFreckleface. Jer, you too.”
Olive nodded numbly and began to massage the sunscreen into her arms

and thighs. She breathed in the smell of coconut oil, trying hard not to think
about Adam and about the fact that he really did look like that. Mostly

failing, but hey.
“Are there actual studies?” Jeremy asked.
“Mmm?” Anh was pulling her hair up in a bun.

“On the link between freckles and skin cancer.”
“I don’t know.”