The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

“Fine,” Anh huffed. “Malcolm, would you like to entertain
us with tales of your date with Holden?”
“Okay, first, he wore the cutest baby-blue button-down.”
“Baby-blue?”
“Shut your mouth with that skeptical tone. Then he got me
one flower.”
“Where did he get the flower?”
“Not sure.”
Olive poked around the MP3, trying to figure out where to
cut the file. The ending was just minute after minute of
silence, from when she’d left her phone in the hotel room.
“Maybe he stole it from the buffet?” she said absentmindedly.
“I think I saw pink carnations downstairs.”
“Was it a pink carnation?”
“Maybe.”
Anh cackled. “And they say romance is dead.”
“Shut up. Then, toward the beginning of the date,
something happened. Something catastrophic that could only
ever happen to me, given that my entire damn family is
obsessed with science and, therefore, attends all the
conferences. All of them.”
“No. Tell me you didn’t—”
“Yes. When we got to the restaurant, we found my mother,
father, uncle, and grandfather. Who insisted on us joining
them. Which means that my first date with Holden was a
freaking Thanksgiving dinner.”
Olive looked up from her laptop and shared an appalled
look with Anh. “How bad was it?”
“Funny that you ask, because it is with the utmost
disconcert that I must say: it was fucking spectacular. They