The Love Hypothesis

“Carlsen. Oh, actually”—Anh smirked—“I meant to say Adam. You call him Adam, right? Or do you prefer Dr. Carlsen? If you guys role-play with schoolgirl uniforms and rulers, I totally want to hear about it.”

“Anh.”

“Yeah, how is Carlsen?” Jeremy asked. “I’m assuming he’s different with you than with us. Or does he also tell you repeatedly that the font for the labels of your x- and y-axis is irritatingly small?”

Olive smiled into her knees, because she could totally imagine Adam saying that. Could almost hear his voice in her head. “No. Not yet, at least.”

“What’s he like, then?”

She opened her mouth to answer, thinking it would be easy. Of course, it was everything but. “He’s just . . . you know.”

“We don’t,” Anh said. “There must be more to him than meets the eye. He’s so moody and negative and angry and—”

“He’s no

t,” Olive interrupted. And then regretted it a little, because it wasn’t entirely true. “He can be. But he can not be, too.”

“If you say so.” Anh seemed unconvinced. “How did you even start dating? You never told me.”

“Oh.” Olive looked away and let her gaze wander. Adam must have just done something noteworthy, because he and Dr. Rodrigues were exchanging a high five. She noticed Tom staring at her from the field and waved at him with a smile. “Um, we just talked. And then got coffee. And then . . .”

“How does that even happen?” Jeremy interrupted, clearly skeptical. “How does one decide to say yes to a date with Carlsen? Before seeing him half-naked, anyway.”

You kiss him. You kiss him, and then, next thing you know, he’s saving your ass and he’s buying you scones and calling you a smart-ass in a weirdly affectionate tone, and even when he’s being his moody asshole self, he doesn’t seem to be that bad. Or bad at all. And then you tell him to fuck off over the phone and possibly ruin everything.

“He just asked me out. And I said yes.” Though it was obviously a lie. Someone with a Lancet publication and back muscles that defined would never ask someone like Olive out.

“So you didn’t meet on Tinder?”

“What? No.”

“Because that’s what people are saying.”

“I’m not on Tinder.”

“Is Carlsen?”

No. Maybe. Yes? Olive massaged her temples. “Who’s saying that we met on Tinder?”

“Actually, rumor’s that they met on Craigslist,” Malcolm said distractedly, waving at someone. She followed his gaze and noticed that he was staring at Holden Rodrigues—who appeared to be smiling and waving back.

Olive frowned. Then she parsed what Malcolm had just said. “Craigslist?”

Malcolm shrugged. “Not saying that I believed it.”

“Who are people? And why are they even talking about us?”

Anh reached up to pat Olive on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, the gossip about you and Carlsen died down after Dr. Moss and Sloane had that very public argument about people disposing of blood samples in the ladies’ restroom. Well, for the most part. Hey.”

She sat up and wrapped an arm around Olive, pulling her in for an embrace. She smelled like coconut. Stupid, stupid sunscreen.

“Chill. I know some people have been weird about this, but Jeremy and Malcolm and I are just happy for you, Ol.” Anh smiled at her reassuringly, and Olive felt herself relax. “Mostly that you’re finally getting laid.”

Chapter Eight

HYPOTHESIS: On a Likert scale ranging from one to ten, Jeremy’s timing will be negative fifty, with a standard error of the mean of zero point two.

Number thirty-seven—salt-and-vinegar potato chips—was sold out. It was frankly inexplicable: Olive had come in at 8:00 p.m., and there had been at least one bag left in the break room’s vending machine. She distinctly remembered patting the back pocket of her jeans for quarters, and the feeling of triumph at finding exactly four. She recalled looking forward to that moment, approximately two hours later, by which time she estimated that she’d have completed exactly a third of her work and would thus be able to reward herself with the indisputable best among the snacks that the fourth floor had to offer. Except that the moment had come, and there were no chips left. Which was a problem, because Olive had already inserted her precious quarters inside the coin slot, and she was very hungry.