Page 171 - The Love Hypothesis

Holden ignored him. “My parents were out of the country on some kind

of assignment and briefly forgot that I existed, so we spent the week at my
place playing Final Fantasy—it was glorious. What about when Adam
applied to law school? He must have told you about that.”

“I never technically applied to law school.”
“Lies. All lies. Did he at least tell you that he was my prom date? It was

phenomenal.”
Olive looked at Adam, expecting him to deny that, too. But Adam just

half smiled, met Holden’s eyes, and said, “It was quite phenomenal.”
“Picture this, Olive. Early two thousands. Preppy, ridiculously expensive

all-male DC school. Two gay students in grade twelve. Well, two of us that
were out, anyway. Richie Muller and I date for the entirety of senior year—
and then he dumps me three days before prom for some guy he’d been

having a thing with for months.”
“He was a prick,” Adam muttered.

“I have three choices. Not go to the dance and mope at home. Go alone
and mope at school. Or, have my best friend—who was planning on staying

home and moping over gamma-aminobutyric acids—come as my date.
Guess which?”

Olive gasped. “How did you convince him?”
“That’s the thing, I didn’t. When I told him about what Richie did, he
offered!”

“Don’t get used to it,” Adam mumbled.
“Can you believe it, Olive?”

That Adam would pretend to be in a relationship with someone to get
them out of a miserable situation? “Nope.”

“We held hands. We slow-danced. We made Richie spit out his punch
and regret every single one of his wretched choices. Then we went home

and played even more Final Fantasy. It was the shit.”
“It was surprisingly fun,” Adam conceded, almost reluctantly.
Olive looked at him, and a realization dawned on her: Holden was

Adam’s Anh. His person. It was obvious that Adam and Tom were very