Page 35 of Learning Curve

“I made it in my free time in comp lab.”

Ace nods as though that checks out, making Scottie actually look at me with frightened eyes. All I can do is make them back. I mean, I’m confident, but not enough to think I can somehow protect us from a girl who makes fingerprint scanners in her spare time.

“Do I need to give a blood sample too?” Julia asks as Lexi scans her hand.

Lexi is unfazed. “Don’t tempt me.”

“I’m Blake Boden,” Blake repeats for the second time as she moves on to scanning his hand. “Not sure if you heard my full name over the noise.”

“I heard you.” Lexi doesn’t even bother looking up in his direction as she pushes a button on the screen of her phone and drops his wrist.

“The name doesn’t ring any bells?” Blake continues, undeterred and desperate. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this before.

“Last year, you threw for a record 3,995 yards, completed forty TDs, and only had three interceptions,” she rattles off like it’s no big deal.

“Wait…what? You know my stats from last year?”

“I know everyone’s stats.”

Blake’s smile is sly and amused. “But you also know my stats.”

“I also know you lost in the second play-off game like a chump.”

Ace snorts so hard, Julia has to turn him around when snot flies out of his nose.

And Lexi just moves over to Scottie to get her digital signature for the NDA and take her fingerprints like she didn’t just deliver a life-threatening burn.

Blake, rather than looking offended, makes gah-gah eyes at her the size of Texas.

I offer my hand as Lexi gets to me and watch as she scans my print, and then I quickly scribble a signature on the NDA when she shoves it toward me on her phone. As soon as she’s done with me, she pushes back through the others and starts to walk down yet another dark hallway, rattling off information as we follow. “Computare Caterva is the most exclusive society on campus. No one knows we’re here. No one knows what we do. And it will stay that way. When we’re having an event, you’ll get a text. It will just say the time and where to be. Bring cash if you’re smart. Bring more cash if you’re shit at betting, so the rest of us can profit.”

There’s a finality in her speech as she throws open the door at the end of the hall to reveal a sunken room full of no fewer than fifty people. Bodies writhe and people shout as they hold cash in the air for runners who circle the room to exchange it.

Ace and Julia move through the door expediently, but Blake pauses, holding Scottie and me up from doing the same.

“So, you need my number?” Blake questions Lexi, having paid attention to the entirety of her speech like the best student in the class. “For the texts? And, you know, anything else would be okay too.”

She looks from him to us, including the three of us instead of answering him directly. “I already have your number.”

“How?” Blake asks, mystified, and this time, she looks directly at him.

“Because I’m the smartest girl you’ll ever meet.”

“Well, smart girl, how about you give me your number?” Blake grins. “Feels like it’s only fair.”

“I don’t date football players.”

“Why not?”

Lexi smiles then, the first real smile I’ve seen her make since we arrived. What she doesn’t do, however, is answer. “Have fun. If you lose your ass tonight, sorry about your luck. Though, if you’re as smart as I hope you are, you know that betting is never about luck.”

She walks away, and just like that, we’re dismissed.

“I’m going to marry that girl,” Blake whispers as he watches her move to the center of the room where what looks to be a boxing ring with a cage surrounding it sits.

I use my own momentum to push Scottie and Blake farther into the room, going up and around a group of people before climbing down into the sunken center to where Ace and Julia are standing in the back row. Students jostle back and forth as someone in the front stumbles and falls before their friends pick them back up to standing.

Ace spots us coming and turns to help Scottie jump down beside Julia first. Blake follows, though his eyes still wander the room, looking for Lexi.

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