The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

“The— Oh.” Adam rolled his eyes, looking a little more
like himself. “Right. That fu—” He stopped short. “That
picnic.”
She grinned. “It’s on Monday.”
He sighed. “I know.”
“You’re still going?”
He gave her a look that clearly stated: It’s not like I have a
choice, even though I’d rather have my nails extracted one by
one. With pliers.
Olive laughed. “Well. I’m going, too.”
“At least there’s that.”
“Are you bringing Tom?”
“Probably. He actually likes people.”
“Okay. I can network with him a bit, and you and I can
show off how steady and committed we are to the department
chair. You’ll look like a wingless bird. No flight risk
whatsoever.”
“Perfect. I’ll bring a counterfeit marriage license to
casually drop at his feet.”
Olive laughed, waved goodbye, and then jogged up to Anh.
She rubbed the side of her hand against her lips, as if trying to
scrub her mind clean of the fact that she had just kissed Adam
—Dr. Adam Carlsen—for the second time in her life. Which,
again, was fine. It had been barely a kiss. Not important.
“Well, then,” Anh said, tucking her phone into her pocket.
“You really just made out in front of the biology building with
associate professor Adam MacArthur Carlsen.”
Olive rolled her eyes and started up the stairs. “I’m pretty
sure that’s not his middle name. And we did not.”
“But it was clear that you wanted to.”