Shit. “God, I’m so sorry—”

“Olive.”

She lifted her eyes to catch his and was shocked to find him . . . not smiling, but something like it.

“I was kidding. You weigh nothing. I don’t mind.”

“I—”

“Ssh. Just focus on the talk. Tom might ask you questions about it.”

This was just . . . Seriously, this whole business, it was completely, utterly . . .

Comfortable. Adam Carlsen’s lap was one of the most comfortable places on earth, as it turned out. He was warm and solid in a pleasant, soothing way, and he didn’t seem to mind too much having Olive half draped over him. After a short while she realized that the room was truly too full for anyone to be paying attention to them, except for a quick glance from Holden Rodrigues, who studied Adam for a long moment and then smiled warmly at Olive before focusing on the talk. She stopped pretending to be able to hold her spine upright for more than five minutes and just let herself lean into Adam’s torso. He didn’t say anything but angled himself a little, just to help her fit more comfortably.

Somewhere halfway through the talk she realized that she had been sliding down Adam’s thigh. Or, to be fair, Adam realized and lifted her up, straightening her in a firm, quick pull that made her feel like she really didn’t weigh anything. Once she was stable again, he didn’t move his arm from where it was snaked around her waist. The talk had been happening for thirty-five minutes going on a century, so no one could blame Olive if she sank into him a little bit more.

It was fine. It was more than fine, actually. It was nice.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he murmured. She felt his lips move against the tendrils of hair above her temple. It should have been Olive’s cue to straighten, but she couldn’t quite make herself.

“I’m not. Though you’re so comfy.”

His fingers tightened on her, maybe to wake her up, maybe to hold her closer. She was about to melt off the chair and start snoring.

“You look like you’re about to take a nap.”

“It’s just that I’ve read all of Tom’s articles. I already know what he’s saying.”

“Yeah, same. We cited all this stuff in our grant proposal.” He sighed, and she felt his body move under hers. “This is dull.”

“Maybe you should ask a question. To liven this up.”

Adam turned slightly to her. “Me?”

She angled her head to speak in his ear. “I’m sure you can come up with something. Just raise your hand and make a mean observation with that tone of yours. Glare at him. It might devolve into an entertaining outbreak of fisticuffs.”

His cheek curved. “You are such a smart-ass.”

Olive looked back to the slides, smiling. “Has it been weird? Having to lie to Tom about us?”

Adam seemed to think about it. “No.” He hesitated. “It looks like your friends are buying that we’re together.”

“I think so. I’m not exactly a convincing liar, and sometimes I worry that Anh might get suspicious. But I walked in on her and Jeremy making out in the grad lounge the other day.”

They fell quiet and listened to the last few minutes of the talk in silence. In front of them, Olive could see at least two professors taking a nap, and several surreptitiously working on their laptops. Next to Adam, Dr. Rodrigues had been playing Candy Crush on his phone for the past half an hour. Some people had left, and Anh had found a seat about ten minutes ago. So had several of the students who had been next to Olive, which meant that she could have technically stood up and left Adam alone. Technically. Technically, there was an open chair somewhere in the third-to-last row. Technically.

Instead she brought her lips to Adam’s ear once more and whispered, “It’s working out well for me, I have to say. This whole fake-dating thing.” More than well. Better than she ever thought it would.

Adam blinked once and then nodded. Maybe his arm tensed a little around her. Maybe it didn’t, and Olive’s mind was playing tricks on her. It was starting to get late, after all. Her last coffee had been too long ago, and she wasn’t fully awake, her thoughts fuzzy and relaxed.

“What about you?”

“Mmm?” Adam wasn’t looking at her.

“Is it working for you?” It came out a little needy. Olive told herself that it was only because of how low she had to pitch her voice. “Or do you maybe want to fake–break up early?”

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 headed 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.