The Love Hypothesis

At the San Francisco airport, Olive and Malcolm wait for Adam and Holden’s flight to land. Olive checks her email and finds four messages from researchers who’d love to have Olive in their labs, one of which is local. Shortly after, Adam and Holden arrive, and Holden proposes the four of them have dinner together. Adam doesn’t want to go, but Olive talks him into it. Adam says “we” will go, and his “we” sounds like “he and Olive were a ‘we,’ like it had never been fake after all” (333).

At dinner, Holden calls Adam out on mean things he said about Malcolm’s research in the past. Adam has no recollection of this but apologizes, siting Olive’s observation that he can be moody and unapproachable. She and Adam share a look, and everything about them feels right. Holden and Malcolm argue about a pumpkin spice tea that’s on the menu, Malcolm sounding a lot like Adam when he criticizes Olive’s love for sugary drinks.

The conversation works around to how Adam’s been into Olive for years, as compared to how Holden and Malcolm’s relationship is so new. Olive is confused until Holden explains that Adam had been talking about her since they met in the bathroom before her interview. Olive realizes she was right. The man in the bathroom really was Adam, and he’d remembered her, too.

On their way out of the restaurant, Olive grabs fortune cookies for each of them. Holden and Malcolm’s are backward advice while Olive’s says she can tell the truth—something she resolves to do more. Adam refuses to eat his cookie, so Olive does and gives him the fortune, which reads “you can fall in love: someone will catch you” (342).

Adam walks Olive to her apartment, and on the way, they discuss Tom. He will be fired, and other disciplinary actions are still being decided. Olive tells Adam she remembered him from the bathroom, too. She asks why he never said anything, and he tells her it’s because she never let on that she remembered him. They stop outside her apartment, where Olive confesses that she never had feelings for Jeremy and tells Adam she loves him.

Ten months later, it’s one year to the day when Olive kissed Adam in the biology lab to make Anh think she had a boyfriend. Olive recreates the experience, even setting an alarm on her phone to kiss him at the exact same time. When the alarm goes off, she leans into him, stands on her tiptoes, and whispers into his ear “may I kiss you, Dr. Carlsen?” (352).