She couldn’t answer that. She really—she could not answer that. So she hung her head for a few moments, ordered herself to buck the hell up, and lifted it again to smile at him.
She could do this. She would do this. “What time are you leaving tomorrow?” He was probably just moving to another hotel, closer to the Harvard campus.
“Early.”
“Okay.” She leaned forward and buried her face in his throat. They were not going to sleep, not one second. It would be such a waste. “You don’t have to wake me up, when you leave.”
“You’re not going to carry my bags downstairs?”
She laughed into his neck and burrowed deeper into him. This, she thought, this was going to be their perfect night. And their last.
Chapter Eighteen
hydrogen bonds.
It wasn’t the sun high in the sky that woke her up, nor housekeeping— thanks to Adam, likely, and a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. What got Olive out of bed, even though she really, really didn’t want to face the day, was the frantic buzzing on the nightstand.
She buried her face in the pillow, extended her arm to grope her way to her phone, and then brought it to her ear.
“Yeah?” she bleated, only to find that it wasn’t a call but a very long string of notifications. It included one email from Dr. Aslan congratulating her on her talk and asking for the recording, two texts from Greg (Have u seen the multichannel pipette? Nvm found it.), one from Malcolm (call me when you see this), and . . .
One hundred and forty-three from Anh.
“What the . . . ?” She blinked at the screen, unlocked her phone, and started scrolling up. Could it be one hundred and forty-three reminders to wear sunscreen?
Anh: O
Anh: M
Anh: G
Anh: OMG
Anh: Omg omg OMFG
Anh: Where the hell are you
Anh: OLIVE
Anh: OLIVE LOUISE SMITH
Anh: (JK I know you don’t have a middle name) Anh: (But if you did it would be Louise FIGHT ME you know im right) Anh: Where ARE U?!?!?
Anh: Your missing so much YOU ARE MISSING SO Anh: WHERE THE
HELL IS YOUR ROOM I’M COMING TO YOU
Anh: OL we need to talk about this IN PERSON!!!!!1!!!!!!!!
Anh: Are you DEAD?
Anh: You better be IT’S THE ONLY WAY I’LL FORGIVE YOU FOR
MISSING THIS OL
Anh: Ol is this real life is iT jUST FANTASY SJFGAJHSGFASF
Anh: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Olive groaned, rubbed her face, and decided to skip the other 125
messages and text Anh her room number. She went into the bathroom and reached for her toothbrush, trying not to notice that the spot where Adam’s had been was now empty. Whatever Anh was freaking out about, Olive was likely going to be underwhelmed. Jeremy had Irish step-danced at the department social, or Chase had tied a cherry stem with his tongue. Great entertainment value, for sure, but Olive would survive missing either.
She dried her face, thinking that she was doing a great job of not thinking of how sore she was; of how her body was buzzing, vibrating like it had no intention of stopping, not two, not three, not five hours from now; of the faint, comforting scent of Adam on her skin.
Yeah. A great job.
When she stepped out of the bathroom, someone was about to tear down the door. She opened it to find Anh and Malcolm, who hugged her and started talking so loudly and rapidly, she could barely make out the words— though she did catch the terms “paradigm-shifting,” “life-altering,” and
“watershed moment in history.”
They chattered their way to Olive’s unused bed and sat down. After a few more moments of overlapping babbling, Olive decided to intervene and lifted her hands.
