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Just then, the lights dimmed, and the music increased in volume, a steady base suddenly rippling through the floor as everyone looked up and toward the stage placed along the long wall. “Tonight. We’ll track her down tonight,” Mara promised, although she looked just as eager to go find seats as she’d been to meet a legend in the industry. Fingers clutched—more tightly this time—in Mara’s, I followed her straight to the front of the room, where she promptly yanked me down into an uncomfortably padded metal chair with blue brocade upholstery that would match the drapes in our room.
Still fighting the unsteady sensation in my center, I leaned an elbow on the table, bracing myself as I inched towards Mara’s ear. “Pssst. Are you here alone?”
“Are you hitting on me? Because while I’m flattered, I’m otherwise engaged,” she teased with a wink, tossing her short, dark strands. “I’m bougie, but not that bougie. Kent and the kids are with me.”
“Ahh.”
“Why?”
“No reason,” I said with a smile, jerking my chin back at the stage as a sophisticated-looking man in a navy suit took his place at the podium. I wondered if Mara and Kent’s hideaway bed looked like it also pissed off the mob.
The conference openers were all freaking fantastic, as were the four cups of complimentary coffee now coursing through my veins and sending shudders down my frame. Anticipating the close of the segment, I gathered my pens and notebook and slipped them back in the tote bag. The downside to compulsive coffee consumption was the accompanying bladder requirements, and I was dying to get the hell out of here and back to my bathroom before lunch opened up.
My ambitions were halted by none other than the mile long, blonde and beautiful Johanna King as she stepped on stage to raucous applause. Mara and I exchanged grins as we joined the room in their enthusiastic welcome, hands stinging from clapping and face a little numb from smiling so much.
“How is everybody today?” A chorus of whoops went up, and she smiled impossibly brighter. “Let’s give our opening speakers another round of applause!”
“God, her dress is impeccable, isn’t it?” I whispered to Mara as the room broke out into cheers. She nodded enthusiastically. The rush of the day poured right through the moment as Johanna’s mic gave a little pop of feedback a beat before she continued.
“Now, I will not delude myself into thinking you’re all eagerly awaiting my every word on the edge of your seats. By now, you’re likely salivating over that roast turkey and mashed potatoes they’ve been wafting through the air vents for the last hour and a half.” Polite laughter filled the room as she surveyed the space. Magnetizing. She wasn’t doing anything spectacular beyond simply existing, and I found her magnetizing. “But we have an announcement, and I wanted you all to have time to process and strategize before we reconvene this afternoon to break into small groups.” I didn’t know what she was going on about but was suddenly fairly certain I wouldn’t like it. “The New Leaders Grant received an outpouring of interest that was exponentially higher than we could have ever anticipated.” A round of claps cut through the space, but my stomach was sinking with each breath, and Mara’s hand jutting out to grab mine did nothing to ease the nerves. “In order to expedite the application process and keep the rest of this week on track, we took the liberty of reviewing your applications and narrowing them down to the final five?—”
It was at that point in her explanation that my mind went…blank. Completely. Utterly. Deer in headlights. Blank.
What would we do if we didn’t even get a shot to plead our case, to pitch the endless hours of research? Five!? Five contestants out of the two hundred sitting rapt in this room?
I wasn’t sure I heard another word out of Johanna’s mouth, but I was entirely sure that Mara was suddenly yanking me to my feet and colliding with me like a Prada-clad football player as she hopped from one foot to the other and the chaos of the room came roaring back. I snapped my eyes back to the stage to see one duo making their way up the stairs and an obliviously cheerful Johanna beaming down at us as Mara shoved me forward and we made our way across the floor and up the steps.
The first women reached out their hands beneath nervous smiles, and I shook them both as we took our spot and Johanna called out names and the purpose of their applications.
Pierce and Cheyenne were siblings from Wyoming, building orphanages with 3D printers in third world countries.
Alexandria was funding scholarships for minority families to attend universities.
A weighted pause settled over the room as I realized the beaming faces in line were suddenly…our competitors. I didn’t want to compete with any of them, as they shifted on their feet nervously, suddenly at center stage. All their ideas were worthy of receiving the money. For the first time, as my heart pounded in my chest, I realized how hard this would be.
“Our fifth and final candidate is applying for the funds to start up a center that would provide after school care, meals, tutoring and extracurriculars for teens whose parents cannot be as involved in their lives as they’d like.” So, a youth center. Oh, for fuck's sake, I’d be robbing bunnies to feed raccoons in this fiasco. But her next words snapped my attention to the back of her perfect golden hair. “From a rainy little community in The Last Frontier. A small fishing town called Mistyvale, Alaska.” No. No way. My breath stalled as I scanned clear across the room, finding him against the back wall, as though my mind had never lost track of him in the first place. My stomach sank as his eyes found mine through the gold frames of his reading glasses. No freaking way. “Professor Broderick Allen.”
SIX
BRODERICK
The level of dread mirrored back at me in those Rhodes blue-gray eyes from across the room was an accurate depiction of the panic in my chest. Of course. Of course, they’d reduce the competition for efficiency’s sake. That or the fates had been sorely lacking in entertainment and decided to shake things up a bit. And, of course, it would be me facing off with Elora. It was always me and Pix.
I was the swim team captain my sophomore year, before Dad made me pick between that and football. That was two years before she swept the board, claiming every damn category and setting the state record for metals collected. My shoes as Student Body President were filled by none other than Elora Rhodes, with ten more votes than I’d acquired. I was awarded Valedictorian with a four-point-oh, so she took AP classes and took the title with a four-point-five.
A four. Point. Five.
What kind of psychopath could get a GPA like that? My best friends’ baby sister. That’s who.
As her eyes slipped closed, she looked less than thrilled at the current matchup, and with good reason. Our competitors all had fantastic, heart-smashing causes. And if she was anything like me, she’d been preparing for weeks and knew that more likely than not, it would be the two of us standing as finalists by the end of the week.
It always had been.
Cursing, I made my way on stage to shake hands with Miss King, and my new competition, hesitating awkwardly in front of Elora. Did I shake the hand of the woman I’d known practically my entire life? Go in for a hug and make the entire conference awkwardly aware of our friendship? What were the odds a tiny Alaskan fishing town would produce two of their finalists? We had a four-figure population. So…None. Absolutely incomprehensible.
Swallowing audibly, my shoulders relaxed when she extended her hand and gave a practiced smile. As I accepted, she practically crushed my palm, and I canted my head as one of her sculpted brows arched incrementally in challenge. The warning was implicit, as they all had been back home.
This means war.
