Chapter 32. Paid in Full

Tessa’s POV

He comes back at 11:04 with a laptop under his arm and his chest heaving.

Not mine. His. Black, scratched, with a Cadston Wolves sticker peeling off the lid. He sets it on my knees and opens it, and the screen lights up with the Blackrock Grant login page.

I stare at it.

“Your draft’s in the portal,” he says, still catching his breath. “It autosaves. I read the email over your shoulder. Sorry. You’ve got fifty-five minutes.”

“Wyatt—”

“Log in.”

“My best friend is in surgery.”

“I know.” He crouches down in front of me, so his eyes are level with mine. “And when she wakes up, she’s going to ask if you submitted. And if you say no because of her, she’s going to kill you with her bare human hands. Her words, not mine.”

I laugh. I don’t mean to. It comes out of me like a sob.

“She designed the colors,” I whisper.

“Then submit it for her.”

So I do.

I write the last paragraph of the executive su