He didn’t reply for a second. Then, just as Dr. Moss took the mic to thank Tom and ask the audience for questions, she heard him say, “No. I don’t want to fake–break up.”
He really did smell good. And he was funny in a weird, deadpan way, and yes, a known ass, but friendly enough to her that she could sort of ignore that about him. Plus, he was spending a small fortune on sugar for her. Truly, she had nothing to complain about.
Olive settled herself more comfortably and turned her attention back to the podium.
* * *
—
AFTER THE TALK, Olive considered walking down to the podium to compliment Tom and ask him one or two questions she already knew the answers to. Sadly, there were dozens of people waiting to speak to him, and she decided that the ass-kissing wasn’t worth standing in line. So she said goodbye to Adam, waited for Anh to wake up from her nap while contemplating getting revenge by drawing a dick on her face, and then slowly hea
ded with her across campus back to the biology building.
“Is it going to be a lot of work, the report Benton asked for?”
“A fair amount. I need to run a few control studies to make my results stronger. Plus there’s other stuff I should be working on—the TA’ing, and my poster presentation for the SBD conference in Boston.” Olive bent her head back, felt the sun warm her skin, and smiled. “If I hole up in the lab every night this week and the next, I should be able to finish it on time.”
“SBD is something to look forward to, at least.”
Olive nodded. She usually wasn’t a fan of academic conferences, given how prohibitively expensive registration, travel, and lodgings could be. But Malcolm and Anh were going to be at SBD, too, and Olive was excited to explore Boston with them. Plus, the intradepartmental drama that always happened at academic functions with open bars was sure to be A+ entertainment.
“I am organizing this outreach event for BIPOC women in STEM from all over the country—I’m going to get Ph.D. students like me to talk face-to-face with undergrads who are applying and reassure them that if they come to grad school they won’t be alone.”
“Anh, this is amazing. You are amazing.”
“I know.” Anh winked, sliding her arm through Olive’s. “We can all share a hotel room. And get free gadgets from the exhibit booths, and get sloshed together. Remember at Human Genetics, when Malcolm got wasted and began hitting random passersby with his poster tube— What’s going on there?”
Olive squinted against the sun. The parking lot of the biology building was uncharacteristically jammed with traffic. People were blowing their horns and getting out of their cars, trying to figure out the source of the holdup. She and Anh walked around a line of vehicles stuck in the lot, until they ran into a group of biology grads.
“Someone’s battery died, and it’s blocking the exit line.” Greg, one of Olive’s lab mates, was rolling his eyes and bouncing impatiently on his feet. He pointed at a red truck stuck sideways in the most inconvenient turn.
Olive recognized it as Cherie’s, the department secretary.
“I defend my dissertation proposal tomorrow—I need to drive home to prepare. This is ridiculous. And why the fuck is Cherie just standing there, chatting leisurely with Carlsen? Do they want us to bring them tea and cucumber sandwiches?”
Olive looked around, searching for Adam’s tall frame.
“Oh yeah, there’s Carlsen,” Anh said. Olive looked where she was pointing, just in time to see Cherie get back behind the wheel and Adam jogging around the truck.
“What is he—” was all Olive managed to say, before he came to a stop, put his hands on the back of the truck in neutral, and started . . .
Pushing.
His shoulders and biceps strained his Henley. The firm muscles of his upper back visibly shifted and tensed under the black fabric as he bent forward and rolled several tons of truck across . . . quite a bit of a distance and into the closest empty parking space.
Oh.
There was some applause and whistling from bystanders when the truck was out of the way, and a couple of faculty members from neuroscience clapped Adam on the shoulder as the line of cars started driving out of the lot.
“Fucking finally,” Olive heard Greg say from behind her, and she stood there, blinking, a little shocked. Had she hallucinated it? Had Adam really just pushed a giant truck all by himself? Was he an alien from planet Krypton who moonlighted as a superhero?
“Ol, go give him a kiss.”
Olive whirled around, abruptly reminded of Anh’s existence. “What?” No. No. “I’m good. I just said goodbye to him a minute ago and—”
“Ol, why don’t you want to go kiss your boyfriend?”
Ugh. “I . . . It’s not that I don’t want to. I just—”