The Love Hypothesis

“I do not.” He sounded indignant, which struck her as oddly endearing.

“You so do. I saw that face, and I immediately knew.”

“You did not.”

“I did. I do. But it’s fine, you’re allowed to be in a bad mood.”

It was their turn, so she took a step forward and smiled at the cashier.

“Good morning. I’ll have a pumpkin spice latte. And that cream cheese danish over there. Yep, that one, thank you. And”—she pointed at Adam with her thumb—“he’ll have chamomile tea. No sugar,” she added cheerfully. She immediately took a few steps to the side, hoping to avoid damage in case Adam decided to throw a petri dish at her. She was surprised when he calmly handed his credit card to the boy behind the counter. Really, he wasn’t as bad as they made him out to be.

“I hate tea,” he said. “And chamomile.”

Olive beamed up at him. “That is unfortunate.”

“You smart-ass.”

He stared straight ahead, but she was almost certain that he was about to crack a smile. There was a lot to be said about him but not that he didn’t have a sense of humor.

“So . . . not the haircut?”

“Mm? Ah, no. It was a weird length. Getting in my way while I was running.”

Oh. So he was a runner. Like Olive. “Okay. Great. Because it doesn’t look bad.”

It looks good. As in, really good. You were probably one of the most handsome men I’d ever talked to last week, but now you look even better. Not that I care about these things. I don’t care at all. I rarely notice guys, and I’m not sure why I’m noticing you, or your hair, or your clothes, or how tall and broad you are. I really don’t get it. I never care. Usually. Ugh.

“I . . .” He seemed flustered for a second, his lips moving without making a sound as he looked for an appropriate response. Then, out of the blue, he said, “I talked with the department chair this morning. He’s still refusing to release my research funds.”

“Oh.” She cocked her head. “I thought they weren’t due to decide until the end of September.”

“They aren’t. This was an informal meeting, but the topic came up. He said that he’s still monitoring the situation.”

“I see.” She waited for him to continue. When it became clear that he wouldn’t, she asked, “Monitoring . . . how?”

“Unclear.” He was clenching his jaw.

“I’m sorry.” She felt for him. She really did. If there was something she could empathize with, it was scientific studies coming to an abrupt halt because of a lack of resources. “Does that mean that you can’t continue your research?”

“I have other grants.”

“So . . . the problem is that you cannot start new studies?”

“I can. I had to rearrange different pots, but I should be able to afford to start new lines of research, too.”

Uh? “I see.” She cleared her throat. “So . . . let me recap. It sounds like Stanford froze your funds based on rumors, which I agree is a crappy move. But it also sounds like for now you can afford to do what you were planning, so . . . it’s not the end of the world?”

Adam gave her an affronted glare, suddenly looking even more cross.

Oh, boy. “Don’t get me wrong, I understand the principle of the matter, and I’d be mad, too. But you have, how many other grants? Actually, don’t answer that. I’m not sure I want to know.”

He probably had fifteen. He also had tenure, and dozens of publications, and there were all those honors listed on his website. Not to mention that she’d read on his CV that he had one patent. Olive, on the other hand, had cheap knockoff reagents and old pipettes that regularly got stolen. She tried not to dwell on how much further ahead than her he was in his career, but it was unforgettable, how good he was at what he did. How annoyingly good.

“My point is, this is not an insurmountable problem. And we’re actively working on it. We’re in this together, showing people that you’re going to stay here forever because of your amazing girlfriend.”

Olive pointed to herself with a flourish, and his glare followed her hand. Clearly he was not a fan of rationalizing and working through his emotions.

“Or, you could stay mad, and we could go to your lab and throw test tubes full of toxic reagents at each other until the pain of third-degree burns overrides your shitty mood? Sounds like fun, no?”