The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

that she didn’t even flip her off when Anh turned around from
the path and asked, “Is he blackmailing you?”
“Huh?”
“Carlsen. Is he blackmailing you? Did he find out that
you’re an aberration and pee in the shower?”
“First of all, it’s time efficient.” Olive glared. “Second, I
find it oddly flattering that you’d think Carlsen would go to
these ridiculous lengths to get me to date him.”
“Anyone would, Ol. Because you’re awesome.” Anh
grimaced before adding, “Except when you’re peeing in the
shower.”
—
JEREMY WAS ACTING weird. Which didn’t mean much, since
Jeremy had always been a bit awkward, and having recently
split from Olive to date her best friend was not going to make
him any less so—but today he seemed even weirder than
usual. He came into the campus coffee shop, a few hours after
Olive’s conversation with Anh, and proceeded to stare at her
for two good minutes. Then three. Then five. It was more
attention than he’d ever paid to Olive—yes, including their
dates.
When it got borderline ridiculous, she lifted her eyes from
her laptop and waved at him. Jeremy flushed, grabbed his latte
from the counter, and found a table for himself. Olive went
back to rereading her two-line email for the seventieth time.
Today, 10:12 a.m.
FROM: Olive-Smith@stanford.edu
TO: Tom-Benton@harvard.edu
SUBJECT: Re: Pancreatic Cancer Screening Project
Dr. Benton,