The Love Hypothesis (Love Hypothesis #1)(48)

“Sure.” She rocked once on her heels, giving Tom one last look. Sadly, he seemed taken with his laptop. “Bye, Tom. It was nice to meet you. Have a safe trip home.”

“Likewise,” he said, not even glancing at her. “I had lots of interesting conversations.”

“Yeah.” It must have been the section on genome-based prognostics, she thought, following Adam out of the room. She’d suspected it was too weak, but she’d been stupid and she’d sent the report anyway. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should have beefed it up. The most important thing now was to avoid crying until she was— “And, Olive,” Tom added.

She paused under the doorframe and looked back at him. “Yes?”

“I’ll see you next year at Harvard, right?” His gaze finally slid up to meet hers. “I have the perfect bench set aside for you.”

Her heart detonated. It absolutely exploded with joy in her chest, and Olive felt a violent wave of happiness, pride, and relief all wash over her. It could have easily knocked her to the floor, but by some miracle of biology she managed to stay upright and smile at Tom.

“I can’t wait,” she said, voice thick with happy tears. “Thank you so much.”

He gave her a wink and one last smile, kind and encouraging. Olive barely managed to wait until she was outside to fist-pump, then jump around a few times, then fist-pump again.

“You all done?” Adam asked.

She turned around, remembering that she wasn’t alone. His arms were folded on his chest, fingers drumming against his biceps. There was an indulgent expression in his eyes, and—she should have been embarrassed, but she just couldn’t help it. Olive threw herself at him and hugged his torso as tight as she could. She closed her eyes when, after a few seconds of hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her.

“Congratulations,” he whispered softly against her hair. Just like that Olive was on the verge of tears all over again.

Once they were in Adam’s car—a Prius, to exactly no one’s surprise—and driving to campus, she felt so happy she couldn’t possibly be quiet.

“He’ll take me. He said he’ll take me.”

“He’d be an idiot not to.” Adam was smiling softly. “I knew he would.”

“Had he told you?” Her eyes widened. “You knew, and you didn’t even tell me—”

“He hadn’t. We haven’t discussed you.”

“Oh?” She tilted her head, turning around in the car seat to better look at him. “Why?”

“Unspoken agreement. It might be a conflict of interest.”

“Right.” Sure. It made sense. Close friend and girlfriend. Fake girlfriend, actually.

“Can I ask you something?”

She nodded.

“There are lots of cancer labs in the US. Why did you choose Tom’s?”

“Well, I sort of didn’t. I emailed several people—two of whom are at UCSF, which is much closer than Boston. But Tom was the only one who answered.” She leaned her head against the seat. It occurred to her for the first time that she was going to have to leave her life for an entire year. Her apartment with Malcolm, her nights spent with Anh. Adam, even. She immediately pushed the thought away, not ready to entertain it. “Why do professors never answer students’ emails, by the way?”

“Because we get approximately two hundred a day, and most of them are iterations of ‘why do I have a C minus?’?” He was quiet for a moment. “My advice for the future is to have your adviser reach out, instead of doing it yourself.”

She nodded and stored away the information. “I’m glad Harvard worked out, though. It’s going to be amazing. Tom is such a big name, and the amount of work I can do in his lab is limitless. I’ll be running studies twenty-four seven, and if the results are what I think they’ll be, I’ll be able to publish in high-impact journals and probably get a clinical trial started in just a few years.” She felt high on the prospect. “Hey, you and I now have a collaborator in common, on top of being excellent fake-dating partners!” A thought occurred to her. “What is your and Tom’s big grant about, anyway?”

“Cell-based models.”

“Off-lattice?”

He nodded.

“Wow. That’s cool stuff.”

“It’s the most interesting project I’m working on, for sure. Got the grant at the right moment, too.”

“What do you mean?”

He was silent for a beat while he switched lanes. “It’s different from my other grants—mostly genetic stuff. Which is interesting, don’t get me wrong, but after ten years researching the same exact thing, I was in a rut.”

“You mean . . . bored?”

“To death. I briefly considered going into industry.”

Olive gasped. Switching from academia to industry was considered the ultimate betrayal.

“Don’t worry.” Adam smiled. “Tom saved the day. When I told him I wasn’t enjoying research anymore, we brainstormed some new directions, found something we were both enthusiastic about, and wrote the grant.”

Olive felt a sudden surge of gratitude toward Tom. Not only was he going to rescue her project, but he was the reason Adam was still around. The reason she’d gotten the opportunity to know him. “It must be nice to be excited about work again.”