Chapter Text
“And I’m staying with Adam, so I’ll see you at his place.” Tom Benton said.
“Um… sure. Though we usually meet at my place, so…”
“What a lying little shit.”
Oh, fuck. Had he said that out loud?
Malcom glanced around. No one seemed to have heard him. The coffee shop was packed, thanks to the sudden downpour outside, and the general din of a dozen conversations provided excellent cover for muttering insults about people who deserved them.
Excellent.
He looked back at Olive, who was sitting with Dr. Adam Carlsen and Tom Benton, looking like she was one poorly timed question away from a full nervous breakdown.
Malcom had recognized Tom immediately. Despite not speaking to Olive much these days, he still kept up with her Harvard opportunity through Anh. He’d even done a little research of his own when he first heard she was meeting Benton.
A perfectly reasonable amount of research.
Olive had spent the last two days pacing around their apartment and reciting the same speech over and over again. Malcom had seen the man’s face on her laptop screen. One look at those baby blues and he’d recognize them anywhere.
He was hot.
But that was beside the point.
The point was that Olive was LYING TO HIS...
Back?
We usually meet at my place, my ass.
Malcom knew damn well Dr. Asshole Carlsen wasn’t coming over to their apartment. He would know. He would know if the Antichrist sat on his couch.
His ass would leave a permanent imprint, like some kind of demonic, ass-shaped curse had been burned into the cushions. All their houseplants would die. There would probably be a faint smell of brimstone for at least three business days.
And now Olive was sitting there with off-brand McDreamy and McEvil like this was a perfectly normal arrangement.
Honestly, the academic department was getting ridiculous. Were they hiring professors based on cheekbones now? Was there a secret faculty beauty pageant Malcom had somehow missed?
He was getting distracted.
Olive was fake dating Adam Carlsen.
It was the only explanation that made any sense. It was practically The Proposal, except instead of Sandra Bullock needing a green card, Olive had apparently decided that the best way to solve whatever problem she had was to pretend to date the human equivalent of a root canal. But why?
Maybe Carlsen had something on her. Maybe she’d accidentally witnessed a murder in the biology department. Maybe she was helping him launder grant money. Maybe the man was a vampire, and Olive was being forced to lure unsuspecting academics into his lair. Let’s face it, there were a lot of virgins around.
Malcom wasn’t ruling anything out.
His coffee was ready. He collected it from the counter, careful not to turn around too quickly and attract Olive’s attention. If she saw him, she’d ask questions, and if she asked questions, he’d have to lie. And lying was wrong.
He had a coffee to drink and a best friend who was apparently starring in a romantic comedy with the devil.
He slipped outside, out of sight of the windows, and pulled out his phone.
He needed to call Anh.
She picked up after three rings.
“Hey, Malco-”
“I’M ONTO HER, ANH.”
A pause.
“What are you talking about?”
“I HAVE DEFINITIVE PROOF.”
“Of what?”
“Kalamata.”
“Oh.” Another pause. “What did she do?”
“Where are you? I’ll find you.”
“I’m in the lab. Why?”
“Stay there. I’m coming over.”
“Can you at least tell me-”
He hung up.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Anh said.
Malcom had found her in the lab, where she was apparently trying to do actual work instead of dedicating her life to the far more pressing question of whether Olive was fake dating Satan.
He’d barely made it through the door before launching into a full account of the incident, complete with reenactments of Olive’s facial expressions and a disturbingly accurate impression of Carlsen’s resting expression.
Anh had listened with the weary patience of a woman who had been friends with Malcom for too long.
“Maybe she just said that because she doesn’t want to hang out with Tom Benton outside an academic setting,” she said.
“Okay, fine. I’ll give you that.”
Anh looked surprised.
“But I’m telling you, something is going on.”
“Olive gets nervous. You know that.”
“She looked like a hostage negotiating her own ransom.”
Anh sighed.
Malcom folded his arms. “Look, I know Olive. She once told me she didn’t like my haircut.”
Anh stared at him blankly.
“It was an incredible haircut,” he added.
“Okay?”
“Anyway, that’s not the point.”
“I was wondering when we’d get to that.”
“The point is, if she’s willing to lie to my face about something as obvious as my superior hair, imagine what she’s capable of when there’s something actually important at stake.”
Anh looked like she regretted every decision that had led her to this conversation.
“Do you really want to invest time in this?” she asked.
Malcom opened his mouth to give her a sarcastic answer, but then he thought about Olive standing in that coffee shop, looking like she might pass out.
He hated Carlsen. That was hardly a secret. He hated his stupid face, his stupid lab, and his stupid reputation for being brilliant. He hated that the man could probably ruin someone’s career with a single email and then sleep like a baby.
He wished him poorly.
But this wasn’t just about Carlsen.
“Think about it, Anh. Olive is pretending to date a man no one can stand. What does she get out of that? And what does he get out of it? Because I can promise you, Carlsen isn’t doing anything out of the goodness of his heart.”
“We don’t know that she’s pretending.” Anh rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know, Malcom. Maybe we should just talk to her.”
“And let her know we’re onto her? Absolutely not. She’ll deny everything, and then we’ll have to pretend we believe her, and then she’ll know we’re pretending, and then we’ll know she knows, and she’ll know that we know that she kno-”
“Are you rewatching Friends again?”
“I’m having a very serious moment.”
“You’re doing the thing where you turn a simple problem into a conspiracy.”
“It’s not a conspiracy if it’s true.”
Anh gave him a look.
“What if she’s in trouble?”
That got her attention.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. But I know Olive, and I know him. If anyone’s going to get the shit end of the stick here, it’s going to be her.”
“He’s a professor, Malcom. Not a serial killer.”
“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Please stop.”
“I’m just saying, for all we know, he’s a cannibal waiting to skin her alive and use her hair in some kind of ritual.”
“Malcom.”
“Or he’s running an underground organ-trafficking operation out of the biology department.”
“Can you be serious for one minute?”
He looked at her.
“I am being serious.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said finally. “But I don’t trust Carlsen, and I don’t want Olive getting hurt because she’s tangled up in something she can’t get out of.”
Anh’s expression softened.
“Okay,” she said. “So what do you suggest?”
Malcom leaned back against the counter.
“We’ll play along.”
Anh narrowed her eyes.
He paused, considering something else.
“And we need to find out if Benton is single.”
Anh stared at him, puzzled.
“That's for another plan, though” Malcom added.