Chapter Eleven

“Did you . . . did you hear that?” she blurted out.

Malcolm hurried to clear the table of his stuff, muttering tightly, “I was just about to go.”

Olive barely noticed, busy watching Adam slide the chair back to sit across from her.

Shit.

“Yes,” he said, bland and even, and Olive felt like she was about to disintegrate into a million tiny pieces, here, in this exact spot. She wanted him to take it back. Wanted him to say “No, heard what?” She wanted to go back to earlier this morning and rewind it all, this horrible mess of a day. Not look at the texts on her phone, not let Anh walk in on her mooning over her fake boyfriend, not pour her heart out to Malcolm in the worst possible place.

Adam couldn’t know. He simply couldn’t. He’d think that Olive had kissed him on purpose, that she’d masterminded this whole fiasco, that she’d manipulated him into this situation. He’d feel compelled to break up with her well before he could reap any benefits from their arrangement. And he would hate her.

The prospect was terrifying, so she said the one thing she could think of.

“It wasn’t about you.”

The lie rolled off her tongue like a mudslide: unpremeditated, quick, and bound to leave a huge mess behind.

“I know.” He nodded, and . . . he didn’t even look surprised. It was as though it had never occurred to him that Olive might have been interested in him. It made her want to cry—a frequent state on this stupid morning—but instead of doing that, she just vomited out another lie.

“I just . . . I have a thing. For a guy.”

He nodded again, this time slowly. His eyes darkened, and the corner of his jaw twitched, just for a moment. She blinked, and his expression was blank again. “Yeah. I gathered that.”

“This guy, he’s . . .” She swallowed. What was he? Quick, Olive, quick. An immunologist? Icelandic? A giraffe? What was he?

“You don’t have to explain if you don’t want.” Adam’s voice seemed slightly offbeat, but also comforting. Tired. Olive realized that she was wringing her hands, and instead of stopping she simply hid them under the table.

“I . . . It’s just that . . .”

“It’s okay.” He offered her a reassuring smile, and Olive—she couldn’t possibly look at him. Not a second longer. She averted her eyes, desperately wishing she had something to say. Something to fix this. Right outside the café’s window, a group of undergrads were huddling together in front of a laptop, laughing at something playing on the screen. A gust of wind scattered a stack of notes, and a boy scrambled to retrieve them. In the distance, Dr. Rodrigues was walking in the direction of Starbucks.

“This . . . our arrangement.” Adam’s voice pulled her back inside. To the lies and the table between them; to the gentle, soft way he was talking to her. Kind, he’d been so kind.

Adam. I used to think the worst of you, and now . . .

“It’s supposed to help both of us. If it stops doing so . . .”

“No.” Olive shook her head. “No. I . . .” She forced her face into a smile. “It’s complicated.”

“I see.”

She opened her mouth to say that no, he couldn’t possibly see. He couldn’t possibly see anything, because Olive had just made all of this up. This clusterfuck of a situation. “I don’t—” She wet her lips. “There is no need to stop our arrangement early, because I can’t tell him that I like him. Because I—”

“Dude.” A hand clapped on Adam’s shoulder. “Since when are you not in your offi— Oh. I see.” Dr. Rodrigues’s gaze slid from Adam to Olive and settled on her. For a second, he just stood by the table and took her in, surprised to find her there. Then his mouth widened into a slow grin. “Hey, Olive.”

During Olive’s first year of grad school, Dr. Rodrigues had been on her preassigned graduate advisory committee—an admittedly odd choice, given his relative lack of relevance to her research. And yet, Olive had mostly pleasant memories of her interactions with him. When she’d stammered her way through her committee meetings, he’d always been the first to smile at her, and once he’d even complimented her Star Wars T-shirt—and then proceeded to hum the Darth Vader theme under his breath every time Dr. Moss would start one of her rants against Olive’s methods.

“Hey, Dr. Rodrigues.” She was positive that her smile was not nearly as convincing as it should have been. “How are you?”

He waved a hand. “Pssh. Please, call me Holden. You’re not my student anymore.” He patted Adam on the back with relish. “And you have the very dubious pleasure of dating my oldest, most socially impaired friend.”

It was all Olive could do not to let her jaw drop. They were friends? Charming, devil-may-care Holden Rodrigues and surly, taciturn Adam Carlsen were old friends? Was this something she was supposed to know? Adam’s girlfriend would have known, right?

Dr. Rodrigues—Holden? God, Holden. She was never going to get used to the fact that professors were real people and had first names—turned to Adam, who appeared untroubled by having been decreed socially impaired.

He asked, “You’re leaving for Boston tonight, right?” and his speech pattern changed a little—pitched lower and faster, more casual. Comfortable. They really were old friends.

“Yeah. Can you still give Tom and me a ride to the airport?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Is Tom going to be gagged and tied up in the trunk?”

Adam sighed. “Holden.”

“I’ll allow him in the back seat, but if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, I’ll ditch him on the highway.”

“Fine. I’ll let him know.”

Holden seemed satisfied. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He patted Adam’s shoulder once more, but he was looking at Olive.

“It’s okay.”

“Really? Well, then.” His smile broadened and he pulled up a chair from a nearby table. Adam closed his eyes, resigned.

“So, what are we talking about?”

Why, I was just in the middle of lying my ass off, thank you for asking. “Ah . . . nothing much. How do you two . . .” She looked between them, clearing her throat. “Sorry, I forgot how you and Adam know each other.”

A thud—Holden kicking Adam under the table. “You little shit. You didn’t tell her about our decades-deep history?”

“Just trying to forget.”

“You wish.” Holden turned to grin at her. “We grew up together.”

She frowned at Adam. “I thought you grew up in Europe?”

Holden waved his hand. “He grew up all over the place. And so did I, since our parents worked together. Diplomats—the worst kind of people. But then our families settled in DC.” He leaned forward. “Guess who went to high school, college, and grad school together.”

Olive’s eyes widened, and Holden noticed, at least judging by how he kicked Adam again.

“You really haven’t told her shit. I see you’re still going for brooding and mysterious.” He rolled his eyes fondly and looked at me again. “Did Adam tell you that he almost didn’t graduate high school? He got suspended for punching a guy who insisted that the Large Hadron Collider would destroy the planet.”

“Interesting how you’re not mentioning that you got suspended alongside me for doing the exact same thing.”

Holden ignored him. “My parents were out of the country on some kind of assignment and briefly forgot that I existed, so we spent the week at my place playing Final Fantasy—it was glorious. What about when Adam applied to law school? He must have told you about that.”