Page 60 - The Love Hypothesis

She had to clear her throat and shake herself out of inspecting the shape

and color of his cheekbones.
“No sex,” she repeated. “Okay. Third. It’s not really a rule, but here
goes: I won’t date anyone else. As in real dating. It would be messy and

complicate everything and . . .” Olive hesitated. Should she tell him? Was it
too much information? Did he need to know? Oh, well. Why not, at this

point? It wasn’t like she hadn’t kissed the man, or brought up sex in his
place of work. “I don’t date, anyway. Jeremy was an exception. I’ve

never . . . I’ve never dated seriously before, and it’s probably for the best.
Grad school is stressful enough, and I have my friends, and my project on

pancreatic cancer, and honestly there’s better things to use my time for.”
The last few words came out more defensively than she’d intended.
Adam just stared and said nothing.

“But you can date, of course,” she added hastily. “Though I’d appreciate
it if you could avoid telling people in the department, just so I don’t look

like an idiot and you don’t look like you’re cheating on me and rumors
don’t balloon out of control. It would benefit you, too, since you’re trying to

look like you’re in a committed relationship—”
“I won’t.”

“Okay. Great. Thanks. I know lying by omission can be a pain, but—”
“I mean, I won’t date someone else.”
There was a certainty, a finality in his tone that took her by surprise. She

could only nod, even though she wanted to protest that he couldn’t possibly
know, even though a million questions surfaced in her mind. Ninety-nine

percent of them were inappropriate and not her business, so she shooed
them away.

“Okay. Fourth. We obviously can’t keep on doing this forever, so we
should give ourselves a deadline.”

His lips pressed together. “When would that be?”
“I’m not sure. A month or so would probably be enough to convince
Anh that I’m firmly over Jeremy. But it might not be enough on your end,

so . . . you tell me.”
He mulled it, and then nodded once. “September twenty-ninth.”