nonblack items were the AirPods in his ears, peeking through the damp waves of his hair. She felt her cheeks curve into a smile, trying to imagine what he was listening to. Probably Coil, or Kraftwerk. The Velvet Underground. A TED Talk on water-efficient landscaping. Whale noises.

She would have given a huge chunk of her salary in exchange for five minutes alone with his phone, just to mess with his playlist. Add Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, maybe some Ariana. Broaden his horizons. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark lenses, but she didn’t need to. His mouth had curved as soon as he’d noticed her, his smile slight but definitely there.

“You okay?” he asked.

Olive realized that she’d been staring. “Um, yeah. Sorry. You?”

He nodded. “Did you find the house all right?”

“Yes. I was just about to knock.”

“No need.” He passed her and opened the door for her, waiting until she’d stepped inside to close it after them. She caught a whiff of his scent— sweat and soap and something dark and good—and wondered anew at how familiar it had become to her. “Tom’s probably this way.”

Adam’s place was light, spacious, and simply furnished. “No taxidermied animals?” she asked under her breath.

He was clearly about to flip her off when they found Tom in the kitchen, typing on his laptop. He looked up at her and grinned—which, she hoped, was a good sign.

“Thanks for coming, Olive. I wasn’t sure I’d have time to go to campus before leaving. Sit down, please.” Adam disappeared from the room, probably to go shower, and Olive felt her heart pick up. Tom had made his decision. Her destiny was going to be defined by the next few minutes.

“Can you clarify a couple of things for me?” he asked, turning his laptop toward her and pointing at one of the figures she’d sent. “To make sure I understand your protocols correctly.”

When Adam came back twenty minutes later, hair damp and wearing one of his ten million black Henleys that were all a tiny bit different and yet still managed to fit him in the most irritatingly perfect way, she was just wrapping up an explanation of her RNA analyses. Tom was taking notes on his laptop.

“Whenever you guys are done, I can give you a ride back to campus, Olive,” Adam offered. “I need to drive in, anyway.”

“We’re done,” Tom said, still typing. “She’s all yours.”

Oh. Olive nodded and gingerly stood up. Tom hadn’t given her an answer yet. He’d asked lots of interesting, smart questions about her project, but he hadn’t told her whether he wanted to work with her next year. Did it mean that the answer was a no, but he’d rather not communicate it to Olive in her

“boyfriend’s” home? What if he’d never really thought that her work was worth funding? What if he’d just been faking it because Adam was his friend?

Adam had said that Tom wasn’t like that, but what if he’d been wrong and now—

“You ready to go?” Adam asked. She grabbed her backpack, trying to collect herself. She was fine. This was fine. She could cry about this later.

“Sure.” She rocked once on her heels, giving Tom one last look. Sadly, he seemed taken with his laptop. “Bye, Tom. It was nice to meet you. Have a safe trip home.”

“Likewise,” he said, not even glancing at her. “I had lots of interesting conversations.”

“Yeah.” It must have been the section on genome-based prognostics, she thought, following Adam out of the room. She’d suspected it was too weak, but she’d been stupid and she’d sent the report anyway. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She should have beefed it up. The most important thing now was to avoid crying until she was— “And, Olive,” Tom added.

She paused under the doorframe and looked back at him. “Yes?”

“I’ll see you next year at Harvard, right?” His gaze finally slid up to meet hers. “I have the perfect bench set aside for you.”

Her heart detonated. It absolutely exploded with joy in her chest, and Olive felt a violent wave of happiness, pride, and relief all wash over her. It could have easily knocked her to the floor, but by some miracle of biology she managed to stay upright and smile at Tom.

“I can’t wait,” she said, voice thick with happy tears. “Thank you so much.”

He gave her a wink and one last smile, kind and encouraging. Olive barely managed to wait until she was outside to fist-pump, then jump around a few times, then fist-pump again.

“You all done?” Adam asked.

She turned around, remembering that she wasn’t alone. His arms were folded on his chest, fingers drumming against his biceps. There was an indulgent expression in his eyes, and—she should have been embarrassed, but she just couldn’t help it. Olive threw herself at him and hugged his torso as tight as she could. She closed her eyes when, after a few seconds of hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her.

“Congratulations,” he whispered softly against her hair. Just like that Olive was on the verge of tears all over again.

Once they were in Adam’s car—a Prius, to exactly no one’s surprise—

and driving to campus, she felt so happy she couldn’t possibly be quiet.

“He’ll take me. He said he’ll take me.”

“He’d be an idiot not to.” Adam was smiling softly. “I knew he would.”

“Had he told you?” Her eyes widened. “You knew, and you didn’t even tell me—”

“He hadn’t. We haven’t discussed you.”

“Oh?” She tilted her head, turning around in the car seat to better look at him. “Why?”

“Unspoken agreement. It might be a conflict of interest.”

“Right.” Sure. It made sense. Close friend and girlfriend. Fake girlfriend, actually.

“Can I ask you something?”

She nodded.

“There are lots of cancer labs in the US. Why did you choose Tom’s?”

“Well, I sort of didn’t. I emailed several people—two of whom are at UCSF, which is much closer than Boston. But Tom was the only one who answered.” She leaned her head against the seat. It occurred to her for the first time that she was going to have to leave her life for an entire year. Her apartment with Malcolm, her nights spent with Anh. Adam, even. She

immediately pushed the thought away, not ready to entertain it. “Why do professors never answer students’ emails, by the way?”

“Because we get approximately two hundred a day, and most of them are iterations of ‘why do I have a C minus?’ ” He was quiet for a moment. “My advice for the future is to have your adviser reach out, instead of doing it yourself.”

She nodded and stored away the information. “I’m glad Harvard worked out, though. It’s going to be amazing. Tom is such a big name, and the amount of work I can do in his lab is limitless. I’ll be running studies twenty-four seven, and if the results are what I think they’ll be, I’ll be able to publish in high-impact journals and probably get a clinical trial started in just a few years.” She felt high on the prospect. “Hey, you and I now have a collaborator in common, on top of being excellent fake-dating partners!” A thought occurred to her. “What is your and Tom’s big grant about, anyway?”

“Cell-based models.”

“Off-lattice?”

He nodded.

“Wow. That’s cool stuff.”