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?”