Page 270 - The Love Hypothesis

Adam: I have interview meetings until 4:30, but I’m free for the
night. Would you like to ge t dinner? There are several good

restaurants near campus (though a shameful lack of conveyor
belts). If you’re not busy, I could show you around campus, maybe

even Tom’s lab.

Adam: No pressure, of course.
It was almost two in the afternoon. Olive felt as though her bones
weighed twice as much as the day before. She took a deep breath,

straightened her shoulders, and began typing her reply to Adam.
She knew what she had to do.

—

SHE KNOCKED ON his door at five sharp, and he answered just a few seconds

later, still dressed in slacks and a button-down that must have been his
interview attire and . . .

Smiling at her. Not one of those half-baked things she’d gotten used to,
but a real, true smile. With dimples, and crinkles around his eyes, and

genuine happiness to see her. It shattered her heart in a million pieces
before he even spoke.
“Olive.”

She still hadn’t figured it out, why the way he said her name was so
unique. There was something packed behind it, something that didn’t quite

make it to the surface. A sense of possibilities. Of depth. Olive wondered if
it was real, if she was hallucinating it, if he was aware. Olive wondered a

lot of things, and then told herself to stop. It couldn’t matter less, now.
“Come in.”

It was an even fancier hotel, and Olive rolled her eyes, wondering why
people felt the need to waste thousands of dollars in lodgings for Adam
Carlsen when he barely paid attention to his surroundings. They should just

give him a cot and donate the money to worthy causes. Endangered whales.
Psoriasis. Olive.