Page 127 - The Love Hypothesis

“We’ve been making great progress on the grant, so we’re going to

Boston next week to finish setting up stuff on the Harvard side.”
“Oh, that’s great.” She turned to Adam. “How long will you be gone?”
“Just a few days.” His tone was quiet. Olive felt relief that it wasn’t

going to be longer. For indiscernible reasons.
“Would you be able to send me your report by Saturday, Olive?” Tom

asked. “Then I’ll have the weekend to look it over, and we’ll discuss it
while I’m still here.”

Her brain exploded in a flurry of panic and bright red-alert signs, but she
managed to keep her smile in place. “Yeah, of course. I’ll send it to you on

Saturday.” Oh God. Oh God. She was going to have to work around the
clock. She wasn’t going to get any sleep this week. She was going to have
to bring her laptop to the toilet and write while she peed. “No problem at

all,” she added, leaning even harder into her lie.
“Perfect.” Tom winked at her, or maybe just squinted in the sun. “You

going back to play?” he asked Adam, and when Adam nodded, Tom spun
around and headed back into the game.

Adam hesitated for just a second longer, then he nodded at Olive and
left. She tried hard not to stare at his back as he rejoined his team, which

seemed to be overjoyed to have him again. Clearly, sports were another
thing Adam Carlsen excelled at—unfairly so.
She didn’t even have to check to know that Anh and Jeremy and pretty

much everyone else had been staring at them for the past five minutes. She
fished a seltzer can out of the nearest cooler, reminding herself that this was

exactly what they wanted from this arrangement, and then found a spot
under an oak tree next to her friends—all this sunscreen fuss, and now they

were sitting in the shade. Go figure.
She wasn’t even that hungry anymore, a small miracle courtesy of

having to apply sunscreen to her fake boyfriend very publicly.
“So, what’s he like?” Anh asked. She was lying down with her head on
Jeremy’s lap. Above her, Malcolm was staring at the Frisbee players,

probably swooning over how pretty Holden Rodrigues looked in the sun.
“Mm?”