The Love Hypothesis

by Ali Hazelwood

“I…is this the ladies’ restroom?” she stammered. A pause. Silence. And then: “Nope.” His voice was deep. So deep. Really deep. Dreamy deep.

“Yes. Of course.” He must be getting back into his usual groove, because his tone had lost some of its surprise and was back to normal—dry. Laconic. “I’ll just go back to my office and begin to work on my Title IX complaint.” Olive exhaled in relief. “Yeah. That would be great, since— Wait. Your what?”

He nodded. “So you kissed the first person you saw in the hallway. Perfectly logical.” Olive winced. “When you put it like that, perhaps it wasn’t my best moment.” “Perhaps.”

Crap, crap, crap. “I’m going to leave now, okay? Thank you, and…I am so, so, so sorry.” Olive spun around on her heels and ran away down the hallway. “Olive,” she heard him call after her. “Olive, wait—” She didn’t stop.

It never occurred to Olive that Dr. Adam Carlsen—known ass—had called her by her name.

Oh this bout to be goood

she was sure many people were alone in the world and found themselves having to write down made-up names and phone numbers on their emergency contact forms.

“Hey.” The voice, deep and even, came from somewhere behind Olive, but she didn’t need to turn to know that it was Carlsen’s.

“Right. Um, I know who you are, too, Dr. Carlsen.” “You should probably call me Adam.” “Oh. Oh, no.”

“Thanks. But no need.” She could tell that he didn’t want to insist but couldn’t help himself. “I’d feel better if you let me walk you to your car.” “I don’t have a car.”

“Oh my God, are you trying to get citizenship? Are they deporting you back to Canada because we’ve been sharing Malcolm’s Netflix password? Tell them we didn’t know it was a federal crime. No, wait, don’t tell them anything until we get you a lawyer. And, Ol, I will marry you. I’ll get you a green card and you won’t have to—”

Carlsen shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he?” She looked up. “What do you mean?” “A grad student dating a faculty member seems like an interesting piece of information to share.”

“Maybe we can tell people that I broke up with you?” “That’s very flattering,” Dr. Carlsen deadpanned. She couldn’t quite figure out if he was joking. “Fine. We can say that you broke up with me.” “Because that sounds credible,” he said drily, almost below his breath. She

“What if we tell people that it was a mutual breakup?” He nodded. “Sounds good.” Olive perked up. “Really? Great, then! We’ll—” “We could ask Cherie to add it to the departmental newsletter.” “What?”

“Okay, then. If you have any ideas on how to fix this mess, by all means I am open to—” “You could let them go on thinking it.” For a moment, she thought she hadn’t heard him correctly. “W-What?”

“Are you not…” Olive had no idea how to even ask it. “Married, or something?”

He shrugged. “My wife and the twins won’t mind.” Oh, shit.

“Dr. Carlsen, this is not something you should joke—” “You really need to start calling me Adam. Since we’ve reportedly been dating for a while.”

He was smiling, staring at her with a strange light in his eyes. And would you look at that: Adam Carlsen had dimples. Cute ones. “Yep.” “And it’s all my fault.” “Pretty much. I kind of yanked Anh’s chain yesterday, but yeah, I’d say that it’s mostly your fault.”

“Zero. But I am familiar with the trope.” “The…what?” He blinked at her, confused.

“Ten?” He turned back to her. “Ten’s good.” “Okay.” She waited for him to type it in, but he made no move to. “Aren’t you going to add it to your calendar?” “I’ll remember,” he told her evenly.

Kicking my little feet

“What will you have today?” Olive smiled back, gesturing at Adam to order first. “Coffee.” He darted a glance at her before adding, sheepishly, “Black.”

She shrugged, adding a chocolate chip cookie, a banana, and a pack of gum to her coffee. To his credit, Adam said nothing and paid the resulting $21.39 without batting an eye.

“I’m sorry about your funds.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry about the mood.” Oh. “It’s okay. You’re famous for that.” “I am?” “Yep. It’s kind of your thing.” “Is that so?” “Mmm.” His mouth twitched. “Maybe I wanted to spare you.”

“Everyone.” “Everyone,” Adam repeated. He was scowling now. “In Boston?” “Yeah.” “Why are people at Harvard talking about my girlfriend?” “Because you’re you.” “Because I’m me?”

There was a smooth charm to him. He was young to be a professor, though not as young as Adam. And he was tall, though not as tall as Adam. And he was handsome, though…yeah. Not as handsome as Adam.

“Tom,” Adam interrupted, tone sharp. He set his tea down with more force than necessary. “Stop harassing my girlfriend.” It was less of a warning and more of a threat.

“It’s fine.” The words vibrated in her ear, rich and warm. “More material for my Title IX complaint.” Shit. “God, I’m so sorry—” “Olive.”

Somewhere halfway through the talk she realized that she had been sliding down Adam’s thigh. Or, to be fair, Adam realized and lifted her up, straightening her in a firm, quick pull that made her feel like she really didn’t weigh anything.

“No. I don’t want to fake–break up.”

blinking, a little shocked. Had she hallucinated it? Had Adam really just pushed a giant truck all by himself? Was he an alien from planet Krypton who moonlighted as a superhero?

“Olive?” he said, and she immediately averted her eyes. Crap, he’d totally caught her staring. First she’d forced him to kiss her, and now she was ogling him like some perv in the biology parking lot and— “Did you need anything?”

“Is that a six-pack?” Jeremy blinked. “Might even be an eight-pack.” “Are those his real shoulders?” Anh

“God, is that Carlsen’s chest?” Malcolm leaned his chin over Olive’s shoulder. “Was that thing under his shirt while he was ripping my dissertation proposal a new one? Ol. Why didn’t you say that he was shredded?”

“Antagonistic and unapproachable?” Crap. “I didn’t say that.” “You just typed it.”

and then went for it anyway. “How old are you?” “Thirty-four.”

“You know, when I have no more friends and everyone hates me because of this fake-dating thing, I’ll be super lonely and you are going to have to hang out with me every day. I’ll annoy you all the time. Is it really worth being mean to every grad in the program?” “Absolutely.” She sighed again, this time with a smile, and let the side of her head rest on his shoulder.

“I’m not sorry for asking Greg to revise his proposal. But I am sorry that I created a situation that led him to take it out on you. That as long as this continues, it might happen again.” “Well, I am sorry about the texts I sent,” she said again. “And you’re fine. Even if you’re antagonistic and unapproachable.” “Good to hear.”

“Then maybe I should stick around. Just, you know, to save the department from your terrible moods?” He glanced at the picture of the failed Western blot in her hand. “Well, it doesn’t look like you’re going to graduate anytime soon.”

“There’s nothing bad about taking more than five years to graduate,” he offered in a conciliatory tone. Olive huffed. “You just want me to stay around forever. Until you have the biggest, fattest, strongest Title IX case to ever exist.” “That was my plan all along, in fact. The one and only reason I kissed you out of the blue.”

She felt her cheeks curve into a smile, trying to imagine what he was listening to. Probably Coil, or Kraftwerk. The Velvet Underground. A TED Talk on water-efficient landscaping. Whale noises.

“Hey, the flu is more serious than you might think.” “It’s not that bad.” “It is, especially for people like you.” “Like me?” “You know…people of a certain age.”

Totally— Oh.” Olive covered her mouth with her hand. “What?” “Oh my God.” “What?” “Are you— Oh, Adam.” “What?”

“There is no fear of—” “I get it, needles are scary.” “It’s not—” “You are allowed to be scared.” “I am not,” he told her, a

She let her hand slide down to his wrist and looked up at him. “You so are.” “Please.” He looked pained. “Don’t make me.”

“Will I be paying for this ice cream sandwich?” He sounded resigned now. “Likely. Actually, scratch that, you probably don’t like ice cream anyway, because you don’t enjoy anything that’s good in life.” She kept on walking, pensively chewing on her lower lip. “Maybe the cafeteria has some raw broccoli?” “I don’t deserve this verbal abuse on top of the flu shot.”

You never said it would hurt so bad. Olive: As someone once told me, it’s not my job to work on your emotion regulation skills.

“First of all, how bad is it?” “I don’t know. Is there a scale?” “Well, there is liking, and there is liking.”

now. “I won’t tell him.” “Ol.” “No,” she said, firm.

“Do I tell him that I’m into him? That I think about him all the time? That I have a huge crush on him? That—” “Olive.” In the end, what tipped her off was not Malcolm’s words, or

Aaahhh YESSSS

“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,