By the time I reached the fourth floor of the engineering building, my lungs were on strike and my coffee had gone from hot motivation to lukewarm regret.
Perfect conditions to meet my academic nemesis, apparently.
The plaque beside the glass door read: RHODES INNOVATION LAB – AUTHORIZED STUDENTS ONLY. Someone had stuck a neon pink sticky note under it in loopy handwriting: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter." I snorted, wiped my palm on my jeans, and pushed the door open.
The lab felt like stepping into a different tax bracket. Floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the room with white winter light. Sleek workstations, dual-monitor setups, a 3D printer humming in the corner, espresso machine that probably cost more than my monthly rent if I had rent.
Instead, I had a scholarship that lived on a knife’s edge and a mother who answered the phone like every number was a threat.
"Ms. Blake." Professor Rhodes’s voice cut through the quiet hum of machines and low conversation. She stood near the center table, prim in a navy blazer over a black dress, silver hair pulled back in a precise knot. Her eyes—sharp, gray, assessing—swept over me like she was cataloging every wrinkle in my thrift-store cardigan.
I tightened my fingers around the strap of my backpack. "Sorry I’m—" I checked the clock. Two minutes late. "—nearly on time. Bus was held up."
Her mouth didn’t quite smile, didn’t quite disapprove. "I prefer on time to nearly. But you’re here. That matters more." She tilted her head toward the far side of the room. "We’re just waiting for Mr. Hale."
Of course we were.
I followed her gaze and felt something low and unpleasant coil in my stomach.
Noah Hale was already there.
He leaned against one of the high tables like furniture had been designed to accommodate his height and posture. Tall, broad-shouldered under a fitted charcoal sweater, dark hair that did that annoying effortless swoop thing rich boys on brochures had. One hand was in his pocket; the other scrolled lazily on his phone. The afternoon light caught the sharp line of his jaw and the expensive watch on his wrist.
He looked up as if he’d felt my attention. His eyes were a cool, unreadable blue, the kind that always made me think of ice over deep water.
"You’re late," he said, not to Rhodes. To me.
So we were opening with that.
"Wow," I said. "Thanks for the timekeeping. I left my personal butler in my other life."
One dark brow lifted the tiniest fraction. Something flickered at the corner of his mouth—amusement? Annoyance? It vanished quickly.
"Blake," he said, like the name tasted slightly sour. We’d had exactly three interactions before this week: one in a seminar where I’d challenged his argument and he’d called my data set"quaint," one in the library when he’d taken the last copy of a reference text I needed without looking back, and one overheard phone call where he’d referred to someone as "just a scholarship case" in a tone that had stayed under my skin for days.
I stepped closer, set my backpack down with a soft but deliberate thud. "Hale."
Professor Rhodes watched us with that too-keen calm of someone who’d arranged the experiment and was waiting patiently for combustion.
"Excellent. Since we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries," she said dryly, "we can begin." She moved to the large display on the wall and tapped her tablet. A slide appeared: HALE-RHODES INNOVATION FELLOWSHIP PILOT.
