Page 55 of Betting on the Brainiac

“You?”

I nod, trying not to laugh.

She looks over her shoulder to the still-empty hallway and turns around to poke me in the chest. “Youare dead sexy salsa guy?”

I lift my eyebrows. It’s one of the better nicknames I’ve gotten. “Me. Yes.”

Her eyes narrow. “Prove it.”

I take her hands and lead her in a couple of salsa steps, spinning her and pulling her back to my chest in a close hold. “Believe me?”

Ruby begins to laugh. To laugh and laugh and laugh, and that’s why when Madison comes to check on her a minute later, I haven’t gotten a chance to ask Ruby when and how I explain this all to her.

“I cannot take this anymore,” Madison says, waving her phone. “If I forget I put my phone in here, don’t remind me.” She marches to a kitchen drawer and tosses her phone in, shutting it with a borderline slam. “As for you two, boys and girls, we request that you rejoin the party. Don’t make me use my herdingpowers on you. If I can handle a New Year’s table full of gropey lawyers, you two are child’s play.”

Ruby is still grinning, but Madison’s expression turns worried, not amused. “Ruby-Roo, you’re doing that crazy laugh again. Like that one day of finals when you couldn’t stop? Let’s get you hydrated and maybe have some protein.”

Madison heads for the sausages. Ruby gives me a begging look and mouths,Save me.

A gentleman can’t turn down a request from a lady, so as Madison passes, I reach out and hook her around the waist.

“Wha—” Her surprised question ends in a squeak when she finds herself scooped into a fireman’s carry.

I look into her eyes, unsmiling. “I can’t let you do that, Madison. It’s for your own safety.”

“Do what? Take care of Ruby?”

“It’s true,” Ruby confirms as she leads us out of the kitchen. “If you hover over me anymore, I might kill you. Oliver just saved your life.”

We troop to the living room, and I sit in the chair, settle Madison on my lap, and lose the plot none of us can follow anyway. Madison had taken my manhandling without objection—due to surprise, I’d bet—and while I sense her sliding looks my way every now and then, I ignore them. I keep my eyes on the screen, but my thoughts are twelve hours in the future.

That’s when this pliant armful of caramel-scented woman I’m holding will roll into Gatsby’s in yoga pants and a messy bun like it’s any other day. But it won’t be. Because as soon as we’ve checked on the kittens, I will be sitting this woman’s shapely butt down and blowing her mind with my mask confession.

And if it goes well, blowing it again when I take her upstairs to the nook for a reenactment—just in case there are any doubts.

There are several perks to this plan, but a not-insignificant one is that I don’t have to find out how serious Ruby is about possum trapping.

Chapter Twenty

Oliver

My plan falls apartwith a text from Matt before my alarm even goes off Monday morning.

Big problem. VC walked. Need to regroup.

I shoot straight up in bed and re-read it, sure I’ve misunderstood. We lost our funding? How? On Friday, they said it was a lock.

On my way to the office.

I throw on jeans and a hoodie, shove my feet into my sneakers, grab my laptop bag, and head out. All the way to the office, I run through every conversation, slide, and spreadsheet we shared with the investor team during their visit. The numbersare good. There’s no such thing as a risk-free investment, but for people used to seeing the big picture—a key part of investing—we should have been an easy bet.

Inside, Matt is already waiting for me in the conference room. It’s small with fishbowl vibes. I shut the door and start to lower the blinds.

“Don’t,” Matt says. “They’ll know something is wrong. We’ll have to sit here and look like we’re talking regular strategy when they start coming in.”

This is not regular strategy. This is crisis management. The next round of funding was supposed to cover another six months of runway for us, the last push as we move into product testing and launch. It was supposed to cover payroll for everyone that will fill in those cubicles shortly—our executive assistant, our payroll manager, our accountant, our developers. All told, we have about two weeks of capital left before we can’t fund their paychecks.

“Did they say why they changed their minds?” I ask Matt.

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