During a visit to Stanford years earlier, prospective student Olive Smith, half-blinded by expired contacts, wanders into a lab bathroom and meets a tall, blunt researcher. He challenges her canned answers about why she wants a Ph.D. until she admits a specific research question drives her. He tells her that is the best reason to pursue academia. Anchored by that clarity, Olive later accepts Stanford’s offer.

Nearly three years into her Ph.D., Olive impulsively kisses a stranger in a hallway to sell a white lie to her best friend, Anh Pham: that she is dating, so Anh can freely pursue Jeremy Langley, a guy Olive briefly dated who clearly likes Anh. The stranger is Dr. Adam Carlsen, a feared young professor. He calls out the lack of consent and mentions Title IX, then listens as Olive explains. In front of Anh, Adam subtly supports the story, and a rumor blooms that they are dating.

When the rumor refuses to die, Adam proposes they let it stand: Olive will protect her friendship, and he will counter a department narrative that he is a "flight risk"—a label that has frozen part of his research funds pending a review. They clear boundaries with the dean, set rules (campus-only, no sex, weekly public coffees, an end date after his September 29 review), and start staging brief Starbucks dates. Their banter turns easy, and Olive, working on early pancreatic-cancer biomarkers and hoping for resources, schedules time with Tom Benton, a Harvard PI whose interest could change her trajectory. A twist: Tom is Adam’s friend and collaborator.

At an impromptu café meeting with Tom, Adam reframes questions to help Olive explain her work and halts Tom when he pries into her motivation. Tom offers a year in his lab if Olive delivers a comprehensive report in two weeks. Their fake relationship grows more convincing as Olive sits on Adam’s lap in an overfull seminar and later kisses him publicly under Anh’s gaze. The optics help Adam; Olive focuses on Tom’s deadline.

Tensions surface when Adam fails a student’s proposal and Olive absorbs social blowback as his supposed girlfriend. Late one night, sharing chips in a dark break room, Olive and Adam open up: he is 34, from The Hague; she is 26, Canadian, unsure about academia’s performative side. She reveals her mother’s death and foster years; he offers empathy and research help, diagnosing her failed blot and promising supplies. Their rapport deepens just as Olive submits her report to Tom.

At Adam’s house, Tom grills Olive’s data, then confirms a bench for her next year. Elated, she and Adam celebrate; on the way back to campus, he mentions a new grant with Tom and admits he once grew bored enough to consider leaving academia before Tom helped him pivot. Olive begins to suspect he was the stranger in the bathroom. Their routine now includes flu shots—despite Adam’s needle aversion—and playful texting that makes Olive realize she has real feelings. When Adam overhears her confiding in Malcolm and she panics, she lies that her feelings are for someone else.

With Adam traveling, Holden Rodrigues—Adam’s closest friend—helps Olive in the microscope room and warns her to be cautious around Tom. Meanwhile, Olive’s poster abstract is upgraded to a faculty-panel talk, triggering severe stage fright and a lodging scramble as friends assume she’ll room with Adam. Back from Boston, Adam offers his spare hotel bed for one overlapping night, pledges to attend her talk, and helps with her slides, sharing a formative story about his abusive former adviser that shaped his mentoring philosophy: high standards about the work, never personal.

At the conference, Olive’s talk goes well. Afterward, Tom corners her, invades her space, tries to kiss her, and when rebuffed, insults her, claims her work only advanced because she dates Adam, and threatens to replicate her protocols while coercing her to join his lab. She flees and, too shaken to tell Adam the truth, frames the incident as anonymous criticism. Adam comforts her, calls her a great scientist, and spends the evening shielding her from reminders. Their mutual restraint gives way to tenderness; with careful consent and patience centered on Olive’s comfort—she experiences attraction only with trust—they become intimate and spend the night sharing histories, Dutch phrases, and scar stories.

Before dawn, Adam reveals he is secretly interviewing at Harvard, largely to collaborate with Tom and be closer to his parents, using the conference as cover. Olive, hiding Tom’s assault, treats it as their last night. The next day, Adam’s funds are released. Determined to protect his career and collaboration, Olive refuses to file a complaint and ends their arrangement on the agreed date, though both are devastated.

Alone, Olive reframes her path: she’ll publish from her report and pursue alternative mentors. While editing a recording of her talk for her adviser, she accidentally captures Tom’s harassment on audio. Anh and Malcolm hear it, learn about the fake-dating plan, and urge olive to tell Adam. Seeking perspective, Olive meets Holden, who says Tom has a history of manipulating situations to control Adam and that this collaboration benefits Tom more than Adam. Crucially, he reveals Adam only agreed to interview at Harvard after Olive chose Tom’s lab—suggesting Adam’s decision centered on her.

Olive decides to act before Adam’s interview concludes. She tracks him to a Harvard dinner, asks to speak privately, and, when Tom intrudes and leverages Adam’s candidacy, plays the recording aloud. As Tom’s insults and threats fill the room, Adam realizes the truth about Olive’s breakdown at the conference. He restrains Tom when he lunges for the phone and, in front of witnesses, warns him to stay away from “the woman I love.” A Harvard administrator calls for a private meeting; Adam takes the evidence to ensure Tom is handled, risking his interview to protect Olive.

Back in San Francisco, Olive finds several cancer labs eager to host or collaborate after Dr. Aysegul Aslan’s outreach and her strong conference talk. Olive, Adam, Holden, and Malcolm reunite for dinner. Holden nudges Adam to smooth lingering tensions with Malcolm and then hints that Adam knew Olive from her interview year. Olive remembers the bathroom encounter; Adam’s expression confirms it. Later, on a quiet walk, Adam says Harvard plans to fire Tom and Title IX will contact Olive; his grant status is uncertain, which he doesn’t care about. They acknowledge years of noticing each other. At Olive’s door, she admits she lied about liking someone else and, invoking statistics to weigh fear against truth, tells him she loves him—in Dutch.

Ten months on, their relationship is steady. Olive is about to start in a Berkeley cancer lab, and they return to the hallway of their first kiss to re-create it with the deliberateness they lacked the first time. As an alarm chimes the precise minute, Olive asks, “May I kiss you, Dr. Carlsen?” and the careful, consensual beginning they chose for themselves becomes the story’s closing note.