Page 287 - The Love Hypothesis

“If only there were someone in this room who recently started dating

Adam’s closest friend of nearly three decades,” Malcolm near-yelled, full of
passive-aggressive indignity, and Anh and Olive exchanged a wide-eyed
look.

“Holden!”
“You could ask Holden for advice!”

Malcolm huffed. “You two can be so smart and yet so slow.”
Olive suddenly recalled something. “Holden hates Tom.”

“Uh? Why does he hate him?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Adam wrote it off as some odd

personality quirk of Holden’s, but—”
“Hey. My man’s personality is perfect.”
“Maybe there is something else?”

Anh nodded energetically. “Malcolm, where can Olive find Holden right
this minute?”

“I don’t know. But”—he tapped his phone with a smug smile—“I
happen to have his number right here.”

—

HOLDEN (OR HOLDEN BubbleButt, as Malcolm had saved him in his contacts)

was just finishing up his talk. Olive caught the last five minutes of it—
something about crystallography she neither understood nor wanted to—

and was totally unsurprised by how smooth and charismatic a speaker he
was. She approached him on the podium once he was done answering

questions, and he smiled when he noticed her walk up the stairs, seeming
genuinely happy to see her.
“Olive. My new roommate-in-law!”

“Right. Yes. Um, great talk.” She ordered herself to stop wringing her
hands. “I wanted to ask you a question . . .”

“Is it about the nucleic acids in the fourth slide? Because I totally BS’d
my way through them. My Ph.D. student made the figure, and she’s way

smarter than me.”
“No. The question is about Adam—”