“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.
Except for Malcolm. He’d been shunning her like she had the pox for three solid days. But Malcolm was Malcolm—he’d come around.
“Very well, then.” He was completely expressionless—almost too expressionless. Like it was no big deal and he didn’t care either way; like if she’d said no, it wouldn’t have changed anything for him.
“Though, I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”
He waited patiently for her to continue.
“And I think that it would be best if we laid down some ground rules. Before starting.”
“Ground rules?”
“Yes. You know. What we are allowed and not allowed to do. What we can expect from this arrangement. I think that’s pretty standard protocol, before embarking on a fake-dating relationship.”
He tilted his head. “Standard protocol?”
“Yup.”
“How many times have you done this?”
“Zero. But I am familiar with the trope.”
“The . . . what?” He blinked at her, confused.
Olive ignored him. “Okay.” She inhaled deeply and lifted her index finger. “First of all, this should be a strictly on-campus arrangement. Not that I think you’d want to meet me off campus, but just in case you were planning to kill two birds with one stone, I’m not going to be your last-minute backup if you need to bring a date home for Christmas, or—”
“Hanukkah.”
“What?”
“My family is more likely to celebrate Hanukkah than Christmas.” He shrugged. “Though I’m unlikely to celebrate either.”