The Love Hypothesis

She selected number twenty-four (Twix)—which was okay, though not her favorite by a long shot—and listened to its dull, disappointing thud as it fell to the bottom shelf. Then she bent to pick it up, staring wistfully at the way the gold wrapper shined in her palm.

“I wish you were salt-and-vinegar chips,” she whispered at it, a trace of resentment in her voice.

“Here.”

“Aaah!” She startled and instantly turned around, hands in front of her body and ready to defend—possibly even to attack. But the only person in the break room was Adam, sitting on one of the small couches in the middle, looking at her with a bland, slightly amused expression.

She relaxed her pose and clutched her hands to her chest, willing her racing heartbeat to slow down. “When did you get here?!”

“Five minutes ago?” He regarded her calmly. “I was here when you came in.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

He tilted his head. “I could ask the same.”

She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to recover from the scare. “I didn’t see you. Why are you sitting in the dark like a creep?”

“Light’s broken. As usual.” Adam lifted his drink—a bottle of Coke that hilariously read “Seraphina”—and Olive remembered Jess, one of his grads, complaining about how strict Adam was about bringing food and drinks into his lab. He grabbed something from the cushion and held it out to Olive. “Here. You can have the rest of the chips.”

Olive narrowed her eyes. “You.”

“Me?”

“You stole my chips.”

His mouth curved. “Sorry. You can have what’s left.” He peeked into the bag. “I didn’t have many, I don’t think.”

She hesitated and then made her way to the couch. She distrustfully accepted the small bag and took a seat next to him. “Thanks, I guess.”

He nodded, taking a sip of his drink. She tried not to stare at his throat as he tipped his head back, averting her eyes to her knees.

“Should you be having caffeine at”—Olive glanced at the clock—“ten twenty-seven p.m.?” Come to think of it, he shouldn’t be having caffeine at all, given his baseline shiny personality. And yet the two of them got coffee together every Wednesday. Olive was nothing but an enabler.

“I doubt I’ll be sleeping much, anyway.”

“Why?”

“I need to run a set of last-minute analyses for a grant due on Sunday night.”

“Oh.” She leaned back, finding a more comfortable position. “I thought you had minions for that.”

“As it turns out, asking your grads to pull an all-nighter for you is frowned upon by HR.”

“What a travesty.”

“Truly. What about you?”

“Tom’s report.” She sighed. “I’m supposed to send it to him tomorrow and there’s a section that I just don’t . . .” She sighed again. “I’m rerunning a few analyses, just to make sure that everything is perfect, but the equipment I’m working with is not exactly . . . ugh.”

“Have you told Aysegul?”

Aysegul, he’d said. Naturally. Because Adam was a colleague of Dr. Aslan, not her grad, and it made sense that he’d think of her as Aysegul. It wasn’t the first time he’d called her that; it wasn’t even the first time Olive had noticed. It was just hard to reconcile, when they were sitting alone and talking quietly, that Adam was faculty and Olive was very much not. Worlds apart, really.

“I did, but there’s no money to get anything better. She’s a great mentor, but . . . last year her husband got sick and she decided to retire early, and sometimes it feels like she’s stopped caring.” Olive rubbed her temple. She could feel a headache coming up and had a long night ahead of her. “Are you going to tell her I told you that?”

“Of course.”

She groaned. “Don’t.”