Page 75 - The Love Hypothesis

He hesitated and then nodded, once. That thing he was doing with his

mouth—he was definitely smiling down at her. A little begrudgingly, but
still.
“My pleasure, Olive.”

—

Today, 2:40 p.m.
FROM: Tom-Benton@harvard.edu
TO: Olive-Smith@stanford.edu
SUBJECT: Re: Pancreatic Cancer Screening Project

Olive,
I’ll be ying in on Tuesday afternoon. How about we meet on

Wednesday around 3:00 p.m. in Aysegul As lan’s lab? My
collaborator can point me in it s direct ion.

TB

Sent from my iP hone

—

OLIVE WAS LATE for her second fake-dating Wednesday, too, but for different
reasons—all Tom Benton related.
First, she’d overslept after staying up late the previous night rehearsing

how she was going to sell him her project. She’d repeated her spiel so many
times that Malcolm had started finishing her sentences, and then, at 1:00

a.m., he’d hurled a nectarine at her and begged her to go practice in her
room. Which she had, until 3:00 a.m.

Then, in the morning, she’d realized that her usual lab outfit (leggings,
ratty 5K T-shirt, and very, very messy bun) would probably not

communicate “valuable future colleague” to Dr. Benton, and spent an