Page 155 - The Love Hypothesis

science. I’m taking you to get a flu shot.”

“I—”
“This is nonnegotiable. I’ll hold your hand, during.”
“I don’t need you to hold my hand. Since I’m not going.” Except that he

was going. He could have planted his feet and stood his ground, and he
would have turned into an immovable object; Olive would have had no way

of dragging him anywhere. And yet.
She let her hand slide down to his wrist and looked up at him. “You so

are.”
“Please.” He looked pained. “Don’t make me.”

He was so adorable. “It’s for your own good. And for the good of the
elderly people who might come in any proximity to you. Even more elderly
than you, that is.”

He sighed, defeated. “Olive.”
“Come on. Maybe we’re lucky and the chair will spot us. And I’ll buy

you an ice cream sandwich afterward.”
“Will I be paying for this ice cream sandwich?” He sounded resigned

now.
“Likely. Actually, scratch that, you probably don’t like ice cream

anyway, because you don’t enjoy anything that’s good in life.” She kept on
walking, pensively chewing on her lower lip. “Maybe the cafeteria has
some raw broccoli?”

“I don’t deserve this verbal abuse on top of the flu shot.”
She beamed. “You’re such a trooper. Even though the big bad needle is

out to get you.”
“You are a smart-ass.” And yet, he didn’t resist when she continued to

pull him behind her.
It was ten on an early-September morning, the sun already shining too

bright and too hot through the cotton of Olive’s shirt, the sweetgum leaves
still a deep green and showing no sign of turning. It felt different from the
past few years, this summer that didn’t seem to want to end, that was

stretched full and ripe past the beginning of the semester. Undergrads must
have been either dozing off in their midmorning classes or still asleep in