“I’m not. Though you’re so comfy.”
His fingers tightened on her, maybe to wake her up, maybe to hold her closer. She was about to melt off the chair and start snoring.
“You look like you’re about to take a nap.”
“It’s just that I’ve read all of Tom’s articles. I already know what he’s saying.”
“Yeah, same. We cited all this stuff in our grant proposal.” He sighed, and she felt his body move under hers. “This is dull.”
“Maybe you should ask a question. To liven this up.”
Adam turned slightly to her. “Me?”
She angled her head to speak in his ear. “I’m sure you can come up with something. Just raise your hand and make a mean observation with that tone of yours. Glare at him. It might devolve into an entertaining outbreak of fisticuffs.”
His cheek curved. “You are such a smart-ass.”
Olive looked back to the slides, smiling. “Has it been weird? Having to lie to Tom about us?”
Adam seemed to think about it. “No.” He hesitated. “It looks like your friends are buying that we’re together.”
“I think so. I’m not exactly a convincing liar, and sometimes I worry that Anh might get suspicious. But I walked in on her and Jeremy making out in the grad lounge the other day.”
They fell quiet and listened to the last few minutes of the talk in silence. In front of them, Olive could see at least two professors taking a nap, and several surreptitiously working on their laptops. Next to Adam, Dr. Rodrigues had been playing Candy Crush on his phone for the past half an hour. Some people had left, and Anh had found a seat about ten minutes ago. So had several of the students who had been next to Olive, which meant that she could have technically stood up and left Adam alone. Technically. Technically, there was an open chair somewhere in the third-to-last row. Technically.
Instead she brought her lips to Adam’s ear once more and whispered, “It’s working out well for me, I have to say. This whole fake-dating thing.” More than well. Better than she ever thought it would.
Adam blinked once and then nodded. Maybe his arm tensed a little around her. Maybe it didn’t, and Olive’s mind was playing tricks on her. It was starting to get late, after all. Her last coffee had been too long ago, and she wasn’t fully awake, her thoughts fuzzy and relaxed.
“What about you?”
“Mmm?” Adam wasn’t looking at her.
“Is it working for you?” It came out a little needy. Olive told herself that it was only because of how low she had to pitch her voice. “Or do you maybe want to fake–break up early?”
He didn’t reply for a second. Then, just as Dr. Moss took the mic to thank Tom and ask the audience for questions, she heard him say, “No. I don’t want to fake–break up.”
He really did smell good. And he was funny in a weird, deadpan way, and yes, a known ass, but friendly enough to her that she could sort of ignore that about him. Plus, he was spending a small fortune on sugar for her. Truly, she had nothing to complain about.
Olive settled herself more comfortably and turned her attention back to the podium.
* * *
—
AFTER THE TALK, Olive considered walking down to the podium to compliment Tom and ask him one or two questions she already knew the answers to. Sadly, there were dozens of people waiting to speak to him, and she decided that the ass-kissing wasn’t worth standing in line. So she said goodbye to Adam, waited for Anh to wake up from her nap while contemplating getting revenge by drawing a dick on her face, and then slowly headed with her across campus back to the biology building.