It was an epically bad idea. The worst idea ever entertained in the epically bad history of bad ideas. Except that it really would solve this current problem of hers, as well as some of Adam’s, in exchange for saying hi to him once a week and making an effort not to call him Dr. Carlsen. It seemed like a pretty good deal.
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course,” he said calmly. Reassuringly.
She hadn’t thought he’d be like this. After hearing all the stories, and seeing him walk around with that perpetual frown of his, she really hadn’t thought he’d be like this. Even if she didn’t quite know what this even meant.
“And thank you, I guess. For offering. Adam.” She added the last word like an afterthought. Trying it out on her lips. It felt weird, but not too weird.
After a long pause, he nodded. “No problem. Olive.”
Chapter Three
HYPOTHESIS: A private conversation with Adam Carlsen will become 150 percent more awkward after the word “sex” is uttered. By me.
Three days later, Olive found herself standing in front of Adam’s office.
She’d never been there before, but she had no problem finding it. The student scurrying out with misty eyes and a terrified expression was a dead giveaway, not to mention that Adam’s door was the only one in the hallway completely devoid of pictures of kids, pets, or significant others. Not even a copy of his article that had made the cover of Nature Methods, which she knew about from looking him up on Google Scholar the previous day. Just dark brown wood and a metal plaque that read: Adam J. Carlsen, Ph.D.
Maybe the J stood for “Jackass.”
Olive had felt a bit like a creep the night before, scrolling down his faculty web page and going through his list of ten million publications and research grants, staring at a picture of him clearly taken in the middle of a hiking trip and not by Stanford’s official photographer. Still, she’d quickly quashed the feeling, telling herself that a thorough academic background check was only logical before embarking on a fake-dating relationship.
She took a deep breath before knocking and then another between Adam’s “Come in” and the moment she finally managed to force herself to open the door. When she entered the office, he didn’t immediately look up and continued typing on his iMac. “My office hours were over five minutes ago, so—”
“It’s me.”
His hands halted, hovering half an inch or so above the keyboard. Then he turned his chair toward her. “Olive.”
There was something about the way he talked. Maybe it was an accent, maybe just a quality of his voice. Olive didn’t quite know what, but it was there, in the way he said her name. Precise. Careful. Deep. Unlike anyone else. Familiar—impossibly so.
“What did you say to her?” she asked, trying not to care about how Adam Carlsen spoke. “The girl who ran out in tears?”
It took him a moment to remember that less than sixty seconds ago there had been someone else in the office—someone whom he clearly made cry. “I just gave her feedback on something she wrote.”
Olive nodded, silently thanking all the gods that he was not her adviser and never would be, and studied her surroundings. He had a corner office, of course. Two windows that together must total seventy thousand square meters of glass, and so much light, just standing in the middle of the room would cure twenty people’s seasonal depression. It made sense, what with all the grant money he brought in, what with the prestige, that he’d been given a nice space. Olive’s office, on the other hand, had no windows and smelled funny, probably because she shared it with three other Ph.D. students, even though it was meant to accommodate two at the most.
“I was going to email you. I talked to the dean earlier today,” Adam told her, and she looked back at him.
He was gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. Olive pulled it back and took a seat.
“About you.”
“Oh.” Olive’s stomach dropped. She’d much rather the dean didn’t know about her existence. Then again, she’d also rather not be in this room with Adam Carlsen, have the semester begin in a handful of days, have climate change be a thing. And yet.
“Well, about us,” he amended. “And socialization regulations.”
“What did she say?”
“There’s nothing against you and me dating, since I’m not your adviser.”
A mix of panic and relief flooded through Olive.
“However, there are some issues to consider. I won’t be able to collaborate with you in any formal capacity. And I’m part of the program’s awards committee, which means that I’ll have to excuse myself if you are nominated for fellowships or similar opportunities.”
She nodded. “Fair enough.”
“And I absolutely cannot be part of your thesis committee.”
Olive huffed out a laugh. “That won’t be a problem. I wasn’t going to ask you to be on my committee.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why not? You study pancreatic cancer, right?”
“Yep. Early detection.”
“Then your work would benefit from the perspective of a computational modeler.”
“Yeah, but there are other computational modelers in the department. And I’d like to eventually graduate, ideally without sobbing in a bathroom stall after each committee meeting.”
He glared at her.
Olive shrugged. “No offense. I’m a simple girl, with simple needs.”
To that, he lowered his gaze to his desk, but not before Olive could see the corner of his mouth twitch. When he looked up again, his expression was serious. “So, have you decided?”
She pressed her lips together as he watched her calmly. She took a deep breath before saying, “Yes. Yes, I . . . I want to do it. It’s a good idea, actually.”
For so many reasons. It would get Anh and Jeremy off her back, but also . . . also everyone else. It was as if since the rumor had begun to spread, people had been too intimidated by Olive to give her the usual shit. The other TAs had quit trying to switch her nice 2:00 p.m. sections with their horrifying 8:00 a.m. ones, her lab mates had stopped cutting in front of her in the line for the microscope, and two different faculty members Olive had been trying to get ahold of for weeks had finally deigned to answer her emails. It felt a little unfair to exploit this huge misunderstanding, but academia was a lawless land and Olive’s life in it had been nothing but miserable for the past two years. She had learned to grab whatever she could get away with. And if some—okay, if most of the grads in the department looked at her suspiciously because she was dating Adam Carlsen, so be it. Her friends seemed to be largely fine with this, if a little bemused.