His hand came up to cup the side of her face. “What do you—”

“But that’s not very important.”

“Olive.” He pulled her closer, pressing his lips against her forehead. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is that you’re crying about, I will fix it. I will make it right. I—”

“Adam,” she interrupted him with a wet smile. “It’s not important, because the second thing, that’s what really matters.”

They were so close, now. She could smell his scent and his warmth, and his hands were cradling her face, thumbs swiping back and forth to dry her cheeks.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured. “What is the second thing?”

She was still crying, but she’d never been happier. So she said it, probably in the worst accent he’d ever heard.

“Ik hou van jou, Adam.”

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Epilogue

Ten months later

“Stand there. You were standing right there.”

“Was I?”

He was humoring her. A little. That deliciously put-upon expression had become Olive’s favorite over the past year. “A bit closer to the water fountain. Perfect.” She took a step back to admire her handiwork and then winked at him as she took out her phone to snap a quick picture. She briefly considered swapping it for her current screensaver—a selfie of the two of them in Joshua Tree a few weeks earlier, Adam squinting in the sun and Olive pressing her lips to his cheek—but then thought better of it.

Their summer had been full of hiking trips, and delicious ice cream, and late-night kisses on Adam’s balcony, laughing and sharing untold stories and looking up at the stars, so much brighter than the ones Olive had once climbed on a ladder to stick to the ceiling of her bedroom. She was going to start working at a cancer lab at Berkeley in less than a week, which would mean a busier, more stressful schedule and a bit of a commute. And yet, she couldn’t wait.

“Just stand there,” she ordered. “Look antagonistic and unapproachable. And say ‘pumpkin spice.’ ”

He rolled his eyes. “What’s your plan if someone comes in?”

Olive glanced around the biology building. The hallway was silent and deserted, and the dim after-hours lights made Adam’s hair look almost blue. It was late, and summer, and the weekend to boot: no one was going to come in. Even if they did, Olive Smith and Adam Carlsen were old news by now. “Like who?”

“Anh might show up. To help you re-create the magic.”

“Pretty sure she’s out with Jeremy.”

“Jeremy? The guy you’re in love with?”

Olive stuck her tongue out at him and glanced down at her phone. Happy. She was so happy, and she didn’t even know why. Except that she did know.

“Okay. In one minute.”

“You can’t know the exact time.” Adam’s tone was patient and indulgent. “Not to the minute.”

“Wrong. I ran a Western blot that night. I looked at my lab logs, and I reconstructed both the when and the where down to the error bars. I am a thorough scientist.”

“Hm.” Adam folded his arms across his chest. “How did that blotting turn out?”

“Not the point.” She grinned. “What were you doing here, by the way?”

“What do you mean?”

“A year ago. Why were you walking around the department at night?”

“I can’t remember. Maybe I had a deadline. Or maybe I was going home.” He shrugged, and scanned the hallway until his eyes fell on the water fountain. “Maybe I was thirsty.”

“Maybe.” She took a step closer. “Maybe you were secretly hoping for a kiss.”

He gave her a long, amused look. “Maybe.”

She took another step, and another, and another. And then her alarm beeped, once, right as she came to stand in front of him. Another intrusion of his personal space. But this time, when she pushed up on her toes, when she wrapped her arms around his neck, Adam’s hands pulled her deeper into himself.

It had been one year. Exactly one year. And by now his body was so familiar to her, she knew the breadth of his shoulders, the scratch of his stubble, the scent of his skin, all by heart; she could feel the smile in his eyes.

Olive sank into him, let him support her weight, and then moved until her mouth was almost level with his ear. She pressed her lips against its shell, and whispered softly into his skin.

“May I kiss you, Dr. Carlsen?”

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Author’s Note

I write stories set in academia because academia is all I know. It can be a very insular, all-consuming, isolating environment. In the past decade, I’ve had excellent (women) mentors who constantly supported me, but I could name dozens of instances in which I felt as though I was a massive failure blundering her way through science. But that, as everyone who’s been there knows, is grad school: a stressful, high-pressure, competitive endeavor. Academia has its own special way of tearing apart work-life balance, wearing people down, and making them forget that they are worth more than the number of papers they publish or the grant money they are able to rake in.

Taking the thing I love the most (writing love stories) and giving it a STEM academia backdrop has been surprisingly therapeutic. My experiences have not been the same as Olive’s (no academic fake dating for me, boo), but I still managed to pour many of my frustrations, joys, and disappointments into her adventures. Just like Olive, in the past few years I have felt lonely, determined, helpless, scared, happy, cornered, inadequate, misunderstood, enthusiastic. Writing The Love Hypothesis gave me the opportunity to turn these experiences around with a humorous, sometimes self-indulgent spin, and to realize that I could put my own misadventures into perspective—sometimes even laugh at them! For this reason—and I know I probably shouldn’t say it—this book means as much to me as my Ph.D. dissertation did.

Okay—that’s a lie. It means waaay more.

If you’re not familiar with it, a few words about a topic that comes up quite a bit in the book: Title IX is a US federal law that prohibits any kind of discrimination on the basis of gender in all institutions that receive federal funding (i.e., most universities). It legally compels schools to respond to and remedy situations of misconduct ranging from hostile work environments to harassment and assault. Covered schools have Title IX coordinators, whose job is to handle complaints and violations and to educate an institution’s community about their rights. Title IX has been and currently is critical to guarantee equal access to education and to protect students and employees against gender-based discrimination.