Page 58 of Learning Curve

“I’m not kidding, Scottie.”

She scoffs softly. “I know you’re not.”

“But you’re still not gonna show them to me?”

She shakes her head. “I…I can’t. I want to, but I just…”

“Can’t,” I finish for her. Fucking hell, do I understand her completely, even if I hate the shoe being on the other foot. “All right,” I finally agree, letting her off the hook for now.

“Really? You’re going to drop it?” she questions, pulling me to a stop just before we get to where the others are waiting.

“No,” I say carefully. She frowns. “But I’ll let it go for now if you promise to tell me if you get more.”

“Finn—”

“Promise me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I’ll tell you if I get more.”

“Hurry up!” Ace calls from the three-way split in the tunnel ahead of us. “We actually did it! There are no marks on the wall. This is a new split!”

Scottie and I speed up into a jog until we make it to them. Blake makes a mark on the wall with the lipstick and then steps back to consider our three options. “Abrams is one of the oldest buildings on campus, right?”

“I have no fucking clue,” Ace remarks, making Julia laugh.

“It is,” Blake says then, answering himself. “It was the original university building, back in the late eighteen hundreds.”

“How do you know this shit?” I ask.

Blake rolls his eyes. “It was in the freshman orientation pamphlet I got last year. Obviously, none of you bothered to read yours.”

“Wow,” Ace chortles. “Blake Boden is a do-gooding dork.”

Blake shoves him, and I put Ace in a headlock after he bounces away, ordering, “Stop making fun of the guy who actually knows shit, bud. He might leave our asses here and take the money for himself.”

Ace wriggles away to bow down in front of Blake, actually striking a curtsy at one point, and we all laugh. “Please accept my humble apology, my dear sir, Your Football Royal Highness.”

Scottie surprisingly settles next to me, and I drape my arm around her shoulders without even thinking. She grabs my dangling wrist and holds it to her chest.

My whole body aches with longing. I really wish I had a different life sometimes.

“We will follow your lead dutifully for this next leg of the challenge.”

Blake picks Ace up to standing again, and Ace clings to him in an aggressive hug. “Security! Security!” Blake calls out playfully, and Scottie, Julia, and I all step forward to pull Ace off him.

“Come on,” I say, pushing Ace forward into one of the tunnels with a shove. He bounces back like he’s tethered to us, though, and Blake starts explaining his reasoning.

“The oldest building probably has the oldest tunnel, so I’m thinking it’s this one.”

I shrug. It’s a good enough theory for me.

Blake waves us on, and we all follow him on the path, only revisiting one more split we have to mark before finding the right direction. At the end of the tunnel, there’s a door, and Ace runs toward it excitedly. I don’t know if it’s the good news he’s hoping for—the door that leads to Abrams—or another door entirely, but now that we’ve been at this for the last five hours, I’m convinced it’s the door I’m leaving through, either way.

Whether we win here tonight or not, I at least feel like I won some ground with Scottie.

Ace tries the knob, and it opens without requiring a special knock. He charges through first, though Julia is plastered to the front of him as he does, and Blake follows closely behind. I usher Scottie forward with a hand at the small of her back so she can exit first, and the smile she gives me over her shoulder will live rent-free in my head until the day I die.

Lexi is waiting on a table in the basement conference room just through the supply closet the tunnel lets us into. For as much beef as I have with the Winslows, after five hours in these fucking tunnels, I’m happy to see her.

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