Reggie knew he had some hurdles to overcome if he was to have what he wanted. Luckily, he had always been of a sharper mind than most and got very little credit for it. That would probably work to his advantage. It also helped that he’d carefully observed his sister get her way again and again through various manipulative means as he grew. If she could get away with it, why couldn’t he?

He took a seat in the law class lecture hall next to someone he never thought he’d need to think about again.

That someone, whose jovial laugh penetrated the room’s din as he joked with a classmate, grated on Reggie’s nerves—taking his thoughts back to his primary school days. It was the same laugh that had always caught him on edge because he knew he was about to be viciously mocked for nothing he could help.

Nicholas Calhoun didn’t deserve to sound so happy.



Of course, Nick was oblivious and perceived Reggie as just another student like all the rest in the room. Nothing about Reggie stood out—dark hair, glasses, pale—just another nerd, the type Nick had found an easy target when they were young.

People didn’t just ‘change’, either. Somewhere inside, Reggie knew Nick still had that bit of bully in him, and that is why he had no moral conflicts with doing what he was doing for the sake of reaching his goals.

Reggie had access to quite a few fun little pieces of gadgetry being in the robotics program, and GPS trackers were among them. How else would one find their robot if it was stolen? It was the necessary first step to do what Marshall Cosgrove wanted—to get dirt on Nick, and naturally, Reggie would have to know of what Nick did in his everyday life, including the places he went. He’d had to think of the best way to get a tracker on or near Nick and have it stay long enough for Reggie to know his movements. It was small enough he could slip it onto something like a phone or wallet but the chances to get access to something personal of Nick’s like that was slim. The laptop sitting in front of Nick was an option but he doubted Nick took it with him wherever he went.

Nick was twirling a pencil in his right hand, letting it lace between his fingers like a drum stick. Reggie didn’t mean to stare as he concentrated, working out how to achieve the first step, but it was long enough that it made the classmate on the other side of Nick give Reggie a questioning look. Which in turn, caused Nick to turn around and see what was up.

“Need something, buddy?”



I’m not your buddy, Reggie frowned in thought. Then, he realized Nick had a jacket on that had pockets. Pockets that the device could hide in. It was another chilly day and was unlikely that Nick would remove it if he was wearing it indoors even now.

However, men didn’t just ask other men to try on their jackets, not without arousing judgment or suspicion and Reggie lost his nerve.

“No, just spacing out, sorry,” he mumbled an excuse and turned away but kept an ear on them in case something came up in conversation he could use as a starting point. Currently, Nick was discussing throwing a house party.

Reggie inwardly scoffed; how could Nick not realize what he had given up by leaving the Greek Society? The Hoh Fruhm parties were legendary. What was a measly little house party in comparison?

The professor took their place at the podium and told everyone to simmer down so she could begin, “I’m no Grand Chancellor Bao, but we have a schedule to maintain.”



The lecture began and the room went silent but for the clicking of laptop keys or scratching of pencils on paper for notetaking. Reggie used his laptop; he also was signed into his Rush Hour account waiting to see if Violet_Fire would get online.

He had convinced Alanna to go stargazing with him later that night. It was something he was looking forward to. There was supposed to be a meteor shower in the evening and he had no doubt she’d love it. It gave him a thrill to be the cause of her smiles, her laughter, and only wished he could do more of it.

As he was taking notes on a text pad, a notification popped up in the corner of his screen that Violet_Fire was online. He immediately clicked it and typed into a private message chatbox:

MegaZoom: want to race tonight?

Of course, he actually couldn't but was further testing his theory of her real identity. He was about sixty-five to seventy percent sure his online arch-rival was his real-life crush but he just had to know more.

She was typing a response and he waited with bated breath and unblinking eyes, halting any attention to the lecturer or his notes.

Violet_Fire: Can’t. Got a date tonight. Maybe next time?

He swallowed a gasp and bit his fist to keep it from escaping as his stomach made a happy little flip flop. A date? She thought it was a date? This was amazing news! He had purposefully tried not to come off as it sounding like a date because of the way Alanna had always insisted on them being friends, but could this be her hidden desire?

He quickly typed out a response and felt his pulse quicken.

MegaZoom: yeah some other time then...unless you’re afraid I’m gonna to beat you again

Violet_Fire: In ur dreams.

He bit his lower lip and smiled to himself because she had no idea how close they were to a meeting in reality.



She was only online for a brief moment, perhaps checking a store update. A new custom wheelset was supposed to release that day that was only available to players that had grinded enough through recent race missions to get an achievement. Reggie had checked the game store earlier too but didn’t see it yet. Her online status changed to offline a few minutes after their chat. Good. He had missed a few minutes of the lecture while his mind was preoccupied with how he could somehow hint to Alanna that his true feelings for her extended beyond cultural excursions and outings.

As he packed up his laptop in his bag after class ended, his mind turned back to Nick Calhoun. Reggie held the small-signal transmitter in his hand, hoping for an idea to strike. He really didn’t want to go to the trouble of physically following Nick, he had other things to do like get ready to meet Alanna. True, it was a few hours away but he wanted it to be perfect! The perfect date for the perfect girl.

Instead of trying to be a fancy SCIA agent and do some kind of stealth move to stick the tracker on Nick, he knew he’d have to be clever and find something of more substance.

He shuffled out of the classroom, keeping his gaze to his feet but an ear on his former bully, listening for anything that could dismantle the Calhoun reputation. Reggie had always considered himself good at problem-solving so why was it so hard to come up with a solution to this?

Nick walked with a natural swagger, and casually held his bookbag while chattering with the same friend from class. Reggie’s attention caught when Nick’s voice suddenly switched tone.

“Hey, Tara! Wait up!”

Reggie glanced up and saw a pretty blonde girl pass by them; she didn’t look too pleased to see Nick and didn’t make any hesitation to ‘wait up.’

“Hey about last weekend...” Nick tried to speak and keep pace, but his attempt was rejected by her determination to keep walking forward. She made it seem like Nick was a pest that she just wanted to get rid of. Reggie respected this girl already, whoever she was. She had the good sense not to be taken in by the likes of Nicholas Calhoun.

“Harsh,” Nick’s friend commented as they watched the girl walk away without a second glance.



“Yeah but...I kind of deserved it,” Reggie heard Nick admit and watched them as they turned to walk in their original direction, discussing more details about the house party.

Reggie was struck with an idea and started following the blonde girl. He probably couldn’t get near enough to Nick to plant a tracker but with a little convincing, that girl definitely could. He knew from experience when a girl of one’s affection got close, a guy’s mind would short circuit and tunnel focus on a few select things, probably wouldn’t notice a casual touch contain anything—even something small like a tracker.

He picked up his pace to see where the girl was headed, trying not to be too obvious he was following her. He had never been good at talking to girls, so that was a worry at the back of his mind. How could he start a conversation with her, let alone convince her to stick a tracker on Nick?



He ended up following blondie, and she, in turn, ended up in a very familiar classroom, and then he realized it was the class he took last year! She did not seem the type to be into political science. She took a seat near the back of the room and pulled out a notebook for note-taking. Reggie set down his bag and rummaged through it, looking for something small that he could hide a tracker in. His father had given him some campaign buttons to hand out if he found willing students to declare their political affiliations. It was a perfect size. He popped the back off one and stuck the transmitter in, after activating it. The back of the button easily clicked back in with the tracker sandwiched in between.

“Hey. Um, are you sure you are in the right class?” Reggie sat down next to her. She gave him a passing glance, seemingly annoyed.

“Yes, but I don’t usually attend.”

That explained why she didn’t question his presence in a class he wasn’t currently taking.

He gave a nervous laugh, “How's that going for your grade point average?”



She scowled, “Not good, obviously. That’s why I am here now. Ugh, I just haaaate the lecturer’s voice. It makes me sooooo bored. If I am going to end up napping, I’d rather do it back at the sorority.”

Sorority?

“You're in the Greek Society then?”

She just raised a brow in which replaced what he could hear only as ‘obviously, you little nerd!’

“I am too!” he said, but then had to slow his enthusiasm down as her brows shot to the top of her forehead in surprise, “Well I will be. Soon. Membership pending. I actually have a question for you.”

“No, I won’t date you.”

He choked on his next words, “I would never ask you that!"

Her glare turned to gobsmacked, “What? What’s wrong with me? You’d be lucky to date me.”

Reggie frowned, trying to keep his patience, “You aren’t my type.”



“Oh,” she seemed to pout more at the fact that her ego was bruised than the fact someone like him wouldn’t be interested in dating her, “Okay then, what did you want to ask?”

“I was wondering if you could do something for me and I could pay you—”

“No! I’m not going to sleep with you!”

Reggie had never had his face turn so red in his life. He noticed a few students already nearby give him questionable looks as her rejection rang out. Plumbobs, talking to girls got him in so much trouble!



“That’s n...that’s not what I was going to ask,” He stumbled over his words in mortification and couldn’t help to frown, “Would you please just listen and stop assuming I am coming on to you? I’m not interested in you like that.”

She scoffed, “Your loss, nerd.”

“I have this button, and I’ll pay you twenty simoleons if you pin it to Nick Calhoun’s jacket without him noticing.”

“Who?”

“Nick Calhoun. He’s that tall guy that used to be at Hoh Fruhm—man bun, bad sense of humor—”

“You mean Nick Hart?”

Reggie had forgotten that was what always Nick called himself.

“Yeah, same guy.”

“That’s a really weird thing ask. Besides he can drop dead, he’s the biggest jerk that I’ve ever slept with and I don’t want to see him ever again.”

Reggie scrambled to keep his cool, and his face from returning to that bright shade of red, “It’s not a weird thing to ask—you see this is a campaign pin for his father’s opposition as mayor of Kashmire, and if the media sees it on Elm Calhoun’s son, they will think his own son doesn’t support him. You’d be getting back at him for being a jerk.”

“Politics are soooo boring,” she huffed. Again, Reggie wondered why she had any business being in a political science class. After a pause, she seemed to think his explanation made sense, and rubbed her chin in thought, “I didn’t know Nick’s dad was running for mayor. He never mentioned it.”

Reggie shrugged, and held out the button to her, “As you said—politics are boring. I’ll give you twenty simoleons to do it. Do we have a deal?”



“No.”

“What? Why not?” Reggie knotted his brows in puzzlement.

She licked her lips and smirked, “In exchange for this, I don’t want twenty simoleons—I want you to do my term paper for this class.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but don’t make it have like...a super brainy summary. Like, keep the vocab on the basic side. The T.A. who grades will never believe it if I get a hundred percent after missing so many sessions."

Reggie grumbled, weighing the terms and wondering what it was like to settle for such mediocrity. Was it worth it? She was the best chance at the moment to get a tracker on Nick. She was also shrewder than he anticipated. “Fine, but you have to turn it in. I’m not submitting it for you, they are likely to notice if you are missing but they have your homework marked present.”

She stood up and stepped forward, “What’s your name again?”

He glanced up, only a bit startled at her movement. He wondered why she was grinning so self-assuredly, “I never told you before, so I can’t say it again.”

“Plumbobs, you are such a smartass.”

“Well, I am smart.”

“My name is Tara. Tara Tan. You at least need to know that so you can put it on my paper.”

He gave a small, nervous, laugh, “Yeah, I guess that would be good to know.”

“But really, what is your name?”

“Reginald.”

She wrinkled her nose, seeming to hold back a laugh, “Sounds like something out of a romance novel.”

It was his turn to try not to laugh, knowing his romantic history or lack thereof, “Trust me, it’s not.”

“Okay then, Reginald—” the way her voice wrapped around his full name and seemed to cradle it with warmth made his eyes snap to her, not in surprise...it was just different. Only his family ever called him by it, and only when they were displeased or being insufferably formal, so the casual tone of it threw him a bit off guard. “—we have a deal.”

With that said, she plucked the pin from his hand.