“Okay, that doesn’t mean anything. You also want to spend time with me.”
She grimaced, feeling herself blush scarlet. “Not quite like that.”
Malcolm was quiet for a beat. “I see.” He knew how big of a deal this was for Olive. They’d talked about it multiple times—how rare it was for her to experience attraction, especially sexual attraction. If there was something wrong with her. If her past had stunted her in some way.
“God.” She just wanted to retreat inside her hoodie like a turtle until it all went away. Go run a race. Start writing her dissertation proposal. Anything but deal with this. “It was there, and I didn’t figure it out. I just thought he was smart and attractive and that he had a nice smile and that we could be friends and—” She rubbed her palms into her eye sockets, wishing she could go back and erase her life choices. The entire past month. “Do you hate me?”
“Me?” Malcolm sounded surprised.
“Yes.”
“No. Why would I hate you?”
“Because he’s been horrible to you, made you throw out a ton of data. It’s just—with me he’s not—”
“I know. Well,” he amended, waving his hand, “I don’t know know. But I can believe he’s different with you than when he was in my damn graduate advisory committee.”
“You hate him.”
“Yeah—I hate him. Or . . . I dislike him. But you don’t have to dislike him because I do. Though I do reserve the right to comment on your abysmal taste in men. Every other day or so. But, Ol, I saw you guys at the picnic. He definitely wasn’t interacting with you like he does with me. Plus, you know,” he added begrudgingly, “he’s not not hot. I can see why you’d hit that.”
“This is not what you said when I first told you about the fake dating.”
“No, but I’m trying to be supportive here. You weren’t in love with him at the time.”
She groaned. “Can we please not use that word? Ever again? It seems a little premature.”
“Sure.” Malcolm brushed nonexistent dust off his button-down. “Way to bring a rom-com to life, by the way. So, how are you going to break the news?”
She massaged her temple. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you have a thing for him, and you two are friendly. I’m assuming you’re planning to inform him of your . . . feelings? Can I use the word ‘feelings’？”
“No.”
“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re going to tell him, right?”
“Of course not.” She snorted out a laugh. “You can’t tell the person you’re fake-dating that you”—her brain scanned itself for the correct word, didn’t find it, and then stumbled on—“like them. It’s just not done. Adam will think I orchestrated this. That I was after him all along.”
“That’s ridiculous. You didn’t even know him at the time.”
“Maybe I did, though. Do you remember the guy I told you about, who helped me decide about grad school? The one I met in the bathroom over my interview weekend?”
Malcolm nodded.
“He might have been Adam. I think.”
“You think? You mean you didn’t ask him?”
“Of course not.”
“Why ‘of course’？”
“Because maybe it wasn’t him. And if he was, he clearly doesn’t remember, or he’d have mentioned it weeks ago.”