“We don’t have to talk, by the way.” Olive
tilted her head.
“You said you didn’t want to talk to anyone back at the hotel. So we don’t have to, if you’d rather eat this”—he glanced at the plates she had accumulated with obvious distrust—“food in silence.”
You’re not just anyone, seemed like a dangerous thing to say, so she smiled. “I bet you’re great at silences.”
“Is that a dare?”
She shook her head. “I want to talk. Just, can we not talk about the conference? Or science? Or the fact that the world is full of assholes?” And that some of them are your close friends and collaborators?
His hand closed into a fist on the table, jaw clenched tight as he nodded.
“Awesome. We could chat about how nice this place is—”
“It’s appalling.”
“—or the taste of the sushi—”
“Foot.”
“—or the best movie in the Fast and Furious franchise—”
“Fast Five. Though I have a feeling you’re going to say—”
“Tokyo Drift.”
“Right.” He sighed, and they exchanged a small smile. And then, then the smile faded and they just stared at each other, something thick and sweet coloring the air between them, magnetic and just the right side of bearable.
Olive had to rip her gaze from his, because—no. No.
She turned away, and her eyes fell on a couple at a table a few feet to their right. They were the mirror image of Adam and Olive, sitting on each side of their booth, all warm glances and tentative smiles. “Do you think they’re on a fake date?” she asked, leaning back against her seat.
Adam followed her gaze to the couple. “I thought those mostly involved coffee shops and sunscreen applications?”
“Nah. Only the best ones.”
He laughed silently. “Well.” He focused on the table, and on angling his chopsticks so that they were parallel to each other. “I can definitely recommend it.”
Olive dipped her chin to hide a smile and then leaned forward to steal one edamame. —
IN THE ELEVATOR she held on to his biceps and took off her heels, failing disastrously at being graceful as he studied her and shook his head. “I thought you said they didn’t hurt?” He sounded curious. Amused? Fond? “That was ages ago.” Olive picked them up and let them dangle from her fingers. When she straightened, Adam was again impossibly tall. “Now I am very ready to chop off my feet.”
The elevator pinged, and the doors opened. “That seems counterproductive.”
“Oh, you have no idea— Hey, what are you—?”
Her heart skipped what felt like a dozen beats when Adam swept her up into a full bridal carry. She yelped, and he carried her to their room, all because she had a blister on her pinkie toe. Without much of a choice, she closed her arms around his neck and sank against him, trying to make sure
she’d survive if he decided to drop her. His hands were warm around her back and knee, forearms tight and strong.
He smelled amazing. He felt even better.
“You know, the room’s only twenty meters away—”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Adam.”
“We Americans think in feet, Canada.”
“I’m too heavy.”
“You really are.” The ease with which he shifted her in his arms to slide the key card belied his words. “You should cut pumpkin-flavored drinks from your diet.”
She pulled his hair and smiled into his shoulder. “Never.”
Their name tags were still on the TV table, exactly where they’d left them, and there was a conference program half-open on Adam’s bed, not to mention tote bags and a mountain of useless flyers. Olive noticed them immediately, and it was like having a thousand little splinters pressed deep into a fresh wound. It brought back every single word Tom had said to her, all his lies and his truths and his mocking insults, and . . .
Adam must have known. As soon as he put her down, he gathered everything that was conference related and stuck it on a chair facing the windows, where it was hidden from their sight, and Olive . . . She could have hugged him. She wasn’t going to—she already had, twice today—but she really could have. Instead she resolutely pushed all those little splinters out of her mind, plopped herself down on her bed belly up, and stared at the ceiling.
She’d thought it would be awkward, being with him in such a small space for a whole night. And it was a little bit, or at least it had been when she’d first arrived earlier today, but now she felt calm and safe. Like her world, constantly hectic and messy and demanding, was slowing down. Easing up, just a bit.
The bedcover rustled under her head when she turned to look at Adam.
He seemed relaxed, too, as he draped his jacket against the back of a chair, then took off his watch and set it neatly on the desk. The casual domesticity
of it—the thought that his day and hers would end in the same place, at the same time—soothed her like a slow caress down her spine.
