“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.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Eight

Number thirty-seven—salt-and-vinegar potato chips—was sold out. It was frankly inexplicable: Olive had come in at 8:00 p.m., and there had been at least one bag left in the break room’s vending machine. She distinctly remembered patting the back pocket of her jeans for quarters, and the feeling of triumph at finding exactly four. She recalled looking forward to that moment, approximately two hours later, by which time she estimated that she’d have completed exactly a third of her work and would thus be able to reward herself with the indisputable best among the snacks that the fourth floor had to offer. Except that the moment had come, and there were no chips left. Which was a problem, because Olive had already inserted her precious quarters inside the coin slot, and she was very hungry.

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.