The Love Hypothesis

long minutes, crying warm tears into the flesh of his throat, feeling how grounding, how warm, how solid he was—under her fingers and in her life.

You just had to go and make me fall for you, she thought, blinking against his skin. You absolute ass.

He didn’t let her go. Not until she pulled back and wiped her cheeks again, feeling like maybe this time around she’d be able to hold it together. She sniffled, and he leaned over to grab a box of tissues from the TV table. “I really am fine.”

He sighed.

“Okay, maybe . . . maybe I’m not fine right now, but I will be.” She accepted the tissue that he plucked for her and blew her nose. “I just need a while to . . .”

He studied her and nodded, his eyes unreadable again.

“Thank you. For what you said. For letting me snot all over your hotel room.”

He smiled. “Anytime.”

“And your jacket, too. Are you . . . Are you going to the department social?” she asked, dreading the moment she would have to get out of this chair. Of this room. Be honest, that sensible, ever-knowing voice inside her whispered. It’s his presence that you don’t want to be out of.

“Are you?”

She shrugged. “I said I would. But I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now.” She dried her cheeks once more, but miraculously the flow had stopped. Adam Carlsen, responsible for 90 percent of the department’s tears, had actually managed to make someone stop crying. Who would’ve thought? “Though I feel like the free alcohol could really help.”

He stared at her pensively for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek. Then he nodded, seeming to reach some sort of decision, and stood with his hand held out to her. “Come on.”

“Oh.” She had to crane her neck to look up at him. “I think I’m going to wait a bit before I—”

“We’re not going to the social.”

We? “What?”

“Come on,” he repeated, and this time Olive took his hand and didn’t let go. She couldn’t, with the way his fingers were closing around hers. Adam looked pointedly at her shoes, until she got the hint and slipped them on, using his arm to keep her balance.

“Where are we going?”

“To get some free alcohol. Well”—he amended—“free for you.”

She almost gasped when she realized what he meant. “No, I—Adam, no. You have to go to the department social. And to the opening ceremony. You’re the keynote speaker!”

“And I keynote-spoke.” He grabbed her red duffle coat from the bed and pulled her toward the entrance. “Can you walk in those shoes?”

“I—yes, but—”

“I have my key card; we don’t need yours.”

“Adam.” She grabbed his wrist, and he immediately turned to look at her. “Adam, you can’t skip those events. People will say that you—”

His smile was lopsided. “That I want to spend time with my girlfriend?”

Olive’s brain stopped. Just like that. And then it started again, and—

The world was a little different.

When he tugged her hand again, she smiled and simply followed him out of the room.

Chapter Fifteen

HYPOTHESIS: There is no moment in life that cannot be improved by food delivered by conveyor belt.

Everyone saw them.