“Ground rules?”

“Yes. You know. What we are allowed and not allowed to do. What we can expect from this arrangement. I think that’s pretty standard protocol, before embarking on a fake-dating relationship.”

He tilted his head. “Standard protocol?”

“Yup.”

“How many times have you done this?”

“Zero. But I am familiar with the trope.”

“The . . . what?” He blinked at her, confused.

Olive ignored him. “Okay.” She inhaled deeply and lifted her index finger. “First of all, this should be a strictly on-campus arrangement. Not that I think you’d want to meet me off campus, but just in case you were planning to kill two birds with one stone, I’m not going to be your last-minute backup if you need to bring a date home for Christmas, or—”

“Hanukkah.”

“What?”

“My family is more likely to celebrate Hanukkah than Christmas.” He shrugged. “Though I’m unlikely to celebrate either.”

“Oh.” Olive pondered it for a moment. “I guess this is something your fake girlfriend should know.”

The ghost of a smile appeared on his mouth, but he said nothing.

“Okay. Second rule. Actually, it could be interpreted as an extension of the first rule. But”—Olive bit into her lip, willing herself to bring it up—“no sex.”

For several moments he simply didn’t move. Not even a millimeter. Then his lips parted, but no sound came out, and that’s when Olive realized that she had just rendered Adam Carlsen speechless. Which would have been funny any other day, but the fact that he seemed dumbfounded by Olive not wanting to include sex in their fake-dating relationship made her stomach sink.

Had he assumed that they would? Was it something she’d said? Should she explain that she’d had very little sex in her life? That for years she’d wondered whether she was asexual and she had realized only recently that she might be able to experience sexual attraction, but only with people she trusted deeply? That if for some inexplicable reason Adam wanted to have sex with her, she wasn’t going to be able to go through with it?

“Listen”—she made to stand from the chair, panic rising in her throat—“I’m sorry, but if one of the reasons you offered to fake-date is that you thought that we would—”

“No.” The word half exploded out of him. He looked genuinely appalled. “I’m shocked that you’d even feel the need to bring it up.”

“Oh.” Olive’s cheeks heated at the indignation in his voice. Right. Of course he didn’t expect that. Or even want that, with her. Look at him—why would he? “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to assume—”

“No, it makes sense to be up-front. I was just surprised.”

“I know.” Olive nodded. Honestly, she was a little surprised, too. That she was sitting in Adam Carlsen’s office, talking about sex—not the meiosis kind of sex, but potential sexual intercourse between the two of them. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make things weird.”

“It’s okay. This whole thing is weird.” The silence between them stretched, and Olive noticed that he was blushing faintly. Just a dusting of red, but he looked so . . . Olive couldn’t stop staring.

“No sex,” he confirmed with a nod.

She had to clear her throat and shake herself out of inspecting the shape and color of his cheekbones.

“No sex,” she repeated. “Okay. Third. It’s not really a rule, but here goes: I won’t date anyone else. As in real dating. It would be messy and complicate everything and . . .” Olive hesitated. Should she tell him? Was it too much information? Did he need to know? Oh, well. Why not, at this point? It wasn’t like she hadn’t kissed the man, or brought up sex in his place of work. “I don’t date, anyway. Jeremy was an exception. I’ve never . . . I’ve never dated seriously before, and it’s probably for the best. Grad school is stressful enough, and I have my friends, and my project on pancreatic cancer, and honestly there’s better things to use my time for.” The last few words came out more defensively than she’d intended.

Adam just stared and said nothing.

“But you can date, of course,” she added hastily. “Though I’d appreciate it if you could avoid telling people in the department, just so I don’t look like an idiot and you don’t look like you’re cheating on me and rumors don’t balloon out of control. It would benefit you, too, since you’re trying to look like you’re in a committed relationship—”

“I won’t.”

“Okay. Great. Thanks. I know lying by omission can be a pain, but—”

“I mean, I won’t date someone else.”

There was a certainty, a finality in his tone that took her by surprise. She could only nod, even though she wanted to protest that he couldn’t possibly know, even though a million questions surfaced in her mind. Ninety-nine percent of them were inappropriate and not her business, so she shooed them away.

“Okay. Fourth. We obviously can’t keep on doing this forever, so we should give ourselves a deadline.”

His lips pressed together. “When would that be?”

“I’m not sure. A month or so would probably be enough to convince Anh that I’m firmly over Jeremy. But it might not be enough on your end, so . . . you tell me.”

He mulled it, and then nodded once. “September twenty-ninth.”

It was a little over a month from now. But also . . . “That’s a weirdly specific date.” Olive racked her head, trying to figure out why it could be meaningful. The only thing that came to mind was that she’d be in Boston that week for the annual biology conference.

“It’s the day after the department’s final budget review. If they don’t release my funds by then, they won’t release them at all.”

“I see. Well, then, let’s agree that on September twenty-ninth we part ways. I’ll tell Anh that our breakup was amicable but that I’m a little sad about it because I still have a bit of a crush on you.” She grinned at him. “Just so she won’t suspect that I’m still hung up on Jeremy. Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Fifth and last.”

This was the tricky one. The one she was afraid he’d object to. She noticed that she was wringing her hands and placed them firmly in her lap.

“For this to work we should probably . . . do things together. Every once in a while.”

“Things?”

“Things. Stuff.”

“Stuff,” he repeated dubiously.

“Yep. Stuff. What do you do for fun?” He was probably into something atrocious, like cow-tipping excursions or Japanese beetle fighting. Maybe he collected porcelain dolls. Maybe he was an avid geocacher. Maybe he frequented vaping conventions. Oh God.

“Fun?” he repeated, like he’d never heard the word before.

“Yeah. What do you do when you’re not at work?”

The length of time that passed between Olive’s question and his answer was alarming. “Sometimes I work at home, too. And I work out. And I sleep.”

She had to actively stop herself from face-palming. “Um, great. Anything else?”

“What do you do for fun?” he asked, somewhat defensively.

“Plenty of things. I . . .” Go to the movies. Though she hadn’t been since the last time Malcolm had dragged her. Play board games. But every single one of her friends was too busy lately, so not that, either. She’d participated in that volleyball tournament, but it had been over a year ago.

“Um. I work out?” She would have loved to wipe that smug expression off his face. So much. “Whatever. We should do something together on a regular basis. I don’t know, maybe get coffee? Like, once a week? Just for ten minutes, at a place where people could easily see us. I know it sounds annoying and like a waste of time, but it’ll be super short, and it would make the fake dating more credible, and—”

“Sure.”

Oh.

She’d thought it would take more convincing. A lot more. Then again, this was in his interest, too. He needed his colleagues to believe in their relationship if he was to cajole them into releasing his funding.