“You put in expired contacts?” He sounded personally offended.
“Just a little expired.”
“What’s ‘a little’？”
“I don’t know. A few years?”
“What?” His consonants were sharp and precise. Crisp. Pleasant.
“Only just a couple, I think.”
“Just a couple of years?”
“It’s okay. Expiration dates are for the weak.”
A sharp sound—some kind of snort. “Expiration dates are so I don’t find you weeping in the corner of my bathroom.”
Unless this dude was Mr. Stanford himself, he really needed to stop calling this his bathroom.
“It’s fine.” She waved a hand. She’d have rolled her eyes, if they hadn’t been on fire. “The burning usually lasts only a few minutes.”
“You mean you’ve done this before?”
She frowned. “Done what?”
“Put in expired contacts.”
“Of course. Contacts are not cheap.”
“Neither are eyes.”
Humph. Good point. “Hey, have we met? Maybe last night, at the recruitment dinner with prospective Ph.D. students?”
“No.”
“You weren’t there?”
“Not really my scene.”
“But the free food?”
“Not worth the small talk.”
Maybe he was on a diet, because what kind of Ph.D. student said that? And Olive was sure that he was a Ph.D. student—the haughty, condescending tone was a dead giveaway. All Ph.D. students were like that: thinking they were better than everyone else just because they had the dubious privilege of slaughtering fruit flies in the name of science for ninety cents an hour. In the grim, dark hellscape of academia, graduate students were the lowliest of creatures and therefore had to convince themselves that they were the best. Olive was no clinical psychologist, but it seemed like a pretty textbook defense mechanism.
“Are you interviewing for a spot in the program?” he asked.
“Yup. For next year’s biology cohort.” God, her eyes were burning. “What about you?” she asked, pressing her palms into them.
“Me?”
“How long have you been here?”
“Here?” A pause. “Six years. Give or take.”
“Oh. Are you graduating soon, then?”
“I . . .”
She picked up on his hesitation and instantly felt guilty. “Wait, you don’t have to tell me. First rule of grad school—don’t ask about other grads’ dissertation timeline.”
A beat. And then another. “Right.”
“Sorry.” She wished she could see him. Social interactions were hard enough to begin with; the last thing she needed was fewer cues to go by. “I didn’t mean to channel your parents at Thanksgiving.”
He laughed softly. “You could never.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Annoying parents?”
“And even worse Thanksgivings.”
“That’s what you Americans get for leaving the Commonwealth.” She held out her hand in what she hoped was his general direction. “I’m Olive, by the way. Like the tree.” She was starting to wonder whether she’d just introduced herself to the drain disposal when she heard him step closer. The hand that closed around hers was dry, and warm, and so large it could have enveloped her whole fist. Everything about him must be huge. Height, fingers, voice.