Page 69 - The Love Hypothesis

Chapter Four

HYPOTHESIS: Adam Carlsen and I have absolutely nothing in common,
and having coffee with him will be twice as painful as a root canal. Without
anesthesia.

Olive arrived to the first fake-dating Wednesday late and in the foulest of

moods, after a morning spent growling at her cheap, knockoff reagents for
not dissolving, then not precipitating, then not sonicating, then not being

enough for her to run her entire assay.
She paused outside the coffee shop’s door and took a deep breath. She

needed a better lab if she wanted to produce decent science. Better
equipment. Better reagents. Better bacteria cultures. Better everything. Next
week, when Tom Benton arrived, she had to be on top of her game. She

needed to prepare her spiel, not waste time on a coffee she didn’t
particularly want, with a person she most definitely didn’t want to talk to,

halfway through her experimental protocol.
Ugh.
When she stepped inside the café, Adam was already there, wearing a

black Henley that looked like it was ideated, designed, and produced
specifically with the upper half of his body in mind. Olive was momentarily

bemused, not so much that his clothes fit him well, but that she’d noticed
what someone was wearing to begin with. It was not like her. She’d been

seeing Adam traipse around the biology building for the better part of two
years, after all, not to mention that in the past couple of weeks they’d

spoken an inordinate amount of times. They had even kissed, if one counted