The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

beers-and-s’mores night wearing leggings and an oversize
MIT sweater she’d clearly borrowed from him. When Olive
had eaten lunch with the two of them the other day, it hadn’t
even felt awkward. Plus, the first-, second-, and even thirdyear
grads were too scared of Adam Carlsen’s “girlfriend” to
steal Olive’s pipettes, which meant that she didn’t have to stuff
them in her backpack and take them home for the weekend
anymore. And she was getting some grade A free food out of
this. She could take Adam Carlsen—yes, even this pitchblack-mood
Adam Carlsen. For ten minutes a week, at the
very least.
“Hey.” She smiled. He responded with a look that exuded
moodiness and existential angst. Olive took a fortifying breath.
“How are you?”
“Fine.” His tone was clipped, his expression tenser than
usual. He was wearing a red plaid shirt and jeans, looking
more like a wood-chopping lumberjack than a scholar
pondering the mysteries of computational biology. She
couldn’t help noticing the muscles and wondered again if he
had his clothes custom-made. His hair was still a bit long but
shorter than the previous week. It seemed a little surreal that
she and Adam Carlsen were at a point where she was able to
keep track of both his moods and his haircuts.
“Ready to get coffee?” she chirped.
He nodded distractedly, barely looking at her. On a table in
the back, a fifth-year was glancing at them while pretending to
clean the monitor of his laptop.
“Sorry if I was late. I just—”
“It’s fine.”
“Did you have a good week?”
“Fine.”
Okay. “Um . . . did you do anything fun last weekend?”