Page 186 - The Love Hypothesis

“I . . .” Olive pushed away from the wall and walked a few steps away

from Dr. Aslan’s door, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “My
abstract got accepted. The SBD one.”
“Congrats!” Anh smiled. “But that was pretty much a given, right?”

“It was accepted as a talk.”
For a few seconds, two pairs of eyes just stared at her in silence. Olive

thought that Malcolm might be wincing, but when she turned to check,
there was just a vague smile pasted on his face. “That’s . . . awesome?”

“Yeah.” Anh’s eyes darted to Malcolm and back to Olive. “That’s, um,
great.”

“It’s a disaster of epic proportions.”
Anh and Malcolm exchanged a worried glance. They knew very well
how Olive felt about public speaking.

“What is Dr. Aslan saying about it?”
“The usual.” She rubbed her eyes. “That it will be fine. That we’ll work

on it together.”
“I think she’s right,” Anh said. “I’ll help you practice. We’ll make sure

you know it by heart. And it will be fine.”
“Yeah.” Or it won’t. “Also, the conference is in less than two weeks. We

should book the hotel—or are we doing Airbnb?”
Something odd happened the moment she asked the question. Not with
Anh—she was still peacefully sipping on her coffee—but Malcolm’s cup

froze halfway to his mouth, and he bit his lip while studying the sleeve of
his sweater.

“About that . . . ,” he began.
Olive frowned. “What?”

“Well.” Malcolm shuffled his feet a little, and maybe it was accidental,
the way he seemed to be drifting away from Olive—but she didn’t think so.

“We already have.”
“You already booked something?”
Anh nodded cheerfully. “Yes.” She didn’t appear to notice that Malcolm

was about to have a stroke. “The conference hotel.”
“Oh. Okay. Let me know what I owe you then, since—”