Under One Roof
PRAISE FOR
The Love Hypothesis
“Contemporary romance’s unicorn: the elusive marriage of
deeply brainy and delightfully escapist. . . .
The Love
Hypothesis has wild commercial appeal, but the quieter
secret is that there is a specific audience, made up of all of
the Olives in the world, who have deeply, ardently waited
for this exact book.”
—New York Times bestselling author Christina
Lauren “Funny, sexy, and smart. Ali Hazelwood did
a terrific job with
The Love Hypothesis.”
—New York Times bestselling author Mariana
Zapata “This tackles one of my favorite tropes—
Grumpy meets Sunshine—in a fun and utterly
endearing way. . . . I loved the nods toward
fandom and romance novels, and I couldn’t put it
down. Highly recommended!”
—New York Times bestselling author Jessica Clare
“A beautifully written romantic comedy with a
heroine you will instantly fall in love with,
The
Love Hypothesis is destined to earn a place on
your keeper shelf.”
—Elizabeth Everett, author of
A Lady’s Formula
for Love “Smart, witty dialogue and a diverse cast
of likable secondary characters. . . . A realistic,
amusing novel that readers won’t be able to put
down.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“With whip-smart and endearing characters, snappy prose,
and a quirky take on a favorite trope, Hazelwood
convincingly navigates the fraught shoals of academia. . . .
This smart, sexy contemporary should delight a wide swath
of romance lovers.”
—Publishers Weekly
Titles by Ali Hazelwood
The Love Hypothesis
LOATHE TO LOVE YOU
Under One Roof
Stuck with You
Below Zero
Under One Roof
Ali Hazelwood
JOVE
New York
A JOVE BOOK
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2022 by Ali Hazelwood Excerpt from
Love on the Brain copyright © 2021 by Ali
Hazelwood Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse
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Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9780593437810
Jove audio edition: February 2022
Jove ebook edition: May 2022
Cover illustration by lilithsaur Adapted for ebook by Cora Wigen This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or
locales is entirely coincidental.
pid_prh_5.8.0_139924578_c0_r1
Contents
Cover
Praise for The Love HypothesisTitles by Ali Hazelwood
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Excerpt from Love on the BrainAbout the Author
For Becca, who is the best and had the best prompt.
Prologue
Present
I look at the pile of dishes in the sink and reach a painful
realization: I’ve got it bad.
Actually, scratch that. I already knew I had it bad. But if I
hadn’t, this would be a dead giveaway: the fact that I
cannot glance at a colander and twelve dirty forks without
seeing Liam’s dark eyes as he leans against the counter,
arms crossed on his chest; without hearing his stern-yet-
teasing voice asking me, “Postmodern installation art? Or
are we just out of soap?”
It comes right on the trail of arriving home late and
noticing that he left the porch light on for me. That one . . .
oh, that one always makes my heart hiccup in a half-lovely,
half-wrenching way. Also heart-hiccup inducing: I
remember to turn it off once I’m inside. Very unlike me, and
possibly a sign that the chia seed sludge he’s been making
me for breakfast in the mornings when I’m late for work is
actually making my brain smarter.
It’s good that I’ve decided to move out. For the best.
These heart hiccups are not sustainable in the long term,
not to my mental or cardiovascular health. I’m only a
humble beginner at this whole pining thing, but I can safely
state that living with some guy you used to hate and
somehow ended up slipping in love with is
not a wise move.
Trust me, I have a doctorate.
(In a totally unrelated field, but still.)
You know what
is good about the pining? The constant
nervous energy. It has me looking at the pile of dishes and
thinking that cleaning the kitchen could be a fun activity.
When Liam enters the room, I’m riding the unexpected
urge to load the dishwasher as far as it will carry me. I
glance up at him, notice the way he nearly fills the
doorframe, and order my heart not to hiccup. It does it
anyway—even adds a flip for good measure.
My heart’s a jackass.
“You’re probably wondering if a sniper is forcing me to
do the dishes at gunpoint.” I beam at Liam without really
expecting him to smile back, because—Liam. He’s next to
impossible to read, but I’ve long stopped trying to
see his
amusement, and I just let myself
feel it. It’s nice, and warm,
and I want to bathe in it. I want to make him shake his
head, and say “Mara” in that tone of his, and laugh against
his better judgment. I want to push up on my toes, reach
out to fix the dark strand of hair on his forehead, burrow
into his chest to smell the clean, delicious smell of his skin.
But I doubt
he wants any of that. So I turn back to rinse
a cereal bowl hiding under the colander.
“I figured you were being mind-controlled by those
parasitic spores we saw on that documentary.” His voice is
low. Rich. I will miss it so,
so much.
“Those were barnacles— See, I knew you fell asleep
halfway.” He doesn’t reply. Which is fine, because—Liam. A
man of few smiles and even fewer words. “So, you know the
neighbors’ puppy? That French bulldog? He must have
gotten away during a walk, because I just saw him run
toward me in the middle of the street. Leash hanging from
his neck and all.” I reach out for a towel and my hand
bumps into him. He’s standing right behind me now. “Oops.
Sorry. Anyway, I carried him back home and he was so cute
. . .”
I stop. Because all of a sudden Liam is not just
standing
behind me. I’m being crowded against the sink, the edge of
the counter pressed into my hip bones, and there’s a tall
wall of heat flat against my back.Oh my God.
Is he . . . Did he trip? He must have tripped. This is an
accident.
“Liam?”
“This okay, Mara?” he asks, but he doesn’t move away.
He stays right where he is, front pressed against my back,
hands against the counter on each side of my hips, and . . .
Is this some kind of lucid dream? Is this a heart-hiccup-
generated cardiovascular event? Is my brain converting my
most shameful nighttime fantasies into hallucinations?
“Liam?” I whimper, because he is nuzzling my hair. Right
above my temple, with his nose and maybe even his mouth,
and it seems deliberate. Very much not an accident. Is he
—? No. No, surely not.
But his hands spread on my belly, and that’s what tips
me off that this is different. This doesn’t feel like one of
those accidental brushing of arms in the hallway, the ones
I’ve been telling myself to stop obsessing over. It doesn’t
feel like that time I tripped over my computer cord and
almost stumbled into his lap, and it doesn’t feel like him
gently holding my wrist to check how badly I burned my
thumb while cooking on the stove. This feels . . . “Liam?”
“Shh.” I feel his lips at my temple, warm and reassuring.
“Everything’s okay, Mara.”
Something hot and liquid begins to coil at the bottom of
my belly.
Chapter 1
Six months ago
“Frankly,
They get on like a house on fire is the most
misleading saying in the English language. Faulty wiring?
Misuse of heating equipment? Suspected arson?
Not
evocative of two people getting along in the least. You know
what a house on fire has me picturing? Bazookas.
Flamethrowers. Sirens in the distance. Because nothing is
more guaranteed to start a house fire than two enemies
blowtorching each other’s most prized possession. Want to
trigger an explosion? Being nice to your roommate is not
going to do it. Lighting a match on top of their kerosene-
soaked handmade quilt, on the other hand—”
“Miss?” The Uber driver turns, looking guilty about
interrupting my pre-apocalyptic spiel. “Just a heads-up—
we’re about five minutes from your destination.”
I smile an apologetic
Thank you and glance back at my
phone. My two best friends’ faces take up the entire
screen. Then, on the upper corner there’s me: more frowny
than usual (well justified), more pasty than usual (is that
even possible?), more ginger than usual (must be the filter,
right?).
“That’s a totally fair take, Mara,” Sadie says with a
puzzled expression, “and I encourage you to submit your,
um, very valid complaints to Madame Merriam-Webster or
whoever’s in charge of these matters, but . . . I literally only
asked you how the funeral went.”
“Yes, Mara—how’d—funeral—go—?” The quality on
Hannah’s end of the call is pitiful, but that’s business as
usual.
This, I suppose, is what happens when you meet your
best friends in grad school: One minute you’re happy as a
clam, clutching your shiny brand-new engineering diploma,
giggling your way through a fifth round of Midori sours.
The next you’re in tears, because you’re all going separate
ways. FaceTime becomes as necessary as oxygen. There
are zero neon-green cocktails in sight. Your slightly
deranged monologues don’t happen in the privacy of the
apartment you share, but in the semipublic backseat of an
Uber, while you’re on your way to have a very,
very weird
conversation.
See, that’s the thing I hate the most about adulting: at
some point, one has to start doing it. Sadie is designing
fancy eco-sustainable buildings in New York City. Hannah is
freezing her butt off at some Arctic research station NASA
put up in Norway. And as for me . . .
I’m here. Moving to D.C. to start my dream job—scientist
at the Environmental Protection Agency. On paper, I should
be over the moon. But paper burns
so fast. As fast as
houses on fire.
“Helena’s funeral was . . . interesting.” I lean back
against the seat. “I guess that’s the upside of knowing that
you’re about to die. You get to bully people a bit. Tell them
that if they don’t play ‘Karma Chameleon’ while lowering
your casket your ghost will haunt their progeny for
generations.”
“I’m just glad you guys were able to be with her in the
last few days,” Sadie says.
I smile wistfully. “She was the worst till the very end.
She cheated in our last chess game. As if she wouldn’t have
beaten me anyway.” I miss her. An inordinate amount.
Helena Harding, my Ph.D. advisor and mentor for the past
eight years, was family in a way my cold, distant blood
relatives never cared to be. But she was also elderly, in a
lot of pain, and, as she liked to put it,
eager to move on to
bigger projects.
“It was so lovely of her to leave you her D.C. house,”
Hannah says. She must have moved to a better fjord,
because I can actually make out her words. “Now you’ll
have a place to be, no matter what.”
It’s true. It’s all true, and I am immensely grateful.
Helena’s gift was as generous as it was unexpected, easily
the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. But the
reading of the will was a week ago, and there’s something I
haven’t had a chance to tell my friends. Something closely
related to houses on fire. “About that . . .”
“Uh-oh.” Two sets of brows furrow. “What happened?”
“It’s . . . complicated.”
“I
love complicated,” Sadie says. “Is it also dramatic? Let
me go get tissues.”
“Not sure, yet.” I take a fortifying breath. “The house
Helena left me, as it turns out, she didn’t really . . . own it.”
“What?” Sadie aborts the tissue mission to frown at me.
“Well, she did own it. But only a little. Only . . . half.”
“And who owns the
other half?” Trust Hannah to zoom in
on the crux of the problem.
“Originally, Helena’s brother, who died and left it to his
kids. Then the youngest son bought out the others, and now
he’s the sole owner. Well, with me.” I clear my throat. “His
name is Liam. Liam Harding. He’s a lawyer in his early
thirties. And he currently lives in the house. Alone.”
Sadie’s eyes widen. “Holy shit. Did Helena know?”
“I have no clue. You’d assume, but the Hardings are such
a weird family.” I shrug. “Old money. Lots of it. Think
Vanderbilts. Kennedys. What even goes on in rich people’s
brains?”
“Probably monocles,” Hannah says.
I nod. “Or topiary gardens.”
“Cocaine.”
“Polo tournaments.”
“Cuff links.”
“Hang on,” Sadie interrupts us. “What did Liam
Vanderbilt Kennedy Harding say about this at the funeral?”
“Excellent question, but: he wasn’t there.”
“He didn’t show up to
his aunt’s funeral?”
“He doesn’t really keep in touch with his family. Lots of
drama, I suspect.” I tap my chin. “Maybe they’re less
Vanderbilts, more Kardashians?”
“Are you saying that he doesn’t know that you own the
other half of his house?”
“Someone gave me his number and I told him I’d be
coming around.” I pause before adding, “Via text. We
haven’t talked yet.” Another pause. “And he didn’t really . .
. reply.”
“I don’t like this,” Sadie and Hannah say in unison. Any
other time I’d laugh about their hive mind, but there’s
something else I still haven’t told them. Something they’ll
like even less.
“Fun fact about Liam Harding . . . You know how Helena
was like, the Oprah of environmental science?” I chew on
my lower lip. “And she always joked that her entire family
was mostly liberal-leaning academics out to save the world
from the clutches of big corporations?”
“Yeah?”
“Her nephew is a corporate lawyer for FGP Corp.” Just
saying the words makes me want to gargle with
mouthwash. And floss. My dentist will be thrilled.
“FGP Corp—the fossil fuels people?” A deep line appears
in the middle of Sadie’s brow. “Big oil? Supermajors?”
“Yep.”
“Oh my
God. Does he know you’re an environmental
scientist?”
“Well, I did give him my name. And my LinkedIn profile
is just a Google search away. Do rich people use LinkedIn,
you think?”
“No one uses LinkedIn, Mara.” Sadie rubs her temple.
“Jesus Christ, this is really bad.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You can’t go meet with him alone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“He’ll kill you. You’ll kill him. You’ll kill each other.”
“I . . . maybe?” I close my eyes and lean back against the
seat. I’ve been talking myself out of panicking for seventy-
two hours—with mixed results. I can’t crack now. “Believe
me, he’s the last person I want to co-own a house with. But
Helena did leave half of it to me, and I kind of need it? I
owe a billion in student loans, and D.C. is crazy expensive.
Maybe I can stay there for a bit? Save on rent. It’s a fiscally
responsible decision, no?”
Sadie facepalms just as Hannah says combatively, “Mara,
you were a grad student until ten minutes ago. You’re
barely above the poverty line. Do
not let him kick you out of
that house.”
“Maybe he won’t even mind! I’m actually very surprised
he lives there. Don’t get me wrong, the house is nice, but . .
.” I trail off, thinking about the pictures I’ve seen, the hours
spent on Google Street View scrolling and rescrolling
through the frames, trying to get a grip on the fact that
Helena cared about me enough to
leave me a house. It’s a
beautiful property, certainly. But more of a family
residence. Not what I’d expect from an ace lawyer who
probably earns a European country’s annual GDP per
billable hour. “Don’t high-powered attorneys live in luxury
fifty-ninth-floor penthouses with golden bidets and brandy
cellars and statues of themselves? For all I know he barely
spends time in the house. So I’m just going to be honest
with him. Explain my situation. I’m sure we can find some
kind of solution that—”
“Here we are,” the driver tells me with a smile. I return
it, a tad weakly.
“If you don’t text us within half an hour,” Hannah says in
a dead-serious tone, “I’m going to assume that Big Oil Liam
is holding you captive in his basement and call law
enforcement.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Remember that kickboxing
class I took in our third year? And that time at the
strawberry festival, when I kicked the butt of the guy who
tried to steal your pie?”
“He was an eight-year-old boy, Mara. And you did
not
kick his butt—you gave him your own pie and a kiss on the
forehead. Text in thirty, or I’m calling the cops.”
I glare at her. “Assuming a polar bear hasn’t mugged you
in the meantime.”
“Sadie’s in New York, and she has the D.C. police on
speed dial.”
“Yup.” Sadie nods. “Setting it up right now.”
I start feeling nervous the moment I exit the car, and it
gets worse the farther I drag my suitcase up the path—a
heavy ball of anxiety slowly nestling behind my sternum. I
stop about halfway to take a deep breath. I blame Hannah
and Sadie, who worry way too much and are apparently
contagious. I’ll be fine. This will be fine. Liam Harding and
I will have a nice, calm chat and figure out the best
possible solution that is satisfactory to . . .
I take in the early-fall yard around me, and my trail of
thought fades away.
It’s a simple house. Large, but no topiary shit or rococo
gazebos or those creepy gnomes. Just a well-kept lawn with
the occasional landscaped corner, a handful of trees I don’t
recognize, and a large wooden patio furnished with
comfortable-looking pieces. In the late-afternoon sunlight,
the red bricks give the house a cozy, homey appearance.
And every square inch of the place seems dusted in the
warm yellow of ginkgo leaves.
I inhale the smell of grass, and bark, and sun, and when
my lungs are full I let out a soft laugh. I could so easily fall
in love with this place. Is it possible that I already am? My
very first love at first sight?
Maybe this is why Helena left the house to me, because
she knew I’d form an immediate connection. Or maybe
knowing that she wanted me here has me ready to open my
heart to it. Either way, it doesn’t matter: this place feels
like it could be home, and Helena is once again being her
meddling self, this time from the afterlife. After all, she
always went on and on about how she wanted me to really
belong.
“You know, Mara, I can tell you’re lonely,” she’d say
whenever I stopped by her office to chat.
“How do you even
know?” “Because people who aren’t lonely don’t write
fanfiction for The Bachelor
franchise in their spare time.”
“It’s not fanfiction. More of a metacommentary on the
epistemological themes that arise in each episode and—my
blog has plenty
of readers!” “Listen, you’re a brilliant
young woman. And everyone loves redheads. Why don’t you
just date one of the nerds in your cohort? Ideally the one
who doesn’t smell like compost.” “Because they’re all dicks
who keep asking when I’ll drop out to go get a degree in
home economics?” “Mmm. That is
a good reason.”
Maybe Helena finally realized that any hope of me
settling down with
someone was a lost cause, and decided
to channel her efforts into me settling down
somewhere. I
can almost picture her, cackling like a satisfied hag, and it
makes me miss her a million times harder.
Feeling much better, I leave my suitcase just off the
porch (no one is going to steal it, not covered as it is in
geeky KEEP CALM AND RECYCLE ON, and GOOD PLANETS ARE HARD TO
FIND, and TRUST ME, I’M AN ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER stickers). I
run a hand through my long curls, hoping it’s not too messy
(it probably is). I remind myself that Liam Harding is
unlikely to be a threat—just a rich, spoiled man-boy with
the depth of a surfboard who cannot intimidate me—and lift
my arm to ring the bell. Except that the door swings open
before I can get to it, and I find myself standing in front of .
. .
A chest.
A broad, well-defined chest under a button-down. And a
tie. And a dark suit jacket.
The chest is attached to other body parts, but it’s so
wide that for a moment it’s all I can see. Then I manage to
shift my gaze and finally notice the rest: Long, well-
muscled legs filling what’s left of the suit. Shoulders and
arms stretching for miles. A square jaw and full lips. Short
dark hair, and a pair of eyes barely a shade darker.
They are, I realize, fixed on me. Studying me with the
same avid, confused interest I’m experiencing. The man
appears to be unable to look away, as if spellbound at some