Page 162 - The Love Hypothesis

She shook her head, feeling utterly lost. “I just like him. I want to spend

time with him.”
“Okay, that doesn’t mean anything. You also want to spend time with
me.”

She grimaced, feeling herself blush scarlet. “Not quite like that.”
Malcolm was quiet for a beat. “I see.” He knew how big of a deal this

was for Olive. They’d talked about it multiple times—how rare it was for
her to experience attraction, especially sexual attraction. If there was

something wrong with her. If her past had stunted her in some way.
“God.” She just wanted to retreat inside her hoodie like a turtle until it

all went away. Go run a race. Start writing her dissertation proposal.
Anything but deal with this. “It was there, and I didn’t figure it out. I just
thought he was smart and attractive and that he had a nice smile and that we

could be friends and—” She rubbed her palms into her eye sockets, wishing
she could go back and erase her life choices. The entire past month. “Do

you hate me?”
“Me?” Malcolm sounded surprised.

“Yes.”
“No. Why would I hate you?”

“Because he’s been horrible to you, made you throw out a ton of data.
It’s just—with me he’s not—”
“I know. Well,” he amended, waving his hand, “I don’t know know. But

I can believe he’s different with you than when he was in my damn graduate
advisory committee.”

“You hate him.”
“Yeah—I hate him. Or . . . I dislike him. But you don’t have to dislike

him because I do. Though I do reserve the right to comment on your
abysmal taste in men. Every other day or so. But, Ol, I saw you guys at the

picnic. He definitely wasn’t interacting with you like he does with me. Plus,
you know,” he added begrudgingly, “he’s not not hot. I can see why you’d
hit that.”

“This is not what you said when I first told you about the fake dating.”