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The Love Hypothesis: Chapter 7

HYPOTHESIS: There will be a significant positive correlation between the amount of sunscreen poured in my hands and the intensity of my desire to murder Anh.

Tom’s report was about a third done and sitting tight at thirty-four pages single-spaced, Arial (11 point), no justification. It was 11:00 a.m., and Olive had been working in the lab since about five—analyzing peptide samples, writing down protocol notes, taking covert naps while the PCR machine ran—when Greg barged in, looking absolutely furious.

It was unusual, but not too unusual. Greg was a bit of a hothead to begin with, and grad school came with a lot of angry outbursts in semipublic places, usually for reasons that, Olive was fully aware, would appear ridiculous to someone who’d never stepped foot in academia. They’re making me TA Intro to Bio for the fourth time in a row; the paper I need is behind a paywall; I had a meeting with my supervisor and accidentally called her “Mom.”

Greg and Olive shared an adviser, Dr. Aslan, and while they’d always gotten along fine, they had never been particularly close. Olive had hoped, by picking a female adviser, to avoid some of the nastiness that was so often directed at women in STEM. Unfortunately she had still found herself in an all-male lab, which was . . . a less-than-ideal environment. That was why when Greg came in, slammed the door, and then threw a folder on his bench, Olive was not sure what to do. She watched him sit down and begin to sulk. Chase, another lab mate, followed him inside a moment later with an uneasy expression and started gingerly patting his back.

Olive looked longingly at her RNA samples. Then she stepped closer to Greg’s bench and asked, “What’s wrong?”

She had expected the answer to be The production of my reagent has been discontinued, or My p-value is .06, or Grad school was a mistake, but now it’s too late to back out of it because my self-worth is unbreakably tied to my academic performance, and what would even be left of me if I decided to drop out?

Instead what she got was: “Your stupid boyfriend is what’s wrong.”

By now the fake dating had been going on for over two weeks: Olive didn’t startle anymore when someone referred to Adam as her boyfriend. Still, Greg’s words were so unexpected and full of venom that she couldn’t help but answer, “Who?”

“Carlsen.” He spat the name out like a curse.

“Oh.”

“He’s on Greg’s dissertation committee,” Chase explained in a significantly milder tone, not quite meeting Olive’s eyes.

“Oh. Right.” This could be bad. Very bad. “What happened?”

“He failed my proposal.”

“Shit.” Olive bit into her lower lip. “I’m sorry, Greg.”

“This is going to set me back a lot. It’ll take me months to revise it, all because Carlsen had to go and nitpick. I didn’t even want him on my committee; Dr. Aslan forced me to add him because she’s so obsessed with his stupid computational stuff.”

Olive chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying to come up with something meaningful to say and failing miserably. “I’m really sorry.”

“Olive, do you guys talk about this stuff?” Chase asked out of the blue, eyeing her suspiciously. “Did he tell you he wasn’t going to pass Greg?”

“What? No. No, I . . .” I talk to him for exactly fifteen minutes a week. And, okay, I’ve kissed him. Twice. And I sat on his lap. Once. But it’s just that, and Adam—he speaks very little. I actually wish he spoke more, since I know nothing about him, and I’d like to know at least something. “No, he doesn’t. I think it would be against regulations if he did.”

“God.” Greg slammed his palm against the edge of the bench, making her jump. “He’s such a dick. What a sadistic piece of shit.”

Olive opened her mouth to—to do what, precisely? To defend Adam? He was a dick. She had seen him be a dick. In full action. Maybe not recently, and maybe not to her, but if she’d wanted to count on her fingers the number of acquaintances who’d ended up in tears because of him, well . . . She would need both her hands, and then her toes. Maybe borrow some of Chase’s, too.

“Did he say why, at least? What you have to change?”

“Everything. He wants me to change my control condition and add another one, which is going to make the project ten times more time-consuming. And the way he said it, his air of superiority—he is so arrogant.”

Well. It was no news, really. Olive scratched her temple, trying not to sigh. “It sucks. I’m sorry,” she repeated once more, at a loss for anything better and genuinely feeling for Greg.

“Yeah, well.” He stood and walked around his bench, coming to a stop in front of Olive. “You should be.”

She froze. Surely she must have misheard. “Excuse me?”

“You’re his girlfriend.”

“I . . .” Really am not. But. Even if she had been. “Greg, I’m only dating him. I am not him. How would I have anything to do with—”

“You’re fine with all of this. With him acting like that—like an asshole on a power trip. You don’t give a shit about the way he treats everyone in the program, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to stomach being with him.”

At his tone, she took a step back.

Chase lifted his hands in a peacekeeping gesture, coming to stand between them. “Hey, now. Let’s not—”

“I’m not the one who failed you, Greg.”

“Maybe. But you don’t care that half of the department lives in terror of your boyfriend, either.”

Olive felt anger bubbling up. “That is not true. I am able to separate my professional relationships and my personal feelings for him—”

“Because you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.”

“That is unfair. What am I supposed to do?”

“Get him to stop failing people.”

“Get him—” Olive sputtered. “Greg, how is this a rational response for you to have about Adam’s failing you—”

“Ah. Adam, is it?”

She gritted her teeth. “Yes. Adam. What should I call my boyfriend to better please you? Professor Carlsen?”

“If you were a half-decent ally to any of the grads in the department, you would just dump your fucking boyfriend.”

“How— Do you even realize how little sense you are . . .”

No reason to finish her sentence, since Greg was storming out of the lab and slamming the door behind him, clearly uninterested in anything Olive might have wanted to add. She ran a hand down her face, unsettled by what had just happened.

“He’s not . . . he doesn’t really mean it. Not about you, at least,” Chase said while scratching his head. A nice reminder that he’d been standing there, in the room, for the entirety of this conversation. Front-row seat. It was going to take maybe fifteen minutes before everyone in the program knew about it. “Greg needs to graduate in the spring with his wife. So that they can replace postdocs together. They don’t want to live apart, you know.”

She nodded—she hadn’t known, but she could imagine. Some of her anger dissipated. “Yeah, well.” Being horrible to me isn’t going to make his thesis work go any faster, she didn’t add.

Chase sighed. “It’s not personal. But you have to understand that it’s weird for us. Because Carlsen . . . Maybe he wasn’t on any of your committees, but you must know the kind of guy he is, right?”

She was unsure how to respond.

“And now you guys are dating, and . . .” Chase shrugged with a nervous smile. “It shouldn’t be a matter of taking sides, but sometimes it can feel like it, you know?”

Chase’s words lingered for the rest of the day. Olive thought about them as she ran her mice through her experimental protocols, and then later while she tried to figure out what to do with those two outliers that made her replaceings tricky to interpret. She mulled it over while biking home, hot wind warming her cheeks and ruffling her hair, and while eating two slices of the saddest pizza ever. Malcolm had been on a health kick for weeks now (something about cultivating his gut microbiome) and refused to admit that cauliflower crust did not taste good.

Among her friends, Malcolm and Jeremy had had unpleasant dealings with Adam in the past, but after the initial shock they didn’t seem to hold Olive’s relationship with him against her. She hadn’t concerned herself too much with the feelings of other grads. She had always been a bit of a loner, and focusing on the opinion of people she barely interacted with seemed like a wasteful use of time and energy. Still, maybe there was a glimmer of truth in what Greg had said. Adam had been anything but a jerk to Olive, but did accepting his help while he acted horribly toward her fellow grads make her a bad person?

Olive lay on her unmade bed, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars. It had been more than two years since she’d borrowed Malcolm’s stepladder and carefully stuck them on the ceiling; the glue was starting to give out, and the large comet in the corner by the window was going to fall off any day. Without letting herself think it through too much, she rolled out of bed and rummaged inside the pockets of her discarded jeans until she found her cell phone.

She hadn’t used Adam’s number since he’d given it to her a few days ago—“If anything comes up or you need to cancel, just give me a call. It’s quicker than an email.” When she tapped the blue icon under his name a white screen popped up, a blank slate with no history of previous messages. It gave Olive an odd rush of anxiety, so much so that she typed the text with one hand while biting the thumbnail on the other.

Olive: Did you just fail Greg?

Adam was never on his phone. Never. Whenever Olive had been in his company, she’d not seen him check it even once—even though with a lab as big as his he probably got about thirty new emails every minute. Truth was, she didn’t even know that he owned a cell phone. Maybe he was a weird modern-day hippie and hated technology. Maybe he’d given her his office landline number, and that’s why he’d told her to call him. Maybe he didn’t know how to text, which meant that Olive was never going to get an answer from—

Her palm vibrated.

Adam: Olive?

It occurred to her that when Adam had given her his number, she’d neglected to give hers in return. Which meant that he had no way of knowing who was texting him now, and the fact that he’d guessed correctly revealed an almost preternatural intuition.

Damn him.

Olive: Yup. Me.

Olive: Did you fail Greg Cohen? I ran into him after his meeting. He was very upset.

At me. Because of you. Because of this stupid thing we’re doing.

There was a pause of a minute or so, in which, Olive reflected, Adam might very well be cackling evilly at the idea of all the pain he’d caused Greg. Then he answered:

Adam: I can’t discuss other grads’ dissertation meetings with you.

Olive sighed, exchanging a loaded look with the stuffed fox Malcolm had gotten her for passing her qualifying examinations.

Olive: I’m not asking you to tell me anything. Greg already told me. Not to mention that I’m the one taking the heat for it, since I’m your girlfriend.

Olive: ”Girlfriend.”

Three dots appeared at the bottom of her screen. Then they disappeared, and then they appeared again, and then, finally, Olive’s phone vibrated.

Adam: Committees don’t fail students. They fail their proposals.

She snorted, half wishing he could hear her.

Olive: Yeah, well. Tell it to Greg.

Adam: I have. I explained the weaknesses in his study. He’ll revise his proposal accordingly, and then I’ll sign off on his dissertation.

Olive: So you admit that you are the one behind the decision to fail him.

Olive: Or, whatever. To fail his proposal.

Adam: Yes. In its current state, the proposal is not going to produce replaceings of scientific value.

Olive bit the inside of her cheek, staring at her phone and wondering if continuing this conversation was a terrible idea. If what she wanted to say was too much. Then she remembered the way Greg had treated her earlier, muttered, “Fuck it,” and typed:

Olive: Don’t you think that maybe you could have delivered that feedback in a nicer way?

Adam: Why?

Olive: Because if you had maybe he wouldn’t be upset now?

Adam: I still don’t see why.

Olive: Seriously?

Adam: It’s not my job to manage your friend’s emotions. He’s in a Ph.D. program, not grade school. He’ll be inundated by feedback he doesn’t like for the rest of his life if he pursues academia. How he chooses to deal with it is his own business.

Olive: Still, maybe you could try not to look like you enjoy delaying his graduation.

Adam: This is irrational. The reason his proposal needs to be modified is that in its current state it’s setting him up for failure. Me and the rest of the committee are giving him feedback that will allow him to produce useful knowledge. He is a scientist in training: he should value guidance, not be upset by it.

Olive gritted her teeth as she typed her responses.

Olive: You must know that you fail more people than anyone else. And your criticism is needlessly harsh. As in, immediately-drop-out-of-grad-school-and-never-look-back harsh. You must know how grads perceive you.

Adam: I don’t.

Olive: Antagonistic. And unapproachable.

And that was sugarcoating it. You’re a dick, Olive meant. Except that I know you can not be, and I can’t figure out why you’re so different with me. I’m absolutely nothing to you, so it doesn’t make any sense that you’d have a personality transplant every time you’re in my presence.

The three dots at the bottom of the screen bounced for ten seconds, twenty, thirty. A whole minute. Olive reread her last text and wondered if this was it—if she’d finally gone too far. Maybe he was going to remind her that being insulted over text at 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night was not part of their fake-dating agreement.

Then a blue bubble appeared, filling up her entire screen.

Adam: I’m doing my job, Olive. Which is not to deliver feedback in a pleasant way or to make the department grads feel good about themselves. My job is to form rigorous researchers who won’t publish useless or harmful crap that will set back our field. Academia is cluttered with terrible science and mediocre scientists. I couldn’t care less about how your friends perceive me, as long as their work is up to standard. If they want to drop out when told that it’s not, then so be it. Not everyone has what it takes to be a scientist, and those who don’t should be weeded out.

She stared at her phone, hating how unfeeling and callous he sounded. The problem was—Olive understood exactly where Greg was coming from, because she’d been in similar situations. Perhaps not with Adam, but her overall experience in STEM academia had been punctuated by self-doubt, anxiety, and a sense of inferiority. She’d barely slept the two weeks before her qualifying exams, often wondered if her fear of public speaking was going to prevent her from having a career, and she was constantly terrified of being the stupidest person in the room. And yet, most of her time and energy was spent trying to be the best possible scientist, trying to carve a path for herself and amount to something. The idea of someone dismissing her work and her feelings this coldheartedly cut deep, which is why her response was so immature, it was almost fetal.

Olive: Well, fuck you, Adam.

She immediately regretted it, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to send an apology. It wasn’t until twenty minutes later that she realized that Adam wasn’t going to reply. A warning popped up on the upper part of her screen, informing her that her battery was at 5 percent.

With a deep sigh, Olive stood up from her bed and looked around the room in search of her charger.

—

“NOW GO RIGHT.”

“Got it.” Malcolm’s finger flicked the turn signal lever. A clicking sound filled the small car. “Going right.”

“No, don’t listen to Jeremy. Turn left.”

Jeremy leaned forward and swatted Anh’s arm. “Malcolm, trust me. Anh has never been to the farm. It’s on the right.”

“Google Maps says left.”

“Google Maps is wrong.”

“What do I do?” Malcolm made a face in the rearview mirror. “Left? Right? Ol, what do I do?”

In the back seat, Olive looked up from the car window and shrugged. “Try right; if it’s wrong, we’ll just turn around.” She shot Anh a quick, apologetic glance, but she and Jeremy were too busy mock-glaring at each other to notice.

Malcolm grimaced. “We’ll be late. God, I hate these stupid picnics.”

“We are, like”—Olive glanced at the car’s clock—“one hour late, already. I think we can add ten minutes to that.” I just hope there’s some food left. Her stomach had been growling for the past two hours, and there was no way everyone in the car hadn’t noticed.

After her argument with Adam three days ago, she’d been tempted to just skip the picnic. Hole herself up in the lab and continue with what she had been doing the whole weekend—ignore the fact that she had told him to fuck off, and with very little reason. She could use the time to work on Tom’s report, which was proving to be trickier and more time-consuming than she’d initially thought—probably because Olive couldn’t forget how much was at stake and kept rerunning analyses and agonizing over every single sentence. But she’d changed her mind last minute, telling herself that she’d promised Adam that they’d put on a show for the department chair. It would be unfair of her to back out after he’d done more than his share of the deal when it came to convincing Anh.

That was, of course, in the very unlikely case that he still wanted anything to do with Olive.

“Don’t worry, Malcolm,” Anh said. “We’ll get there eventually. If anyone asks, let’s just say that a mountain lion attacked us. God, why is it so hot? I brought sunblock, by the way. SPF thirty and fifty. No one is going anywhere before putting it on.”

In the back seat Olive and Jeremy exchanged a resigned look, well acquainted with Anh’s sunscreen obsession.

The picnic was in full swing when they finally arrived, as crowded as most academic events with free food. Olive made a beeline for the tables and waved at Dr. Aslan, who was sitting in the shade of a giant oak with other faculty members. Dr. Aslan waved back, no doubt pleased to note that her authority extended to commandeering her grads’ free time on top of the eighty hours a week they already spent in the lab. Olive smiled weakly in a valiant attempt not to look resentful, grabbed a cluster of white grapes, and popped one into her mouth while letting her gaze wander around the fields.

Anh was right. This September was uncommonly hot. There were people everywhere, sitting on the lawn chairs, lying down in the grass, walking in and out of the barns—all enjoying the weather. A few were eating from plastic plates on folding tables close to the main house, and there were at least three games going on—a version of volleyball with the players standing in a circle, a soccer match, and something that involved a Frisbee and over a dozen half-dressed dudes.

“What are they even playing?” Olive asked Anh. She spotted Dr. Rodrigues tackle someone from immunology and looked back to the almost empty tables, cringing. Slim pickings was all that was left. Olive wanted a sandwich. A bag of chips. Anything.

“Ultimate Frisbee, I think? I don’t know. Did you put on sunblock? You’re wearing a tank top and shorts, so you really should.”

Olive bit into another grape. “You Americans and your fake sports.”

“I’m pretty sure there are Canadian tournaments of Ultimate Frisbee, too. You know what’s not fake?”

“What?”

“Melanoma. Put on some sunscreen.”

“I will, Mom.” Olive smiled. “Can I eat first?”

“Eat what? There’s nothing left. Oh, there’s some corn bread over there.”

“Oh, cool. Pass it over.”

“Don’t eat the corn bread, guys.” Jeremy’s head popped up between Olive and Anh. “Jess said that a pharmacology first-year sneezed all over it. Where did Malcolm go?”

“Parking— Holy. Shit.”

Olive looked up from her perusal of the table, alarmed by the urgency in Anh’s tone. “What?”

“Just, holy shit.”

“Yeah, what—”

“Holy shit.”

“You mentioned that already.”

“Because—holy shit.”

She glanced around, trying to figure out what was going on. “What is— Oh, there’s Malcolm. Maybe he found something to eat?”

“Is that Carlsen?”

Olive was already walking toward Malcolm to replace something edible and skip the whole sunscreen nonsense altogether, but when she heard Adam’s name, she stopped dead in her tracks. Or maybe it wasn’t Adam’s name but the way Anh was saying it. “What? Where?”

Jeremy pointed at the Ultimate Frisbee crowd. “That’s him, right? Shirtless?”

“Holy shit,” Anh repeated, her vocabulary suddenly pretty limited, given her twentysomething years of education. “Is that a six-pack?”

Jeremy blinked. “Might even be an eight-pack.”

“Are those his real shoulders?” Anh asked. “Did he have shoulder-enhancement surgery?”

“That must be how he used the MacArthur grant,” Jeremy said. “I don’t think shoulders like that exist in nature.”

“God, is that Carlsen’s chest?” Malcolm leaned his chin over Olive’s shoulder. “Was that thing under his shirt while he was ripping my dissertation proposal a new one? Ol. Why didn’t you say that he was shredded?”

Olive just stood there, rooted to the ground, arms dangling uselessly at her sides. Because I didn’t know. Because I had no idea. Or maybe she had, a bit, from seeing him push that truck the other day—though she’d been trying to suppress that particular mental image.

“Unbelievable.” Anh pulled Olive’s hand toward herself, overturning it to squirt a healthy dose of lotion on her palm. “Here, put this on your shoulders. And your legs. And your face, too—you’re probably at high risk for all sorts of skin stuff, Freckles McFreckleface. Jer, you too.”

Olive nodded numbly and began to massage the sunscreen into her arms and thighs. She breathed in the smell of coconut oil, trying hard not to think about Adam and about the fact that he really did look like that. Mostly failing, but hey.

“Are there actual studies?” Jeremy asked.

“Mmm?” Anh was pulling her hair up in a bun.

“On the link between freckles and skin cancer.”

“I don’t know.”

“Feels like there would be.”

“True. I wanna know now.”

“Hold on. Is there Wi-Fi here?”

“Ol, do you have internet?”

Olive wiped her hands on a napkin that looked mostly unused. “I left my phone in Malcolm’s car.”

She turned her head away from Anh and Jeremy, who were now studying the screen of Jeremy’s iPhone, until she had a good view of the Ultimate Frisbee group—fourteen men and zero women. It probably had to do with the general excess of testosterone in STEM programs. At least half the players were faculty or postdocs. Adam, of course, and Tom, and Dr. Rodrigues, and several others from pharmacology. All equally shirtless. Though, no. Not equal at all. There was really nothing equal about Adam.

Olive wasn’t like this. She really was not. She could count the number of guys she’d been this viscerally attracted to on one hand. Actually—on one finger. And at the moment said guy was running toward her, because Tom Benton, bless his heart, had just thrown the Frisbee way too clumsily, and it was now in a patch of grass approximately ten feet from Olive. And Adam, shirtless Adam, just happened to be the one closest to where it landed.

“Oh, check out this paper.” Jeremy sounded excited.

“Khalesi et al., 2013. It’s a meta-analysis. ‘Cutaneous markers of photo-damage and risk of basal cell carcinoma of the skin.’ In Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.”

Jeremy fist-pumped. “Olive, are you listening to this?”

Nope. No, she was not. She was mostly trying to empty her brain, and her eyes, too. Of her fake boyfriend and the sudden warm ache in her stomach. She just wished she were elsewhere. That she were temporarily blind and deaf.

“Hear this: solar lentigines had weak but positive associations with basal cell carcinoma, with odds ratios around 1.5. Okay, I don’t like this. Jeremy, hold the phone. I’m giving Olive more sunscreen. Here’s SPF fifty; it’s probably what you need.”

Olive tore her eyes from Adam’s chest, now alarmingly close, and turned around, stepping away from Anh. “Wait. I already put some on.”

“Ol,” Anh told her, with that sensible, motherly tone she used whenever Olive slipped and confessed that she mostly got her veggie servings from french fries, or that she washed her colors and whites in the same load. “You know the literature.”

“I do not know the literature, and neither do you, you just know one line from one abstract and—”

Anh grabbed Olive’s hand again and poured half a gallon of lotion in it. So much of it that Olive had to use her left palm to prevent it from spilling over—until she was just standing there like an idiot, her hands cupped like a beggar as she half drowned in goddamn sunscreen.

“Here you go.” Anh smiled brightly. “Now you can protect yourself from basal cell carcinoma. Which, frankly, sounds awful.”

“I . . .” Olive would have face-palmed, if she’d had the freedom to move her upper limbs. “I hate sunscreen. It’s sticky and it makes me smell like a piña colada and—this is way too much.”

“Just put on as much as your skin will absorb. Especially around the freckled areas. The rest, you can share with someone.”

“Okay. Anh, then, you take some. You too, Jeremy. You’re a ginger, for God’s sake.”

“A redhead with no freckles, though.” He smiled proudly, like he’d created his genotype all on his own. “And I already put on a ton. Thanks, babe.” He leaned down for a brief kiss to Anh’s cheek, which almost devolved into a make-out session.

Olive tried not to sigh. “Guys, what do I do with this?”

“Just replace someone else. Where did Malcolm go?”

Jeremy snorted. “Over there, with Jude.”

“Jude?” Anh frowned.

“Yeah, that neuro fifth-year.”

“The MD-Ph.D.? Are they dating or—”

“Guys.” It took Olive all she had not to yell. “I have no mobility. Please, fix this sunscreen mess you created.”

“God, Ol.” Anh rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic sometimes. Hang on—” She waved at someone behind Olive, and when she spoke, her voice was much louder. “Hey, Dr. Carlsen! Have you put on sunscreen yet?”

In the span of a microsecond Olive’s entire brain burst into flames—and then crumbled into a pile of ashes. Just like that, one hundred billion neurons, one thousand billion glial cells, and who knew how many milliliters of cerebrospinal fluid, just ceased to exist. The rest of her body was not doing very well, either, since Olive could feel all her organs shut down in real time. From the very beginning of her acquaintance with Adam there had been about ten instances of Olive wishing to drop dead on the spot, for the earth to open and swallow her whole, for a cataclysm to hit and spare her from the embarrassment of their interactions. This time, though, it felt as though the end of the world might happen for real.

Don’t turn around, what’s left of her central nervous system told her. Pretend you didn’t hear Anh. Will this into nonexistence. But it was impossible. There was this triangle of sorts, formed by Olive, and Anh in front of her, and Adam probably—surely—standing behind her; it wasn’t as if Olive had a choice. Any choice. Especially when Adam, who couldn’t possibly imagine the depraved direction of Anh’s thoughts, who couldn’t possibly see the bucketful of sunscreen that had taken residence in Olive’s hands, said, “No.”

Well. Shit.

Olive spun around, and there he was—sweaty, holding a Frisbee in his left hand, and so very, very shirtless. “Perfect, then!” Anh said, sounding so chipper. “Olive has way too much and was wondering what to do with it. She’ll put some on you!”

No. No, no, no. “I can’t,” she hissed at Anh. “It would be highly inappropriate.”

“Why?” Anh blinked at her innocently. “I put sunscreen on Jeremy all the time. Look”—she squirted lotion on her hand and haphazardly slapped it across Jeremy’s face— “I am putting sunscreen on my boyfriend. Because I don’t want him to get melanoma. Am I ‘inappropriate’?”

Olive was going to murder her. Olive was going to make her lick every drop of this stupid sunscreen and watch her writhe in pain as she slowly died of oxybenzone poisoning.

Later, though. For now, Adam was looking at her, expression completely unreadable, and Olive would have apologized, she would have crawled under the table, she would have at least waved at him—but all she could do was stare and notice that even though the last time they’d talked she’d insulted him, he didn’t really seem angry. Just thoughtful and a little confused as he looked between Olive’s face and the small lake of white goop that now lived in her hands, probably trying to figure out if there was a way to get out of this latest shitshow—and then, finally, just giving up on it.

He nodded once, minutely, and turned around, the muscles in his back shifting as he threw Dr. Rodrigues the Frisbee and yelled, “I’m taking five!”

Which, Olive assumed, meant that they were actually doing this. Of course they damn were. Because this was her life, and these were her poor, moronic, harebrained choices.

“Hey,” Adam said to her once they were closer. He was looking at her hands, at the way she had to hold them in front of her body like a supplicant. Behind her, Anh and Jeremy were no doubt ogling them.

“Hey.” She was wearing flip-flops, and he had sneakers on, and—he was always tall, but right now he towered over her. It put her eyes right in front of his pecs, and . . . No. Nope. Not doing that.

“Can you turn around?”

He hesitated for a moment, but then he did, uncharacteristically obedient. Which ended up resolving none of Olive’s problems, since his back was in no way less broad or impressive than his chest.

“Can you, um . . . duck a bit?”

Adam bent his head until his shoulders were . . . still abnormally high but somewhat easier to reach. As she lifted her right hand, some of the lotion dripped to the ground—Where it belongs, she thought savagely—and then she was doing it, this thing that she had never thought she would ever, ever do. Putting sunscreen on Adam Carlsen.

It wasn’t her first time touching him. Therefore, she shouldn’t have been surprised by how hard his muscles were, or that there was no give to his flesh. Olive remembered the way he’d pushed the truck, imagined that he could probably bench-press three times her weight, and then ordered herself to stop, because that was not an appropriate train of thought. Still, the issue remained that there was nothing between her hand and his skin. He was hot from the sun, his shoulders relaxed and immobile under her touch. Even in public, close as they were, it felt like something intimate was happening.

“So.” Her mouth was dry. “This might be a good time to mention how sorry I am that we keep getting stuck in these situations.”

“It’s fine.”

“I really am, though.”

“It’s not your fault.” There was an edge in his voice.

“Are you okay?”

“Yep.” He nodded, though the movement seemed taut. Which had Olive realizing that maybe he was not as relaxed as she’d initially thought.

“How much do you hate this, on a scale from one to ‘correlation equals causation’?”

He surprised her by chuckling, though he still sounded strained. “I don’t hate it. And it’s not your fault.”

“Because I know this is the worst possible thing, and—”

“It isn’t. Olive.” He turned a bit to look her in the eyes, a mix of amusement and that odd tension. “These things are going to keep on happening.”

“Right.”

His fingers brushed softly against her left palm as he stole a bit of her sunscreen for his front. Which, all in all, was for the best. She really didn’t want to be massaging lotion into his chest in front of 70 percent of her Ph.D. program—not to mention her boss, since Dr. Aslan was probably watching them like a hawk. Or maybe she wasn’t. Olive had no intention of turning around to check. She’d rather live in less-than-blissful ignorance. “Mostly because you hang out with some really nosy people.”

She burst out laughing. “I know. Believe me, I’m really regretting befriending Anh right now. Kind of contemplating assassinating her, to tell the truth.”

She moved to his shoulder blades. He had a lot of small moles and freckles, and she wondered exactly how inappropriate it would be if she played connect the dots on them with her fingers. She could just imagine the amazing pictures it would reveal.

“But hey, the long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proven by scientists. And you are pretty pale. Here, duck a bit more, so I can get your neck.”

“Mmm.”

She walked around him to get to the front part of his shoulders. He was so big, she was going to have to use all this stupid lotion. Might even need to ask Anh for more. “At least the department chair is getting a show. And you look like you’re having fun.”

He glanced pointedly at the way her hand was spreading sunscreen on his collarbone. Olive’s cheeks burned. “No, I mean—not because I am . . . I meant, you look like you’re having a good time playing Frisbee. Or whatever.”

He made a face. “Beats chitchatting, for sure.”

She laughed. “That makes sense. I bet that’s why you’re so fit. You played lots of sports growing up because it got you out of talking with people. It also explains why now that you’re an adult your personality is so—” Olive stopped short.

Adam lifted one eyebrow. “Antagonistic and unapproachable?”

Crap. “I didn’t say that.”

“You just typed it.”

“I-I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to—” She pressed her lips together, flustered. Then she noticed that the corners of his eyes were crinkling. “Damn you.”

She pinched him lightly on the underside of his arm. He yelped and smiled wider, which made her wonder what he would do if she retaliated by writing her name with sunscreen on his chest, just enough for him to only get a tan around it. She tried to imagine his face after taking off his T-shirt, replaceing the five letters printed on his flesh in the reflection of his bathroom mirror. The expression he’d make. Whether he’d touch them with his fingertips.

Crazy, she told herself. This whole thing, it’s driving you crazy. So he’s handsome, and you replace him attractive. Big deal. Who cares?

She wiped her mostly lotion-free hands down the columns of his biceps and took a step back. “You’re good to go, Dr. Antagonistic.”

He smelled of fresh sweat, himself, and coconut. Olive wasn’t going to get to talk with him again until Wednesday, and why the thought came with an odd pang in her chest, she had no clue.

“Thanks. And thank Anh, I guess.”

“Mm. What do you think she’ll have us do next time?”

He shrugged. “Hold hands?”

“Feed each other strawberries?”

“Good one.”

“Maybe she’ll up her game.”

“Fake wedding?”

“Fake-buy a house together?”

“Fake-sign the mortgage paperwork?”

Olive laughed, and the way he looked at her, kind and curious and patient . . . she must be hallucinating it. Her head was not right. She should have brought a sun hat.

“Hey, Olive.”

She tore her gaze from Adam’s and noticed Tom approaching. He, too, was shirtless, and clearly fit, and had a large number of abs that were defined enough to be easily counted. And yet, for some reason, it did absolutely nothing for Olive.

“Hi, Tom.” She smiled, even though she was a little irritated by the interruption. “Loved your talk the other day.”

“It was good, wasn’t it? Did Adam tell you about our change of plans?”

She tilted her head. “Change of plans?”

“We’ve been making great progress on the grant, so we’re going to Boston next week to finish setting up stuff on the Harvard side.”

“Oh, that’s great.” She turned to Adam. “How long will you be gone?”

“Just a few days.” His tone was quiet. Olive felt relief that it wasn’t going to be longer. For indiscernible reasons.

“Would you be able to send me your report by Saturday, Olive?” Tom asked. “Then I’ll have the weekend to look it over, and we’ll discuss it while I’m still here.”

Her brain exploded in a flurry of panic and bright red-alert signs, but she managed to keep her smile in place. “Yeah, of course. I’ll send it to you on Saturday.” Oh God. Oh God. She was going to have to work around the clock. She wasn’t going to get any sleep this week. She was going to have to bring her laptop to the toilet and write while she peed. “No problem at all,” she added, leaning even harder into her lie.

“Perfect.” Tom winked at her, or maybe just squinted in the sun. “You going back to play?” he asked Adam, and when Adam nodded, Tom spun around and headed back into the game.

Adam hesitated for just a second longer, then he nodded at Olive and left. She tried hard not to stare at his back as he rejoined his team, which seemed to be overjoyed to have him again. Clearly, sports were another thing Adam Carlsen excelled at—unfairly so.

She didn’t even have to check to know that Anh and Jeremy and pretty much everyone else had been staring at them for the past five minutes. She fished a seltzer can out of the nearest cooler, reminding herself that this was exactly what they wanted from this arrangement, and then found a spot under an oak tree next to her friends—all this sunscreen fuss, and now they were sitting in the shade. Go figure.

She wasn’t even that hungry anymore, a small miracle courtesy of having to apply sunscreen to her fake boyfriend very publicly.

“So, what’s he like?” Anh asked. She was lying down with her head on Jeremy’s lap. Above her, Malcolm was staring at the Frisbee players, probably swooning over how pretty Holden Rodrigues looked in the sun.

“Mm?”

“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 not,” 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.”