Page 120 - The Love Hypothesis

“Feels like there would be.”

“True. I wanna know now.”
“Hold on. Is there Wi-Fi here?”
“Ol, do you have internet?”

Olive wiped her hands on a napkin that looked mostly unused. “I left my
phone in Malcolm’s car.”

She turned her head away from Anh and Jeremy, who were now
studying the screen of Jeremy’s iPhone, until she had a good view of the

Ultimate Frisbee group—fourteen men and zero women. It probably had to
do with the general excess of testosterone in STEM programs. At least half

the players were faculty or postdocs. Adam, of course, and Tom, and Dr.
Rodrigues, and several others from pharmacology. All equally shirtless.
Though, no. Not equal at all. There was really nothing equal about Adam.

Olive wasn’t like this. She really was not. She could count the number
of guys she’d been this viscerally attracted to on one hand. Actually—on

one finger. And at the moment said guy was running toward her, because
Tom Benton, bless his heart, had just thrown the Frisbee way too clumsily,

and it was now in a patch of grass approximately ten feet from Olive. And
Adam, shirtless Adam, just happened to be the one closest to where it

landed.
“Oh, check out this paper.” Jeremy sounded excited.
“Khalesi et al., 2013. It’s a meta-analysis. ‘Cutaneous markers of photo-

damage and risk of basal cell carcinoma of the skin.’ In Cancer
Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.”

Jeremy fist-pumped. “Olive, are you listening to this?”
Nope. No, she was not. She was mostly trying to empty her brain, and

her eyes, too. Of her fake boyfriend and the sudden warm ache in her
stomach. She just wished she were elsewhere. That she were temporarily

blind and deaf.
“Hear this: solar lentigines had weak but positive associations with basal
cell carcinoma, with odds ratios around 1.5. Okay, I don’t like this. Jeremy,

hold the phone. I’m giving Olive more sunscreen. Here’s SPF fifty; it’s
probably what you need.”