Page 2 of Movers and Fakers

I immediately regret my words when I see his surprised grin out of the corner of my eye. I’ve worked hard to keep my personal life to myself around Hayes. He doesn’t need to know that my dad and younger brother are boxing-obsessed. Or that they taught me some moves for self-defense purposes. Getting the letter today threw me off, though, and I slipped up.

“Is that so?” The low, sultry question makes chill bumps scatter across my skin. “I’d love to see you in action.”

“Not gonna happen.”

I stop in front of the Digital Logic classroom. Before I can reach for the door, Hayes swings it open with a flourish.

“After you, Your Highness.”

I clench my jaw and walk past him.

“Do you have to make a production out of everything?” I grit out, my face heating with the feeling of our classmates’ stares.

“I’d think you of all people would understand the value of a good performance,” he teases as we walk up the risers to our seats. The ones that are next to each other, per Hayes’s insistence at the start of the semester.

“I only perform when I’m on stage.”

I pull off my pastel-pink backpack and drop it onto the table.

Hayes lets out a sigh as he takes his seat to my right.

“How boring. Haven’t you ever heard that life is a stage?”

I stiffen at the word boring. It’s not the first time I’ve been called that. So-called friends in middle and high school used to whisper it behind my back. They didn’t understand why I couldn’t go out to parties all the time, or concerts, or even to the movies. I preferred a quiet life at home, but I’ve also been saving every penny for dance since I was a kid. I won’t become a principal dancer if I can’t afford pointe shoes.

They never understood, and someone like Hayes won’t either. Life is a joke to him. He’s got what my dad refers to as stupid money. The kind of rich where you have more than you can spend. Hayes’s life is a stream of parties, women, and fighting. Of course, I’d be deemed as boring in his eyes.

I don’t humor him with another response. Instead, I pull out my laptop and get set up for class. But as it starts, my mind gets drawn back to the tuition costs on the paper in my hoodie pocket. Now that my good mood has been soured, the issue of funds glows an angry red color in my thoughts. What I wouldn’t give to have a little of Hayes’s stupid money right about now.

Chapter two

The Offer

Hayes Rosewood

I should not have sat next to Aurora on the first day of class. Or the next class when she moved. Or for a third time to really solidify the fact that she wasn’t getting away from me. It was a fun game at the time. Her cutting remarks are vastly entertaining, and trying to decipher the emotions hidden in her icy blue eyes is the best kind of puzzle. But when you combine those elements with the fact that she’s unbelievably gorgeous … she becomes a distraction. One that I can’t exactly afford in this class, given my last few assignment scores.

So far, college has been a breeze. I learned a lot from my dad about software and business, and that made the first two years easy enough to skate by unscathed. I could have fun and do what I wanted without needing to study. Digital Logic, however, has broken that lucky streak. Not just broken it, shattered it.

I stare blankly at the test grade on my student portal.

“Due to severely disappointing results across the class, I made a few minor adjustments to your grades, with the expectation that you will all review this subject so that it doesn’t affect you come finals,” Professor Riggins announces with a condescending raise of his gray brows.

I’m surprised he changed the grades at all, given that he warned us all this was a course that would separate the weak from the strong on the first day of the semester. The tall, lanky professor has many wrinkles, most of them developed from frowning, and a plethora of wispy silver hair. He’s smiled a handful of times, and each time it’s been like seeing a fish flopping around on the deck of a yacht. You just want to stare, concerned, until it stops.

“Now, let’s get into logical truth tables,” he says, and presses a button on the clicker in his hand.

I need to open up my notes and focus, but the number on the screen holds my attention captive. Not even Aurora can distract me now. Because somehow after the bump in percentage, I have a sixty-eight.

Professor Riggins drones on about inclusive versus exclusive arguments, but one thought drowns out his every word: I’m going to fail this class.

The one rule my father gave before putting me on a plane and sending me to the university was don’t fail. If I do, life as I know it comes crashing down. I’ll have two options: be cut off completely, or move back to New York and apprentice under him like he wanted me to do from the start. Both options are bleak.

I rake a hand through my hair and force myself to listen to the lecture. Contemplating failure isn’t going to keep it from happening.

I don’t think I understand any of what he says, but I copy almost every slide down. There’s a pain behind my eyes from straining, which feels like an indicator of studying hard. I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never really had to.

“Please use my office hours if you are struggling,” Professor Riggins says in a tone that indicates he’d rather cut off his right thumb than talk to any of us outside of class. “Or make use of the wonderful tutors in the library. I know a few of the students in here are tutors.” He gestures to Aurora with one of his unsettling smiles.