When she stepped out of the bathroom, someone was about to tear down the door. She opened it to find Anh and Malcolm, who hugged her and started talking so loudly and rapidly, she could barely make out the words—though she did catch the terms “paradigm-shifting,” “life-altering,” and “watershed moment in history.”
They chattered their way to Olive’s unused bed and sat down. After a few more moments of overlapping babbling, Olive decided to intervene and lifted her hands.
“Hold on.” She was already coming down with a headache. Today was going to be a nightmare, for so many reasons. “What happened?”
“The weirdest thing,” Anh said.
“Coolest,” Malcolm interrupted. “She means coolest.”
“Where were you, Ol? You said you were going to join us.”
“Here. I just, um, was tired after my talk, and fell asleep and—”
“Lame, Ol, very lame, but I have no time to berate you for your lameness because I need to catch you up with what happened last night—”
“I should tell her,” Malcolm gave Anh a scathing look. “Since it’s about me.”
“Fair enough,” she conceded with a flourishing gesture.
Malcolm smiled, pleased, and cleared his throat. “Ol, who have I been wanting to have sex with for the past several years?”
“Uh . . .” She scratched her temple. Off the top of her head, she could name about thirty people. “Victoria Beckham?”
“No. Well, yes. But no.”
“David Beckham?”
“Also yes. But no.”
“The other Spice Girl? The one in the Adidas tracksuit—”
“No. Okay, yes, but don’t focus on celebrities, focus on real life people—”
“Holden Rodrigues,” Anh blurted out impatiently. “He hooked up with Rodrigues at the department social. Ol, it is with utmost regret that I must inform you that you have been dethroned and are no longer the president of the Hot for Teacher club. Will you retire in shame or accept the treasurer position?”
Olive blinked. Several times. An inordinate amount of times. And then heard herself say, “Wow.”
“Isn’t it the weirdest—”
“Coolest, Anh,” Malcolm interjected. “Coolest.”
“Things can be weird in a cool way.”
“Right, but this is pure, one hundred percent cool, zero percent weird—”
“Hold up,” Olive interrupted. Her headache was growing a size or two. “Holden is not even in the department. Why was he at the social?”
“No idea, but you bring up an excellent point, which is that since he’s in pharmacology, we can do whatever we want without having to tell anyone.”
Anh tilted her head. “Is that so?”
“Yep. We checked Stanford’s socialization regulations on our way to CVS to get condoms. Basically foreplay.” He closed his eyes in bliss. “Will I ever step inside a pharmacy again without getting a boner?”
Olive cleared her throat. “I’m so happy for you.” She really was. Though this did feel a bit weird. “How did it happen?”
“I hit on him. It was glorious.”
“He was shameless, Ol. And glorious. I took some pictures.”
Malcolm gasped in outrage. “Okay, that’s illegal and I could sue you. But if I look good in them, do send them my way.”
“Will do, babe. Now tell us about the sex.”
The fact that Malcolm, usually very forward with the details of his sex life, just closed his eyes and smiled, spoke volumes. Anh and Olive exchanged a long, impressed glance.
“And that’s not even the best part. He wants to see me again. Today. A date. He used the word ‘date’ unprompted.” He fell back on the mattress. “He’s so hot. And funny. And nice. A sweet, filthy beast.”
Malcolm looked so happy, Olive couldn’t resist: she swallowed the lump that had taken residence in her throat sometime last night and jumped on the bed next to him, hugging him as tight as she could. Anh followed and did the same.
“I’m so happy for you, Malcolm.”
“Same.” Anh’s voice was muffled against his hair.
“I am happy for me, too. I hope he’s serious. You know when I said I was training for gold? Well, Holden’s platinum.”
“You should ask Carlsen, Ol,” Anh suggested. “If he knows what Holden’s intentions are.”
She probably wasn’t going to have the opportunity anytime soon. “I will.”
Malcolm shifted a bit and turned to Olive. “Did you really fall asleep last night? Or were you and Carlsen celebrating in unmentionable ways?”
“Celebrating?”
“I told Holden that I was worried about you, and he said that you guys were probably celebrating. Something about Carlsen’s funds being released? By the way, you never told me Carlsen and Holden were best friends—it seems like a piece of information you’d want to share with your Holden-Rodrigues-fan-club-founder-and-most-vocal-member roommate—”
“Wait.” Olive sat up, wide-eyed. “The funds that were released, are they . . . the frozen ones? The ones Stanford was withholding?”
“Maybe? Holden said something about the department chair finally easing up. I tried to pay attention, but talking about Carlsen is a bit of a buzzkill—no offense. Plus, I kept getting lost in Holden’s eyes.”
“And his butt,” Anh added.
“And his butt.” Malcolm sighed happily. “Such a nice butt. He has little dimples on his lower back.”
“Oh my God, so does Jeremy! I want to bite them.”
“Aren’t they the cutest?”
Olive stopped listening and stood from the bed, grabbing her phone to read the date.
September twenty-ninth.
It was September twenty-ninth.
She had known, of course. She had known for over a month that today was coming, but in the past week she’d been too busy fretting about her talk to focus on anything else, and Adam hadn’t reminded her. With everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, it was no surprise that he’d forgotten to mention that his funds had been released. But still. The implications of it were . . .
She closed her eyes, shut tight, while Anh and Malcolm’s excited chattering kept rising in volume in the background. When she opened them, her phone lit up with a new notification. From Adam.
Adam: I have interview meetings until 4:30, but I’m free for the night. Would you like to get dinner? There are several good restaurants near campus (though a shameful lack of conveyor belts). If you’re not busy, I could show you around campus, maybe even Tom’s lab.
Adam: No pressure, of course.
It was almost two in the afternoon. Olive felt as though her bones weighed twice as much as the day before. She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and began typing her reply to Adam.
She knew what she had to do.
—
SHE KNOCKED ON his door at five sharp, and he answered just a few seconds later, still dressed in slacks and a button-down that must have been his interview attire and . . .
Smiling at her. Not one of those half-baked things she’d gotten used to, but a real, true smile. With dimples, and crinkles around his eyes, and genuine happiness to see her. It shattered her heart in a million pieces before he even spoke.
“Olive.”
She still hadn’t figured it out, why the way he said her name was so unique. There was something packed behind it, something that didn’t quite make it to the surface. A sense of possibilities. Of depth. Olive wondered if it was real, if she was hallucinating it, if he was aware. Olive wondered a lot of things, and then told herself to stop. It couldn’t matter less, now.
“Come in.”
It was an even fancier hotel, and Olive rolled her eyes, wondering why people felt the need to waste thousands of dollars in lodgings for Adam Carlsen when he barely paid attention to his surroundings. They should just give him a cot and donate the money to worthy causes. Endangered whales. Psoriasis. Olive.
“I brought this—I’m assuming it’s yours.” She took a couple of steps toward him and held out a phone charger, letting the cable end dangle, making sure that Adam wouldn’t need to touch her.
“It is. Thank you.”
“It was behind the bedside lamp, probably why you forgot it.” She pressed her lips together. “Or maybe it’s old age. Maybe dementia has already set in. All those amyloid plaques.”
He glared at her, and she tried not to smile, but she already was, and he was rolling his eyes and calling her a smart-ass, and—
Here they were. Doing this, again. Dammit.
She let her eyes wander away, because—no. Not anymore. “How was the interview?”
“Good. Just day one, though.”
“Of how many?”
“Too many.” He sighed. “I have grant meetings with Tom scheduled, too.”
Tom. Right. Of course. Of course—this was why she was here. To explain to him that—
“Thank you for coming out,” he said, voice quiet and earnest. As though by hopping on a train and agreeing to see him, Olive had given him a great deal of pleasure. “I figured you might be busy with your friends.”
She shook her head. “No. Anh’s out with Jeremy.”