was what one got for masterminding an intricate fake-dating scheme that was supposed to benefit a friend’s love life, then maybe— Olive halted abruptly.
Adam’s head was bent forward, black hair covering his forehead as he wiped the sweat from his eyes with the hem of his shirt. It left a broad strip of flesh visible on his torso, and—it was nothing indecent, really, nothing unusual, just some fit guy’s midriff, but for some reason Olive couldn’t help staring at Adam Carlsen’s uncovered skin like it was a slab of Italian marble, and—
“Olive?” he said, and she immediately averted her eyes. Crap, he’d totally caught her staring. First she’d forced him to kiss her, and now she was ogling him like some perv in the biology parking lot and—
“Did you need anything?”
“No, I . . .” She felt her cheeks go crimson.
His skin, too, was flushed from the effort of pushing, and his eyes were bright and clear, and he seemed . . . well, at least he didn’t seem unhappy to see her.
“Anh sent me to give you a kiss.”
He froze halfway through wiping his hands on his shirt. And then he said
“Ah” in his usual neutral, unreadable tone.
“Because you moved the truck. I—I know how ridiculous that sounds. I know. But I didn’t want her to get suspicious, and there are faculty members here, too, so maybe they’ll tell the department chair and it will be two birds with one stone and I can leave if you—”
“It’s okay, Olive. Breathe.”
Right. Yes. Good suggestion. Olive did breathe, and the act made her realize that she hadn’t done that in a while, which in turn made her smile up at Adam—who did his mouth-twitch thing back at her. She was really starting to get used to him. To his expressions, his size, his distinctive way of being in the same space as her.
“Anh’s staring at us,” he said, looking over Olive’s head.
Olive sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I just bet she is,” she mumbled.
Adam wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
Olive squirmed. “So . . . Should we hug or something?”
“Oh.” Adam looked at his hands and down at himself. “I don’t think you want to do that. I’m pretty gross.”
Before she could stop herself Olive studied him from head to toe, taking in his large body, his broad shoulders, the way his hair was curling around his ears. He didn’t look gross. Not even to Olive, who was usually not a fan of dudes built like they spent a double-digit percentage of their time at the gym. He looked . . .
Not gross.
Still, maybe it was better if they didn’t hug. Olive might end up doing something egregiously stupid. She should just say goodbye and leave—yes, that was the thing to do.
Except that something absolutely insane came out of her mouth.
“Should we just kiss, then?” she heard herself blurt out. And then she instantly wished a stray meteorite would hit the exact spot where she was standing, because—had she just asked Adam Carlsen for a kiss? Was that what she’d done? Was she a lunatic all of a sudden?
“I mean, not like a kiss kiss,” she hastened to add. “But like the last time?
You know.”
He didn’t seem to know. Which made sense, because their other kiss had definitely been a kiss kiss. Olive tried not to think about it too much, but it flashed in her mind every once in a while, mostly when she was doing something important that required her utmost concentration, like implanting electrodes inside a mouse’s pancreas or trying to decide what to order at Subway. Occasionally it would pop up during a quiet moment, like when she was in bed and about to fall asleep, and she would feel a mixture of embarrassment and incredulity and something else. Something that she had no intention of examining too closely, not now and not ever.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, even though she wasn’t sure at all. “Is Anh still staring at us?”
His eyes flicked up. “Yes. She’s not even pretending not to. I . . . why does she care so much? Are you famous?” “No, Adam.” She gestured at him.
“You are.” “Am I?” He looked perplexed.
“Anyway, no need to kiss. You’re right that it would probably be a bit weird.”
“No. No, I didn’t mean that . . .” There was a droplet of sweat running down his temple, and he wiped his face again, this time with the sleeve of his shirt. “We can kiss.”
“Oh.”
“If you think that . . . If your friend is watching.”
“Yeah.” Olive swallowed. “But we don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Unless you want to.” Olive’s palms felt damp and clammy, so she surreptitiously wiped them on her jeans. “And by ‘want to’ I mean, unless you think it’s a good idea.” It so was not a good idea. It was a horrible idea.
Like all her ideas.
“Right.” He looked past Olive and toward Anh, who was probably in the middle of doing an entire Instagram Story on them. “Okay, then.”
“Okay.”
He stepped a little closer, and really, he was not gross. How someone this sweaty, someone who’d just pushed a truck, still managed to smell good was a topic worthy of a Ph.D. dissertation, for sure. Earth’s finest scientists should have been hard at work on this.
