Page 64 - The Love Hypothesis

“PASS THE SALT.”
Olive would have, but Malcolm looked like he was already salty
enough. So she leaned her hip against the kitchen counter and folded her
arms across her chest. “Malcolm.”

“And the pepper.”
“Malcolm.”

“And the oil.”
“Malcolm . . .”

“Sunflower. Not that grape-seed crap.”
“Listen. It’s not what you think—”

“Fine. I’ll get them myself.”
To be fair, Malcolm had every right to be mad. And Olive did feel for
him. He was one year ahead of her, and the scion of STEM royalty. The

product of generations of biologists, geologists, botanists, physicists, and
who knows what other -ists mixing their DNA and spawning little science

machines. His father was a dean at some state school on the East Coast. His
mother had a TED Talk on Purkinje cells with several million views on

YouTube. Did Malcolm want to be in a Ph.D. program, headed for an
academic career? Probably no. Did he have any other choice, considering

the pressure his family had put on him since he was in diapers? Also no.
Not to say that Malcolm was unhappy. His plan was to get his Ph.D.,
find a nice cushy industry job, and make lots of money working nine-to-five

—which technically qualified as “being a scientist,” which in turn was not
something his parents would be able to object to. At least, not too

strenuously. In the meantime, all he wanted was to have a grad school
experience that was as un-traumatizing as possible. Out of everyone in

Olive’s program, he was the one who best managed to have a life outside of
grad school. He did things that were unimaginable to most grads, like

cooking real food! Going for hikes! Meditating! Acting in a play! Dating
like it was an Olympic sport! (“It is an Olympic sport, Olive. And I am
training for gold.”)

Which was why when Adam forced Malcolm to throw out tons of data
and redo half his study, it made for a very, very miserable few months. In