The Love Hypothesis (Love Hypothesis #1)(105)

“Because you introduced yourself like we’d never met before.” She thought maybe he was flushing a little. Maybe not. Maybe it was impossible to tell, in the starless sky and the faint yellow lights. “And I’d been . . . I’d been thinking about you. For years. And I didn’t want to . . .”

She could only imagine. They’d passed each other in the hallways, been at countless department research symposiums and seminars together. She hadn’t thought anything of it, but now . . . now she wondered what he had thought.

He’d been going on and on about this amazing girl for years, but he was concerned about being in the same department, Holden had said.

And Olive had assumed so much. She had been so wrong.

“You didn’t need to lie, you know,” she said, not accusing.

He adjusted the strap of her suitcase on his shoulder. “I didn’t.”

“You sort of did. By omission.”

“True. Are you . . .” He pressed his lips together. “Are you upset?”

“No, not really. It’s really not that bad a lie.”

“It’s not?”

She nibbled on her thumbnail for a moment. “I’ve said much worse, myself. And I didn’t bring up our meeting, either, even after I made the connection.”

“Still, if you feel—”

“I’m not upset,” she said, gentle but final. She looked up at him, willing him to understand. Trying to figure out how to tell him. How to show him. “I am . . . other things.” She smiled. “Glad, for instance. That you remembered me, from that day.”

“You . . .” A pause. “You are very memorable.”

“Ha. I’m not, really. I was no one—part of a huge incoming cohort.” She snorted and looked down to her feet. Her steps had to be much quicker than his to keep up with his longer legs. “I hated my first year. It was so stressful.”

He glanced at her, surprised. “Do you remember your first seminar talk?”

“I do. Why?”

“Your elevator pitch—you called it a turbolift pitch. You put a picture from The Next Generation on your slides.”

“Oh, yes. I did.” She let out a low laugh. “I didn’t know you were a Trekkie.”

“I had a phase. And that year’s picnic, when we got rained on. You were playing freeze tag with someone’s kids for hours. They loved you—they had to physically peel the youngest off you to get him inside the car.”

“Dr. Moss’s kids.” She looked at him curiously. A light breeze rose and ruffled his hair, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I didn’t think you liked kids. The opposite, actually.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “I don’t like twenty-five-year-olds who act like toddlers. I don’t mind them if they’re actually three.”

Olive smiled. “Adam, the fact that you knew who I was . . . Did it have anything to do with your decision to pretend to date me?”

About a dozen expressions crossed his face as he looked for an answer, and she couldn’t pick apart a single one. “I wanted to help you, Olive.”

“I know. I believe that.” She rubbed her fingers against her mouth. “But was that all?”

He pressed his lips together. Exhaled. Closed his eyes, and for a split second looked like he was having his teeth and his soul pulled out. Then he said, resigned, “No.”

“No,” she repeated, pensive. “This is my place, by the way.” She pointed at the tall brick building on the corner.

“Right.” Adam looked around, studying her street. “Should I carry your bag upstairs?”

“I . . . Maybe later. There is something I need to tell you. Before.”

“Of course.”

He stopped in front of her, and she looked up at him, at the lines of his handsome, familiar face. There was only fresh breeze between them, and whatever distance Adam had seen fit to keep. Her stubborn, mercurial fake boyfriend. Wonderfully, perfectly unique. Delightfully one of a kind. Olive felt her heart overflow.

She took a deep breath. “The thing is, Adam . . . I was stupid. And wrong.” She played nervously with a lock of her hair, then let her hand drift down to her stomach, and—okay. Okay. She was going to tell him. She would do this. Now. “It’s like—it’s like statistical hypothesis testing. Type I error. It’s scary, isn’t it?”

He frowned. She could tell he had no idea where she was going with this. “Type I error?”

“A false positive. Thinking that something is happening when it’s not.”

“I know what type I error is—”

“Yes, of course. It’s just . . . in the past few weeks, what terrified me was the idea that I could misread a situation. That I could convince myself of something that wasn’t true. See something that wasn’t there just because I wanted to see it. A scientist’s worst nightmare, right?”

“Right.” His brows furrowed. “That is why in your analyses you set a level of significance that is—”

“But the thing is, type II error is bad, too.”

Her eyes bore into his, hesitant and urgent all at once. She was frightened—so frightened by what she was about to say. But also exhilarated for him to finally know. Determined to get it out.