Page 3 of The Plus-One Deal

I shrieked. “What was that?”

Conrad pulled me closer. “Power cut, maybe. Or?—”

The lights came back on. Conrad smiled, sheepish, and tapped on my watch.

“Or it’s ten to eleven, and the library’s closing.”

Gooseflesh ran up my arm, where Conrad had tapped my watch. His fingers slid off it, and across the back of my wrist. I tried not to shiver, tried not to lean in, but his dark eyes were closing. His lips were so close. If I tilted my head back, rose up on my toes — if I leaned up an inch, I could steal a kiss.

Did I want to kiss Conrad? I thought I did. He smelled of coffee and late nights and fading cologne, and his stubble would be scratchy, his lips soft on mine. His breath would catch as my free hand slid up through his hair. He’d pull me against him, against his toned chest. I’d feel his heart racing, my head in a whirl.

“We shouldn’t,” he whispered, and ran his hand up my arm. He gripped my shoulder, his thumb digging in.

I sucked in a tight breath. “We don’t need the distraction.”

“I’m distracted already.” Conrad tangled his fingers in my loose curls. “I can’t focus around you, around those green eyes.”

I leaned up. Our lips brushed. I heard Conrad sigh. His grip tightened on my shoulder, then the lights dipped again. We both jumped back, gasping.

“It would be a mistake.”

“A mistake,” I repeated, my breath coming harsh.

“We’re seniors. The pressure — we need to focus.”

“Focus,” I echoed, hoarse as a parrot.

“Friends,” said Conrad, and held out his hand.

I took it and shook it, half in a daze.

“One day, we’ll be each other’s friends in high places.” Conrad cleared his throat and let my hand drop. “We’ll be glad then we didn’t let this get messy.”

I snatched my notes off the table and clutched them to my chest. “See you tomorrow, then. We’ll knock Nolan’s socks off.”

Conrad looked like he was about to say something else, but I was already fleeing. He was right, of course. We’d had a moment, was all. One hot, reckless moment. The last thing we needed was to give in to that. Life was complicated enough on the brink of adulthood, without a college relationship to stir up the drama.

I was right about one thing: we knocked Professor Nolan’s socks off.

“This is exactly the type of thinking I look for: identifying a problem and brainstorming solutions. I assign this project to separate the wheat from the chaff, who wants to start a business? Who wants to change the world? You two have potential. You could make some waves. So, for your prize?—”

A murmur went up — the prize? What prize? A voice at the back piped up.

“Why didn’t you tell us there’d be a prize?”

Nolan squinted past us and zeroed in on the speaker. “Mr. Sullivan, that’s you talking, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Are you saying you’d have worked harder if I’d announced the prize?”

Sullivan said nothing. Nolan shook his head.

“Successful people treateveryopportunity like it’s their big one. Like every chance that comes up for them is make or break. Claire and Conrad did that, and they’ll be rewarded… with tickets to the Manhattan Startup Symposium.”

The whole class erupted in furious envy. I sat back and basked in it and grinned over at Conrad. He shot me the thumbs-up, and I felt myself glow.

That bright golden glow carried me through to the night, through dress-shopping, through a haircut I couldn’t afford. Through practicing my investor spiel in front of my mirror. I had an app in development I wanted to pitch, but it was still buggy, my prototype rough.

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