40. Toe Pick on Three
TOE PICK ON THREE
BEFORE
Because traveling to ICPC worlds is inherently tension-filled and anxiety-inducing, and because he’s still recovering from pitch meetings and the associated follow-up emails and mini Zoom sessions, Lucas doesn’t notice that I’m quieter than usual.
We grin and bear it as Brody uses our only free night to drag us to Azerbaijan’s apparently famous Shamakhi Astrophysical Observatory via the taxi driver from hell.
Then we smile through the opening ceremony festivities, which always includes cultural presentations from the host country—drum and dance shows, local officials who come and welcome us.
All three of us shake hands with the ever-present recruiters, many of whom have sponsored the event, but our hearts aren’t in it.
Lucas is committed to his startup, meaning these will be his future competitors.
Brody has just taken the LSAT and is knee-deep in actual applications.
And I . . . will be indentured to my father in a way I won’t easily be able to buy my way out of.
“We should try to have fun with this,” I say.
Brody pretends to look offended. He’s been too obviously gentle around me, and I’m worried Lucas will begin to suspect. His eyes are tired, but his tone is light. “I’m always having fun. I’m a funness distribution machine.”
I roll my eyes because it’s what Lucas would expect. “I just mean, this might be our last time really programming together. Given how busy we’re all about to be, who knows when we’ll really see each other again like this.”
“You can keep recommending books in our group chat.”
“The recommendations you ignore?”
“One, your scary boy toy Lucas reads enough for me and him combined. Two, sometimes, and I don’t want to oversell, but sometimes, I look up the synopsis.”
I laugh and it sounds almost genuine, even to my own ears. “Let’s kick some ass.” I pause long enough to place a hand on each of their shoulders, a stretch for me considering how much taller they both are. “Because I’m in the mood to kick a little ass.”
Brody groans. “The Cutting Edge again, really?”
Lucas shrugs, pulling me in for a hug, not noticing when I sniff him, trying to store this as a core memory I can access later. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“You say that because Lorelai practically sat in your lap the entire time.”
“We sat several inches apart,” I protest as Lucas presses a kiss to my temple.
“Get your own girlfriend.”
“So can we? Kick some ass? Show we’re better as a trio than, you know, Lucas competing on his own?”
“Toe pick on three.”
Brody and I laugh; it’s not usually Lucas who quotes from what’s clearly my movie.
“Fine.” Brody puts his hand in the middle, and yeah, we get a few odd looks, but we’re grinning too hard to really care.
Professor Miller is the first to approach us afterward.
It doesn’t seem real until he congratulates us. He shakes Lucas’s hand first. “I knew you could do it,” he says before approaching me. He slaps a heavy hand on my shoulder. “And I hear this is a double congratulations for you.”
He angles his head back and raises bushy eyebrows, his entire face twisted into a caricature of Now, now. He turns his smartphone toward me, where, because he must have the display text set to the largest possible size, the headline practically screams at all three of us:
Romeo and Juliet for the Ages: Tatum Huang and Lorelai Zhao Engaged!
Formerly famous for their feuds, the CEO of Huang Enterprises and the CEO of Zhaovestments likely never predicted that their children, Tatum Huang, Stanford Olympic swimmer, and . . .
My father agreed to give me a week. Brody’s mother insisted it be written into the contract. But who knows who’s seen the contract in the intervening days: It could be a disgruntled employee retaliating against my father. It could be my father, knowing I can’t trace it back to him.
Lucas is staring at me intently, his breathing ragged. The longer I’m silent, the more apparent my guilt, and yet I just cannot connect my tongue to my brain, cannot verbalize any of the half lies I’ve been working on since I signed.
“You don’t seem to be denying this.”
Brody clears his throat, and there is a stricken, almost panicked flash of guilt that crosses our friend’s face. It would have been a dead giveaway if Lucas had been looking. But thankfully, Lucas isn’t looking, because I’d hate for Lucas to lose me and Brody at the same time.
I lick my lips and grasp at the first stall I can think of. “The awards ceremony—”
“Doesn’t start for another hour.”
“Professor Miller—”
“Has just drifted away to accept congratulations from all the other coaches.” Lucas’s voice is eerily calm as he gestures toward the exit, and I could try to wiggle out of this, to delay the inevitable, but I won’t.
I was promised another week.
Days of waking up in Lucas’s warm arms.
Nights of breathing next to him, feeling loved and—
I shake my head, because now is not the time to think about any of that. There will be plenty of time to cry and scream later.
Later, I’ll have a lifetime to grieve the hours and days and weeks I’ve lost with Lucas.
I’ll have only the next few minutes to convince Lucas this is what I want. One chance to fool the smartest man I’ve ever met. Because if Lucas suspects—worse, if Lucas figures out the truth of this farce—he will talk me out of it. Because he can talk me into anything, often without even trying.
And that would be disastrous.
I square my shoulders as we wait, in tacit silence, for the elevator.