Olive panics when she spots Anh at the lab and impulsively kisses the nearest man, who turns out to be Dr. Adam Carlsen.

Adam demands an explanation for the unwanted kiss; Olive stumbles through the story about Anh and Jeremy, then runs away.

When Anh corners Olive about the kiss, Adam arrives and acts warmly toward Olive, convincing Anh the relationship is completely genuine.

Olive and Adam meet in his office and formally agree on the terms and end date for their fake relationship.

During their second fake coffee date, Tom Benton arrives and is introduced to Olive as Adam's girlfriend everyone has been hearing about.

After Olive pitches her pancreatic cancer research, Tom asks her to compile a full written report within two weeks for his review.

At Adam's home, Tom formally offers Olive a spot in his Harvard lab for the following year.

Olive receives word that her research paper has been accepted for a panel presentation at an upcoming conference in Boston.

In their shared hotel room before the conference, Olive notices Adam's badge identifies him as the keynote speaker who will miss her panel.

After Olive's panel ends, Tom corners her, forces himself on her, and threatens to publish her research data under his own name.

Adam finds Olive crying in their hotel room, comforts her by sharing his own story of past academic abuse, and they make love.

Olive visits Adam at his conference hotel and ends their fake relationship, not revealing Tom as the real reason she is pulling away.

While trimming an audio file to send her advisor, Olive discovers her phone accidentally recorded Tom's full assault and threatening speech.

Olive plays the recording at a Harvard faculty dinner, publicly exposing Tom's threats and abuse in front of his colleagues and Adam.

Outside her apartment, Olive tells Adam she never had real feelings for Jeremy and confesses that she is in love with him.

The Love Hypothesis begins when Olive Smith impulsively kisses biology professor Adam Carlsen to convince her best friend she has a boyfriend, setting a chain of consequences in motion. Caught in the lie, Adam and Olive strike a deal: they will fake-date publicly so Olive's friend feels free to date her ex and so Adam can prove to Stanford he is not leaving and have his frozen research funds released. The arrangement grows complicated when Olive's research connection, Tom Benton of Harvard, turns out to be Adam's friend and witnesses their fake relationship firsthand. Events escalate at a Boston conference where Tom assaults Olive and threatens to steal her research, forcing Adam and Olive into an emotionally raw night that changes everything between them. The fallout from that night leads Olive to break things off before a recording of Tom's threats accidentally surfaces, giving her the proof needed to expose him publicly. With Tom fired and her research vindicated, Olive finally lets herself be honest about her feelings, and she and Adam choose each other for real.

The central fake-dating scheme from impulsive first kiss to genuine love.

After a stranger in a campus bathroom encourages her, Olive accepts Stanford's invitation to join the biology PhD program.

Olive tells her roommate Malcolm the full truth about the fake-dating plan; he reveals he resents Adam for making him redo his thesis.

Tom's lecture is so overcrowded that Olive ends up sitting on Adam's lap for most of the session to give Anh room.

A truck stalls at the campus parking lot exit and Adam single-handedly pushes it into an empty space while a crowd watches.

Anh urges Olive to go kiss Adam after his display of strength, and the resulting public kiss surprises Olive with how much she enjoys it.

Lab mate Greg gets in Olive's face and accuses her of not respecting the department by staying in a relationship with Adam.

After arguing with Adam over text about how he treats grad students, Olive fires off a childish and insulting final message.

Olive and Adam share a rare late-night conversation by the vending machines; she opens up about her mother's death and her year in foster care.

At the department picnic, Anh pours excess sunscreen onto Olive's hands and calls Adam over shirtless to use some of it.

Despite his clear fear of needles, Adam lets Olive drag him across campus to get a flu shot after she persuades him.

Anh and Malcolm reveal they have already arranged separate conference accommodations, leaving Olive scrambling to find her own hotel room in Boston.

After the assault, Adam takes Olive to a cheap all-you-can-eat sushi buffet for dinner and removes all conference materials from their room.

At the conference, Malcolm excitedly reveals he hooked up with Holden, and Olive learns that Adam's frozen research funds have been released.

After breaking up with Adam, Olive spends days alternating between crying and sleeping before resolving to fight Tom over her stolen research.

Olive opens her email and finds four research labs want her, including one local to Stanford, making it possible to stay near Adam.

While the fake-dating scheme drives the main plot, the texture of The Love Hypothesis is woven through smaller but equally meaningful moments between Olive, her friends, and Adam. Early in the story, Olive confides the whole fake-dating plan to her roommate Malcolm, whose mix of protectiveness and sarcasm grounds her throughout the novel. The relationship between Olive and Adam deepens through low-stakes encounters — sitting on his lap at a crowded lecture, smearing sunscreen on his shoulders at a picnic, and a late-night conversation at the vending machines where Olive opens up about losing her mother. The conference in Boston brings its own secondary beats: Adam taking Olive to a sushi buffet after Tom's assault, Malcolm's surprise romantic news, and the slow aftermath where Olive grieves the breakup before finding unexpected professional hope. By the story's resolution, the secondary threads tie together neatly, with Malcolm and Holden forming their own relationship, Olive securing new research opportunities near Stanford, and the full friendship circle finally in the same place at the same time.

The campus friendships, small moments, and quiet scenes that built the story's heart.

Blinded by tears from expired contacts before her Stanford interview, Olive meets a stranger in a lab bathroom who encourages her to pursue her burning scientific question.

After word spreads about Olive and Adam, the entire campus suddenly treats Olive with far more respect and deference than before.

Adam tells Olive his real motivation for the arrangement: Stanford froze a third of his research funds because they fear he is leaving.

Malcolm tells Olive her late mother would be proud of the research progress she has made, bringing Olive to an emotional pause.

Adam confides that Tom once rekindled his love for research; Olive wonders for the first time whether Adam was the stranger from the bathroom.

Watching Olive grin and giggle over texts from Adam in the lab, Anh announces flatly that Olive is completely in love with him.

Olive races to find Malcolm and, talking it through with him, realizes for the first time she has genuinely fallen in love with Adam.

Adam quietly enters the coffee shop and overhears Olive confessing her feelings for him to Malcolm before she even realizes he is there.

Before the conference, Holden runs into Olive and issues a quiet but pointed warning to watch both her and Adam's backs around Tom.

While making love in the hotel room, Adam murmurs how long he has wanted this and that he can never let Olive go.

Sharing childhood stories after sex, Olive pieces together that Adam's absence from the hotel this week is because he is interviewing at Harvard.

The recording plays accidentally and Anh and Malcolm hear Tom's full threats against Olive; they demand she explain what really happened.

Pressed by Anh, Olive breaks down and confesses the entire fake-dating scheme, admitting her relationship with Adam was never real at the start.

Holden reveals that Adam had been telling people about an amazing girl for years — ever since a chance meeting in a Stanford bathroom.

One year after their first kiss, Olive recreates the exact moment in the same lab and whispers to Adam asking his permission to kiss him.

Beneath the fake-dating premise, The Love Hypothesis is built on a series of revelations that slowly reframe everything the reader and Olive think they know. The story begins with a mysterious encounter in a lab bathroom that quietly sets Olive's entire life on its current path, the significance of which only becomes clear at the very end. Along the way, smaller turning points reshape Olive's understanding of herself: Anh calling out feelings Olive could not name, Malcolm reflecting them back clearly, and Adam overhearing a confession Olive never meant him to hear. The conference strips away every remaining layer — Adam's whispered words during sex, the shock of his Harvard interview, and the accidental recording that forces Olive to stop hiding. Each revelation lands like a domino, pushing Olive toward the truth she has been avoiding all along. When the final piece clicks into place and Olive learns the stranger from the bathroom was Adam all along, the full arc of their story snaps into focus and she finally allows herself to be honest.

The hidden discoveries and emotional breakthroughs that drove every key decision.