Page 96 - The Love Hypothesis

“Psh. Remember last year, when Jess and Alex made out for half of that

CRISPR lecture?”
“I do—and it was weird.”
“Nah, it wasn’t. Also, Malcolm swears that during a seminar he saw that

tall guy from immunology get a hand job from—”
“Anh.”

“The point is, no one cares.” Anh’s expression softened into a plea.
“And this girl’s elbow is puncturing my right lung, and I have about thirty

seconds of air left. Please, Olive.”
Olive turned to face Adam. Who was, very unsurprisingly, looking up at

her with that nonexpression of his, the one that Olive couldn’t quite
decipher. Except that his jaw was working, and she wondered if maybe this
was it. The last straw. The moment he backed out of their arrangement.

Because millions of dollars in research funds couldn’t be worth having
some girl he barely knew sit on his lap in the most crowded room in the

history of crowded rooms.
Is this okay? she tried to ask him with her eyes. Because maybe this is a

little too much. Way more than saying hi to each other and having coffee
together.

He gave her a brief nod, and then—Olive, or at least Olive’s body, was
stepping toward Adam and gingerly sitting on his thigh, her knees tucked
between his spread legs. It was happening. It had happened already. Olive

was here.
Sitting.

On.
Adam.

This. Yep, this.
This was her life now.

She was going to murder Anh for this. Slowly. Maybe painfully, too. She
was going to be jailed for bestfriendicide, and she was a-okay with it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to Adam. He was so tall, her mouth was not

quite level with his ear. She could smell him—the woodsiness of his
shampoo, his body wash, and something else underneath, dark and good