Page 17 of Tangled Up In You

He’d worn a tour T-shirt of a professor’s favorite band to class, pretending to also be a huge fan. He’d organized fundraisers, joined jog-a-thons, picketed, and canvassed for signatures to benefit their favorite causes. He’d rounded up groups of students to fill the auditorium for guest speakers and helped students who were struggling with the material. He’d flirted with professors—he’d done far more than flirt with their TAs. He’d made sure the dean loved him, leveraged his father’s reputation at every possible opportunity, and never regretted it, not once, because he was so close to the finish line he could taste it.

He knew in his heart he wouldn’t have regretted this, either, if Ren hadn’t shown up.

It was the tiny creak of the door that gave her away. Just the smallest sound of metal on metal, a hinge shifting a fraction of an inch. It was enough to pull his attention away from the screen and to the inch-wide expanse of darkness leading into the lab. There, in the shadow, was a face.

And there, in the flesh, was Ren Gylden, with her big green eyes and spools of golden hair and round, shocked mouth, shoving the door wide open. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m—” Panic rose like a violent tide as consequences scrolled out in his mind: academic dishonesty, the loss of Judge Iman’s letter, maybe even no shot at graduating, ever. He’d been so sure of this plan, he’d never bothered to make another.

And then he paused, narrowing his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I asked you first.” She pointed to the computer, stammering, “That’s—that’s Audran’s grade book.”

“He asked me to come in and check something for him.”

“You?”

His heart hammered so hard he wondered if she could hear it. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because he trusts me.”

She stared at him, frowning. “Why didn’t he ask one of the new TAs?”

“How am I supposed to know? He just asked me.”

She chewed on this for a beat. “So why didn’t you turn on the lights?”

“I’m lazy.”

“But not so lazy that you won’t come into the lab at midnight on a Sunday?”

“Just a quick in and out,” he said with a sideways grin, “and then I’m done.”

Before he realized what Ren was doing, she’d moved in a blur, stepping forward and reaching above him for something on the shelf. He was about to tell her to let him wrap up and head home when a bursting flash filled the room, temporarily blinding him.

“If you’re here on his instruction, I’m sure you won’t mind if I verify it with Dr. Audran.”

He grasped for the table. When his vision started to clear, he could just make out the way she gently waved something in the air near her head. Fitz’s stomach bottomed out. She’d taken a Polaroid photo of him with Audran’s grade book open on the screen in the background.

“Ren,” he said, low and steadying, moving just a little closer. He put on his trademark sultry half smile. “I swear it isn’t what you think.”

But, as ever, Ren was immune to his flirtation. “It isn’t you panicking about your test score and breaking in here to change it in Audran’s computer?”

He swallowed. “I can explain.”

“I can’t wait to hear it.”

Fitz took a closer look at her. Gone was the affable golden retriever energy. This Ren was shaken, rattled. Whether it was the anger over finding him here or something else, she wasn’t going to budge. Dread filled him with a cold blackness, and he slumped back into the chair. Was this how it would all fall apart? Eight years of hard work and the occasional con, and it was gone in the flash of a Polaroid? Fitz couldn’t believe he was going to be buried by long-dead technology. He had so much riding on this, more than Ren could even fathom.

“My father will cut off my inheritance if he finds out I cheated,” he lied, doing his best to sound terrified. Honestly, it wasn’t much of a stretch, and if there was one thing Corona students knew about Fitz, it was that his father was loaded. “After graduation, I have plans to create a charitable organization for clean energy research, but all of that will be lost if this gets out.”

She took a deep breath before blowing it out in a burst. Fitz had always been able to read people. He’d gone a little overboard with this story, but she was buying it, he could tell.

Ren shook her head. “You’re lying.”

Dammit. “Why would you say that?”