The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

obvious from the way Adam stared at you that he was wild
about you. And the opposite—you looked at him like he was
the only guy on earth and then—it always seemed like you
were forcing yourself to hold back on him, and I wanted you
to know that you could express your feelings if you wanted to
—I really thought I was helping you, and—you fake-dated
Adam Carlsen?”
Olive sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry I lied. Please, don’t hate
me, I—”
“I don’t hate you.”
Oh? “You . . . don’t?”
“Of course not.” Anh was indignant. “I low-key hate myself
for forcing you to do all that stuff. Well, maybe not ‘hate,’ but
I’d write myself a strongly worded email. And I’m incredibly
flattered that you’d do something like that for me. I mean, it
was misguided, and ridiculous, and needlessly convoluted, and
you’re a living, breathing, rom-com trope machine, and . . .
God, Ol, you’re such an idiot. But a very lovable idiot, and my
idiot.” She shook her head, incredulous, but squeezed her hand
on Olive’s knee and glanced at Malcolm. “Wait. Is your thing
with Rodrigues real? Or are you two pretending to bone so a
judge will give him custody of his recently orphaned
godchildren?”
“Very real.” Malcolm’s smile was smug. “We fuck like
bunnies.”
“Fantastic. Well, Ol, we’ll talk about this more. A lot more.
We’ll probably only talk about the greatest fake-dating event
of the twenty-first century for millennia to come, but for now
we should focus on Tom, and . . . it changes nothing, whether
you and Adam are together. I still think he’d want to know. I’d
want to know. Ol, if the situation were inverted, if you were
the one who stood to lose something and Adam had been
sexually harassed—”