“You sneaky monster,” he hissed. His black eyes were almost comically narrow. “I’ve been texting you all day.”
“Oh.” Olive patted the back pocket of her jeans, and then the front one, trying to remember the last time she had seen her phone. “I think I might have left my phone at home.”
“I cannot believe it.”
“Believe what?”
“I cannot believe you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“Good friends.”
“We are. You and Anh are my best friends. What—”
“Clearly not, if I had to hear it from Stella, who heard it from Jess, who heard it from Jeremy, who heard it from Anh—”
“Hear what?”
“—who heard it from I don’t even know who. And I thought we were friends.”
Something icy crawled its way up Olive’s back. Could it be . . . No. No, it couldn’t be. “Hear what?”
“I’m done. I’m letting the cockroaches eat you. And I’m changing my Netflix password.”
Oh no. “Malcolm. Hear what?”
“That you are dating Adam Carlsen.”
* * *
—
OLIVE HAD NEVER been in Carlsen’s lab, but she knew where to find it. It was the biggest, most functional research space in the whole department, coveted by all and a never-ending source of resentment toward Carlsen. She had to swipe her badge once and then once more to access it (she rolled her eyes both times). The second door opened directly onto the lab space, and maybe it was because he was as tall as Mount Everest and his shoulders were just as large, but Carlsen was the very first thing she noticed. He was peering at a Southern blot next to Alex, a grad who was one year ahead of Olive, but he turned toward the entrance the moment she came in.
Olive smiled weakly at him—mainly out of relief at having found him.
It was going to be all right. She was going to explain to him what Malcolm had told her, and without a doubt he was going to find the situation categorically unacceptable and fix it for the both of them, because Olive could not spend her next three years surrounded by people who thought that she was dating Adam freaking Carlsen.
The problem was, Carlsen wasn’t the only one to notice Olive. There were over a dozen benches in the lab, and at least ten people working at them. Most of them—all of them—were staring at Olive. Probably because most of them—all of them—had heard that Olive was dating their boss.
Fuck her life.
“Can I talk to you for a minute, Dr. Carlsen?” Rationally, Olive knew that the lab was not furnished in a way that made echoing possible. Still, she felt as though her words bounced off the walls and repeated about four times.
Carlsen nodded, nonplussed, and handed the Southern blot to Alex before heading in her direction. He appeared either unaware or uncaring that approximately two-thirds of his lab members were gaping at him. The remaining ones seemed to be on the verge of a hemorrhagic stroke.
He led Olive to a meeting room just outside the main lab space, and she followed him silently, trying not to dwell on the fact that a lab full of people who thought that she and Carlsen were dating had just seen them enter a private room. Alone.
This was the worst. The absolute worst.
“Everyone knows,” she blurted out as soon as the door closed behind her.
He studied her for a moment, looking puzzled. “Are you okay?”
“Everyone knows. About us.”
He cocked his head, crossing his arms over his chest. It had been barely a day since they’d last talked, but apparently long enough for Olive to have forgotten his . . . his presence. Or whatever it was that made her feel like she was small and delicate whenever he was around. “Us?”
“Us.”
He seemed confused, so Olive elaborated.
“Us, dating—not that we’re dating, but Anh clearly thought so, and she told . . .” She realized that the words were tumbling out and forced herself to slow down. “Jeremy. And he told everyone, and now everyone knows. Or they think they know, even though there’s absolutely nothing to know. As you and I know.”
He took it in for a moment and then nodded slowly. “And when you say everyone . . . ?”
“I mean everyone.” She pointed in the direction of his lab. “Those people? They know. The other grads? They know. Cherie, the department secretary? She totally knows. Gossip in this department is the worst. And they all think that I am dating a professor.”
“I see,” he said, seeming strangely unbothered by this clusterfuck. It should have calmed Olive down, but it only had the effect of driving her panic up a notch.
“I am sorry this happened. So sorry. This is all my fault.” She wiped a hand down her face. “But I didn’t think that . . . I understand why Anh would tell Jeremy—I mean, getting those two together was the whole point of this charade—but . . . Why would Jeremy tell anyone?”
Carlsen shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he?”
She looked up. “What do you mean?”
“A grad student dating a faculty member seems like an interesting piece of information to share.”
Olive shook her head. “It’s not that interesting. Why would people be interested?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Someone once told me that ‘Gossip in this department is the wor—’ ”
“Okay, okay. Point taken.” She took a deep breath and started pacing, trying to ignore the way Carlsen was studying her, how relaxed he looked, arms across his chest while leaning against the conference table. He was not supposed to be calm. He was supposed to be incensed. He was a known dick with a reputation for arrogance—the idea of people thinking that he was dating a nobody should be mortifying to him. The burden of freaking out should not be falling on Olive alone.
“This is— We need to do something, of course. We need to tell people that this is not true and that we made it all up. Except that they’ll think that I’m crazy, and maybe that you are, too, so we have to come up with some other story. Yes, okay, we need to tell people we’re not together anymore—”
“And what will Anh and what’s-his-face do?”
Olive stopped pacing. “Uh?”
“Won’t your friends feel bad about dating if they think we’re not together? Or that you lied to them?”