Because Lit worked.
Worked!
Lit would kick Gavin Cox’s ass.
And impress Ryan’s.
Ryan.
Not his ass.
Though maybe that too.
“Enough,” Lucy said, placing her laptop beside her Teen Vogue mug, a welcome gift from her editor after her first article. Eau de locker room in the ValleyStart headquarters made Lucy insist they work in the dorm room. She’d set a whiteboard on the desk in front of the windows with a running to-do list, had switched out the harsh white fluorescents for warmer bulbs, and played ambient music emitting “problem solving” brainwaves day and night.
While Delia and Maddie had been making sure the code and user interface worked together seamlessly, Lucy had been putting the pieces in place for their beta test, which due to its reliance on crowdsourcing presented more of a challenge in the testing phase than some of the other team projects. A challenge, but one Lucy had eighty-five reasons to master. Prevailing in the beta test gave them an eighty-five percent chance of winning Demo Day, which meant Lucy was that much closer to Pulse and to Stanford.
“That’s enough.” Lucy pushed her laptop to the far corner of the desk. “You know my motto.”
“Quality and quantity,” Maddie said.
“Style leads to substance,” Delia said.
“Always detox after a full moon, not before,” Maddie said.
“Never wear plaid,” Delia said.
Lucy couldn’t resist a grin. “You forgot the best one: work hard, play hard. We’ve been doing so much of the former, we deserve the latter. Who’s in?”
* * *
* * *
While Maddie and Delia went pillaging for snacks, Lucy logged in to the ValleyStart forum.
The daily message sat at the top:
ValleyStart: Week 3, Day 3. Smack dab in the middle, but don’t dismiss this as drivel. We’re now halfway, so there’s no time to play. For we are ALREADY halfway!
Lucy snorted, copied the text, and added: “Let’s prove them wrong. Party in the common room. Tonight.” She then selected ValleyStart IDs and sent out her message.
The thumbs-ups and smiley faces were trickling in as Maddie returned, carrying an aluminum foil tower in her hands.
The smell permeated the room. “They were serving zucchini-flour pancakes for dinner?” Lucy asked.
“Nope.”
“Then how did you—?”
“We know what we are but know not what we may be,” Delia said as she passed through the open door holding plates and utensils.
A crinkle settled in between Lucy’s eyes, and she scooted closer to Maddie. “She’s been working too hard, hasn’t she?” she whispered.
Maddie peeled back the foil, and steam swirled in the air. “Shakespeare, apparently. Girl working the pizza line’s trying out for a play. Delia ran lines with her in exchange for these.” Maddie bit into a pancake, and her eyes widened. She fanned her mouth and mumbled, “Can’t feel my tongue, but worth it.”
Lucy looked at Delia. “Shakespeare? But you said you didn’t want to be onstage on Demo Day.”
“Hamlet, specifically,” Delia said. “And I’m never onstage, I just rehearse with my mom. I kinda have a good memory.”
“How long has your mom been acting?” Lucy grabbed one of the extra dorm-issued sheets from the closet and set it on the floor to protect the shag rug.
Delia’s face lit up. “Forever.” She sat cross-legged on the sheet, untied her sneakers, and dropped them in the shoe basket. “She’s been everywhere.”
Maddie plopped down in front of Delia’s suitcase that served as her nightstand. “So this was hers?”
“Yeah. Guess she’ll need it back if they actually sell the theater.”
“What? But you said they love the theater.”
“They do. But this place . . . college . . . it’s expensive. They think it’s what I want, but . . .” Delia shook her head. “Sorry, you guys don’t care about this.”
“I do.” Maddie bugged her eyes at Lucy, who’d yet to sit down. “We do, right, Lucy?”
“Of course, of course. It’s just . . .” She eyed the pancakes suspiciously. She hadn’t yet acquired a taste for them.
“Oh I, forgot.” Maddie reached into her messenger bag and pulled out kale chips, spicy tuna rolls, and a bottle of iced coffee. “Got these for you.”
Her favorites. Maddie knew? Lucy tried to cover her surprise as she nodded her thanks and gently sat down on the sandpaper sheet beside Delia. “You miss it?”
“The theater?” Delia nodded. “It’s weird to not be there for the summer. I wish you guys could see it. See her.” She paused before grabbing her phone. She swiped open her photos, showing them her mom onstage, pointing out her dad in some, Cassie in others, with Delia always behind the lens.
“I never even minded that we didn’t get cable until I was twelve,” Delia said. “Watching my mom was better than anything else. I slept backstage so much, I used to cry anytime I actually had to go to sleep in my room.”
“And now they’re selling it,” Maddie said. “Sucks.”
Commiserating nods made the rounds. They ate silently with Lucy trying to think of something to lighten the mood. Finally she said, “But you know who doesn’t suck?” She rested her eyes on Delia. “Eric Shaw.”
Delia’s skin instantly turned red, and she snatched a pancake, which she mostly used to shield her face.
“Oh, come on,” Lucy said. “We’ve seen you together.”
From behind the pancake, Delia said, “We’re friends.”
“Uh-huh,” Maddie said.
“We are. We all are.”
“Maybe.” Lucy fluttered her eyelashes. “But it’s only when he looks at you that he turns into a total emoji with hearts where those pretty eyes should be.”
Delia barely got out her mumbled denial before she was saved by a double rap on the door.
“Waiting on you, Katz!”
“Ah, perfect timing!” Lucy hopped up and rubbed the backs of her legs, which she expected to be oozing blood from the scratchy sheet. “Eric’s probably here already.” She reached for her lipstick.
“Eric?” Delia said. “Why?”
“Because I invited him. As you know, we’re halfway to Demo Day.” She smirked. “And you’ve smelled headquarters. When personal hygiene takes a back seat, it’s definitely time to let off some steam.” Lucy noted the shock on their faces. Like the night they went to the club, they just needed a little extra encouragement. “Just an intimate gathering.” She opened the door and waved them out. “Common room. Let’s go see who’s here.”
Lucy led the way and waited inside the doorway, assessing the intimate number that had shown up.
“There are at least thirty people here,” Delia said.
“I know, but it’s early.” Lucy patted her arm. “Don’t worry. Things will pick up after the keg arrives.”
“Keg?” Delia glanced at Maddie. “I meant, there are at least thirty. I thought it was going to be just us, maybe Eric and Marty—”
“They’ll be here, don’t worry.”
“But what if . . . what if we don’t want to be?” Maddie said.
Lucy was taken aback.
Maddie gestured to the table being set up for beer pong. “We were having fun without all this. Weren’t you?”
“I . . .” Lucy, for the first time she could remember, was at a loss for words. She thought of the past four years, when her social life revolved around parties, group dates to the movies, road trips to the beach with “friends”—half of whom weren’t even contacts in her phone. And then she thought of her mom, who had no friends except those in her book club, whose meetings she missed half the time. “I guess I was.”
And she wanted to keep having fun with Delia and Maddi
e. She opened the door to start corralling people out, but a massive keg blocked the exit. Gavin and one of his teammates hauled it into the room.
“And the party’s here! Put away your knitting needles, ladies!” Gavin high-fived half a dozen male hands before turning to Lucy, Maddie, and Delia. “Oh, sorry, and girls.”
“Sexist ass,” Maddie said.
Lucy ducked as sleeves of red Solo cups flew around the room. Most of their incubator would be here. How would it look if they weren’t? After she invited everyone? What if they missed something about Demo Day?
Socialize.
“Five minutes,” she said. “Ten, tops. Then we go.”
Delia looked to Maddie before they both nodded in agreement.
Perfect.
Someone tapped the keg, and Gavin commandeered it—doling out cups and downing a full one himself. After filling another, he jumped on top of the coffee table. He motioned for the music to be lowered and raised his cup in the air. “A toast to our host, Miss Lucy Katz. A perfect ten, in every way . . . including her app.”
Soft, awkward laughs rolled into bigger ones, and Maddie clenched her fists.
“Oh, wait, sorry, my mistake, our little Lucy happens to only be a Pulse 4.” He frowned. “Despite her private meetings with Ryan Thompson.”
Jealous, really, Gavin?
And of what? Her being with Ryan or the other way around?
“But, dudes, her Pulse may not be a ten, but the rest of her sure is—trust me.”
A gasp escaped before Lucy could stop it.
Gavin began grinding the air, and while Lucy couldn’t move, Maddie did. She rushed forward and rammed her foot into the coffee table. Gavin toppled off, saved from face-planting by one of his teammates.
Line not crossed, Gavin, line obliterated.
Lucy strode up to him, opened her palm, and was about to slap him when Delia caught her.
“No uninvited physical contact, remember?” she said of the clause they’d signed as part of their acceptance into the program.
Gavin winked. “I won’t tell if you do, Luce.” His breath stunk of booze—deeper, harder stuff than the beer he’d consumed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lucy said.
“Apparently what’s wrong is that a tie for first isn’t actually first, at least according to my old man.”
“Your father’s an ass,” Lucy said. “But this, well, congratulations on finally sinking lower than him.”
They stood still, Lucy waiting for Gavin to respond. They weren’t ever really a thing, but they also weren’t nothing. The Gavin she’d held in her arms as his voice trembled wasn’t this Gavin. She thought she was a good judge of character, but the truth was she didn’t know which Gavin was the true Gavin—and feared the answer was both.
A sharp knock made Lucy turn around. The door swung open and in strode Ryan Thompson. The music stopped, Solo cups disappeared behind backs, and Lucy’s heart pounded. Her mom’s voice echoed in her head—the words not mattering; all that mattered was the tone she’d be using if Lucy appeared back on their doorstep, kicked out of ValleyStart. It’d be the same tone she’d used when she found out Lucy was wait-listed.
“So this is where my minions are,” Ryan said. “But right now, I only need one. Lucy, would you mind?”
He crossed back into the hallway, holding the door open for her. She swallowed and stepped forward. By her second step, she wasn’t alone. Delia was on one side of her and Maddie the other.
Lucy hadn’t had a lump in her throat this big since she’d opened the Stanford email. “I’ll be fine,” she whispered, but they remained by her side until she reached the doorway.
* * *
* * *
“It was all my idea,” Lucy said when Ryan had shut the door behind them. “No one else’s.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Ryan’s flip-flops clicked as he moved closer to her. “You are one hundred percent Lit and Lit is one hundred percent you. Couldn’t have come from anyone else’s pretty little head. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“You . . . my . . . what?”
“You being the face of Lit, literally.” He raised an eyebrow. “Though I think this discussion might go better with a beverage. I’m parched.”
“Uh, sure, we’ve got some LaCroix—”
“Zuckerberg swill?” He screwed up his lips. “Yeah, I’ll pass on the bubble gum–flavored seltzer financed by that poseur.” He relaxed his tight shoulders. “But I wouldn’t say no to something stronger. . . .”
Relief washed over Lucy, and she agreed to meet Ryan on the balcony at the end of the hall. Adrenaline still coursing through her, she ducked inside the common room and filled two Solo cups with beer from the tap. From across the room, Maddie caught her eye and lifted a hand in the air as if to ask what’s going on. Lucy gave her a reassuring nod and hurried back to Ryan.
“Sorry to crash the party,” Ryan said after taking a long swig.
“It’s not a party.”
“Just a figure of speech. I didn’t actually see a party. A party I’d have to report,” he said with a wink.
“Of course, no parties anywhere. God, this place is so dull,” Lucy joked. She lifted her cup and sipped, hoping the alcohol combined with the spa-like sound of the trickling fountain down below would calm the jittery nerves that had crept up.
Ryan laughed. “You really are something, aren’t you?” He tapped his cup, looking at her. He then whipped his phone out of his back pocket, and before Lucy knew what was happening, he had his arm around her waist, said “Whoops, sorry, bad angle,” and slid his hand up her side as he made his way to his ultimate destination—her shoulder. “There, that’s better. Now say, ‘Got a Pulse!’”
He snapped a picture, and Lucy wasn’t even sure she’d smiled, it’d all happened so fast, including the feel of his arm against her.
She sipped her beer and let a smile through. Because Ryan Thompson had basically hugged her.
He kept his arm around her as he played with the dozens of heart backgrounds he explained he’d had commissioned for his exclusive use before he settled on one and showed it to her for approval. She nodded even though she wasn’t sure what she was nodding to. By the time he’d posted it online, tagging her, she realized she hadn’t told him what her Pulse handle was.
“This doesn’t get your Pulse moving, nothing will.” He lifted his arm from her shoulder and said, “Now, tell me, how it’s going with Lit?”
* * *
* * *
As Lucy snuck down the hall to retrieve round three, she slipped into her room to change her shoes.
Ryan Thompson was tall.
And liked to talk. A lot. Mostly about himself. But that was okay. Because he was Ryan Thompson. Though she had a crick in her neck from looking up.
She slid her feet into her highest heels, kept her head down as she smuggled two new beers out of the common room, and returned to the balcony.
Ryan waved to her excitedly. “Anyone can live . . .” He dangled his phone in front of her face.
She almost dropped the drinks. He grabbed one from her, and she traded it for his phone. “But I’ve got a Pulse!”
♥♥♥♥♥
Thumping. She was Thumping!
She didn’t realize she was dancing in place until Ryan joined her.
“See?” he said. “Told you I could give you a boost.” He pushed his cup into hers. “Cheers!”
Lucy bumped back before drinking half her beer in one gulp. She was well on her way to intoxicated, half from the beer, half from Pulse, and half from Ryan.
Wait . . .
Ryan tilted his beer toward her. “Keep this up, you’ll be Crushing It by Demo Day, and we’ll be fighting off VCs.”
“VCs?” she asked. “You really think we could get actual funding?”
She shook her head to clear it. She wanted to savor every moment of this, remember it, to tell Delia and Maddie, word for word.
“You, maybe. Me, definitely. I’m thinking a merger may be in our future. Might be time to take our little Pulse-Lit to market.”
Pulse-Lit. Lucy snarfed, and beer tickled her nose. And then his words hit her. “Wait, you’re serious?”
“As serious as a red screen of death,” he said. “Dinner first, though?”
Lucy was desperately trying not to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. “What?”
“A business dinner? To discuss? On the down low, of course. Because . . .”
“You can’t appear to have favorites. Even if you do.”
“Even if I do.”
“Pulse-Lit!” she cried, raising her beer in the air. She started laughing so hard, she pitched forward in her heels, toward the balcony railing.
Ryan swooped an arm around her waist. “I’ve got you.”
Lucy clutched his hand, steadying herself, grateful. Her head was swimming, and she knew she needed to go to bed. She stepped back, away from the railing, and Ryan, instead of letting go, pulled her toward him. Against him.
Lucy froze.
And then, down the hall, through the glass window of the door to the balcony, Maddie stared at her.
“Thank you,” Lucy said with a soft pat on his hand.
Slowly he released her.
“So, Lucy, do you like Thai?”
SEVENTEEN
SNIFF TEST • A rapid evaluation of a product or circumstance to see if it’s legit
SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE it.
But she did.
She clicked.
And then Maddie cursed under her breath—a string of Irish slang and Chinese she’d learned from her parents.
The site for the virtual reality game startup had gone live that morning. The site she should have built—the one she would have built if her “friend” hadn’t stolen the job right out from under her. Though the site looked as though she had built it, integrating every single one of her ideas. From the broken grid layout to the scrolling game animations, every facet of her proposal was alive on her screen.
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