Tall, Dark, and Nerdy: High School Billionaire #1

by Dallen, Maggie

  Oliver’s parents were smart, and like me they only wanted the best for Oliver. And for my part, that meant making sure Oliver thrived at this new school even though the selfish part of me wanted him to come back home so we could go back to being the inseparable besties we’d always been.

  But here’s the thing about life. There was no going backwards, and people were bound to change.

  Especially when they became an overnight success story.

  Oliver kept telling me how nothing would change when he went off to school, but in a way I hoped it would. I’d meant it when I’d said that I’d wanted him to get out and meet people. Being in a new city, on his own…this was his chance to spread his wings and I’d never wanted him to feel like he needed to come home to visit every other weekend or invite me to the city all the time just because he was worried about me.

  Despite what he might say, he did worry about me. He couldn’t help it any more than I could help worrying about him. When you’ve been joined at the hip as long as we have, you couldn’t help but think about the other person.

  The last time he’d asked me to visit I’d said no—it was too soon. He needed to stand on his own two feet. But now? Well, two months was a really long time. Especially for us. This was the longest we’d been apart our whole lives. Granted, we talked pretty much every day and texted non-stop, but still…separation was brutal.

  “So?” he said. “What do you think?”

  I bit my lower lip as I tried to be selfless and objective. Had enough time passed? Had I given him enough space?

  “Yes,” I said before I’d actually answered either question. A girl could only be so selfless.

  “Great,” he said. “Next weekend then?”

  “Yes.” My heart did a little happy dance in my chest at the honest relief in his voice. “But,” I added, “If I come, we have to manage our time wisely.”

  “I see.” He dropped his voice to match my serious tone. “And why is that?”

  “We have to juggle my pity party with a serious celebration of all things you.”

  His laugh was low and rumbly and so heartwarmingly familiar it nearly made me swoon. Man, I missed this guy. “All things me, huh?”

  “Yup. It’s not every day an eighteen-year-old from Harmon, Pennsylvania becomes a BILLIONAIRE!” And yes, I screamed the word billionaire, ignoring his protests that it wasn’t a done deal yet, and maybe it would fall through, and blah blah this guy was way too humble for words.

  “Your dad told me the other day that it was as good as done,” I said.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well…”

  I rolled my eyes. Only Oliver would feel uncomfortable about the fact that he’d struck gold. “You deserve this. Why not embrace it?”

  He mumbled something incoherent about not wanting me to make a big deal out of it.

  “Tough,” I said. “I’m making a big deal out of it. This is huge. You’re living the dream.”

  “I got lucky, that’s all.”

  My exasperated sigh said it all. We’d been over this before. Many times. In some ways, I got it. No one had seen this coming, least of all Oliver. It had all started as an extra credit computer programming assignment his sophomore year.

  There’s no other way to put it—Oliver became obsessed with his project, a sort of dating app, but the term ‘dating app’ makes it sound way too simple. It was an app and it was designed for young people to find their perfect match, but it was so much more than that.

  He’d called it Love Quiz, but again, he’s oh-so-humble. It was hardly just some quiz. He based the whole concept on the fact that people lie when asked to talk about themselves. Whether it’s intentional or not, people say what they think they should, what they believe others want to hear. What really matters is what they do.

  The app could be synched with all your other social media and apps to compile all sorts of data, and rather than a straightforward quiz, it has users solve puzzles and play games that are designed to ferret out actual personality traits. He’d made this app that was originally designed for his class, then he scaled it up for the whole high school. When his father, a super savvy businessman, got wind of how successful this could be, Oliver leveled up again, and bam! It took off like wildfire.

  The app and its creator garnered a ton of press, and by the end of junior year, it had become the number one social media app among teens and college students. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so shocked when Telecor approached him and his father asking to buy the app.

  But I was shocked, and so was Oliver. I wasn’t sure he’d actually absorbed the fact that he could very well be the first self-made teen billionaire in history. Okay fine, I didn’t know that for a fact, but how many teen billionaires do you know?

  “So you’ll come here and celebrate with me?” he asked, turning the conversation back to my upcoming visit.

  I grinned like a moron on my end of the line. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Great.” He grew quiet and I knew that was all he’d say on the topic.

  “Wait, how am I going to stay with you?” I asked. “Aren’t there, like…rules?”

  “Rules?” he repeated.

  For a genius, my best friend wasn’t always quick on the uptake. “Yeah, you know rules. Like, about fraternizing or whatever.”

  He was silent on the other end and I found myself shifting uncomfortably, getting to my feet because I couldn’t sit still. I didn’t know why I felt weird about this. I mean, Oliver and I had been having sleepovers for years, and it had never been awkward. But then again, there had never been any issue about us sleeping in the same room before either. Our parents knew we were friends. Just friends.

  But the nameless authorities who created the rules of his super strict dorm? Something told me our word of honor on the topic wouldn’t be enough. I heaved a sigh and spelled it out for him. “Won’t there be an issue with me staying in your room?”

  He cleared his throat. “Oh. Um. Yeah…”

  We were both quiet for a second and this silence was just plain weird. We didn’t do awkward silences. It so was not our thing. And yet, here we were, hovering around a topic we’d never had to face before.

  Truth be told, we never really talked much about the fact that he was a boy and I was a girl. I mean, why would we? It would be like discussing the fact that I liked olives and he didn’t, or that he was better at math than I was. Not much to say, really. Just the facts.

  Maybe that’s why it suddenly seemed so weird. We were forced to acknowledge the fact that while we might not see each other as male and female—at least not like that—other people did.

  I found myself pacing my bedroom, trying to backpedal from the edge of awkward. “If you need me to stay at a hotel or something, I could do that.” I stopped walking. “I mean, I can’t really afford it but, you know…you could.”

  That made him laugh. “Using me for my money already, Vance?”

  “You’d better believe it.” Just like that, we were back on normal footing, and I fell back down onto my bed, lying flat so I was staring up at the ceiling. “I have big plans for making you my sugar daddy, you know…minus the creepy stuff.”

  “Creepy, huh?”

  I wrinkled my nose as I babbled away. See, now this was normal. “Don’t you think it’s a creepy term?” I asked. “Sugar daddy…ugh. I wonder where they came up with that.”

  “How exactly am I going to be your non-creepy sugar daddy?” he asked.

  I could practically see his smile as we talked about the pros and cons of having a rich friend who could magically make all your dreams come true. My list of wants and demands grew more and more ludicrous, but it was fun to daydream.

  “Wait, wait,” he interrupted at one point. “What’s this about a helicopter? I mean, the private jet taking us to Italy, I can understand. But a helicopter?”

  I could hear the amusement in his voice and it made me grin as I stared up at my ceiling. “Picture it, Jackson. It would be like
something straight out of a movie.”

  “Uh huh.”

  He didn’t sound convinced but he did sound like he was smiling. That’s how well I knew him, I could hear his smiles. Not just that, I knew what kind it would be. It was a very particular type of smile he’d be wearing right now, the one that caused a little wrinkle between his brows because it was part amusement and part befuddlement. He often gave me that look.

  “You’d swoop in with a helicopter and whisk me away from all the jerks at Harmon High and we’d fly off into the sunset.” I ended with a sigh.

  After a brief pause, Oliver said, “So you’re saying you want me to sweep you off your feet and run away with you.”

  I let out a giggle that was so stupidly girlie I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Something like that.”

  “Got it,” he said. His tone was so dry I burst out in another laugh.

  After another pause, he cleared his throat. “Hey, Vance?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re not really heartbroken over Stuart, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “My ego’s just bruised, that’s all.”

  “You can do better than Stuart Hall.”

  “I know.” I said it to make him stop worrying about me, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. I was far from a beauty queen. I wasn’t butt ugly, but I wasn’t a hottie either. I was somewhere in the middle. A solid five on a scale of one to ten. My curves were a little too curvy and I was shorter than the average girl in my class. I had the sort of face that people called cute, at best. And my hair? Forget about it. It was a big ball of frizz no matter what the weather was like outside.

  “Do you?” he asked quietly.

  The guy knew me too well. But I wasn’t in the mood for one of his pep talks. He was my loyal best friend, and sometimes I was certain he was blind to my faults because of that. From the way he talked, you’d think I could have any guy on the planet. He was worse than my mother, who insisted that boys didn’t ask me out because they were intimidated by me.

  Right. That was totally it. Nothing to do with the fact that my nickname in middle school was Loser Liv. Kids were the best, weren’t they?

  I was still a loser, but my classmates had stopped with the nicknames years ago. Now it was just understood that while I might make them laugh in class sometimes, and they were more than happy to let me organize the charity events as student council president, I was not in their league. I was not of their world. And I was definitely not dateable…at least not by anyone with decent breath or clear skin.

  Did that sound pitiful? Well, tough. This was my pity party, after all. I still had a solid seventy hours of wallowing left and I intended to take full advantage.

  “You’ll find someone else, Liv.”

  “I know,” I said again, this time with more forced confidence. I really needed him to stop. When Oliver got all sweet like this, it made my throat close up and my chest grow tight, and I had no idea why. All I knew was, the reaction had nothing to do with Stuart or this recent breakup.

  I scrambled to think of something else to say before he could start in again, this time with some nice but baseless comments about how I deserved better or how I was too good for all the guys in our school.

  “Honestly, I’m already feeling better,” I said, my tone a little too bright for believability.

  “Yeah?” My smart friend didn’t sound like he believed me.

  “At least now I’m free for Mikey Haverford when he finally realizes that I’m the love of his life.”

  There was a long silence and I held my breath. When Oliver let out a huff of amusement I let out an exhale of my own, the tension seeping out of me.

  “You can’t possibly still have a crush on that guy,” he said.

  I didn’t. Not really. But it was good for a laugh. “Why not?” I said, mentally calling up an image of Mikey, Harmon High’s resident stoner. “He’s sort of an outcast, like me and Stu,” I said.

  “That’s because he never knows what day of the week it is,” Oliver said.

  “Yet he’s still invited to more parties than me,” I marveled. The standards by which one was deemed acceptable at Harmon High were still difficult for me to grasp. Too smart, bad. Too dumb, good. Oh, what a world we lived in. It had to be different in college…right?

  “He’s only invited because he brings the marijuana,” Oliver said. Only Oliver would refer to it as marijuana rather than pot or weed.

  Mikey probably referred to it as breakfast.

  “He is kind of cute, though,” I added. This was true. Mikey had a sort of hot grungy vibe about him.

  “He doesn’t shower.”

  I wrinkled my nose. This was also true. Sometimes Mikey took the grungy vibe a bit too far. I shrugged. “Maybe it’s my lot in life to date smelly men.”

  Oliver sighed. “Do you even hear yourself?”

  “What? He’s of my caliber.”

  Oliver groaned. “Stop it.”

  I did, because I knew it honestly annoyed Oliver when I spoke like that. Like there were different leagues and classes based on popularity and attractiveness.

  “You are better than all of them,” he said gruffly.

  My heart did a weird wringing movement. “No, you are.” I said it teasingly, but it was true. Oliver was better than all of them, and far better than me. He was handsome, smart, and good. So very good.

  It was for the best that he’d left because he deserved so much more than anything he could find here in Harmon.

  I felt a weird ache in my chest. Homesickness at its worst, which was weird since I was in my actual home. But I missed Oliver. I missed that smile. “I can’t wait for next weekend.”

  “Me too,” he said. His voice was lower than ever and a shiver raced through me as it reverberated over the phone.

  Just like that the weirdness was back, although there was no reason for it. This was just Oliver. And I was just his best friend. Nothing had changed. I cleared my throat and shook off the silly sense of awkward. “While I was totally kidding about having you pay, I’m totally serious about staying at a hotel, if that’ll—”

  “No.” His refusal was quick and decisive. “I’ll find a way to make it work.”

  And he would. I had no doubts. Have I mentioned that my best friend was a genius?

  “Okay, cool,” I said, a rush of giddiness making me pace the room once more. We were going to have a sleepover! I couldn’t wait.

  But I’d have to.

  One week.

  Chapter Two

  Oliver

  A lot can happen in one week.

  I checked the time on the clock wall in my dorm’s lobby and then crossed my arms over my chest. She was late.

  Not Liv. She’d just texted to tell me she’d gotten a cab from the train station. I was waiting on Jamie, a virtual stranger, but one of the few girls who’d gone out of her way to talk to me since I’d started at this school.

  “Ollie, hey!” The blonde in question came into the lobby from the entrance to the girls’ wing.

  No one had ever called me Ollie before, but I couldn’t bring myself to object. She seemed like the friendly sort, and it seemed that friendly people felt compelled to give people nicknames. The only nickname I’d ever had was my last name, and that was only because Liv’s full name was Olivia and once upon a time she actually went by that name. We’d figured out at a very early age that best friends named Oliver and Olivia was just too ridiculous, and so we’d started calling one another by our last names.

  It was tradition, but every time Liv called me ‘Jackson’ I felt another brick being laid in the foundation of our friendship. A metaphorical barrier that I’d heard others refer to as the friend zone.

  “Jamie.” I gave my new acquaintance a nod of greeting when she drew near. “Thanks again for agreeing to do this.”

  “Of course!” She tucked some hair behind her ear, her white teeth on full display as she…stood there. I’d sort of hoped she’d do what most girls do when th
ey’re stuck alone with me and pull out a phone or something. Anything to avoid an interaction.

  I glanced over at the door, mentally willing Liv to hurry. My internal urging would have no effect on the speed her Lyft driver chose to go, but I did it nonetheless.

  “So,” Jamie said brightly. “This girl who’s coming to visit—”

  “Liv,” I said. “Olivia Vance.” I was fairly certain I’d remembered to tell Jamie the name of the girl she was supposed to be hosting this weekend in the email I’d sent her with the details. I’d listed her name, age, and even a physical description so she’d be able to recognize her if for some reason I couldn’t be here to facilitate their meeting.

  I’d tried to plan for any mishaps that could get in the way of this weekend going smoothly. It probably would have been easier to book her a hotel room—I could definitely afford it these days. But that just seemed wrong. I hadn’t seen Liv in two months, and I wanted to spend every second with her. I needed to have her close.

  Jamie’s smile grew. “Right, Liv.” She shifted, coming to stand a little closer. “So, is Liv your girlfriend?”

  My head jerked back slightly at the unexpected question and my stomach leapt with nerves. Not yet. Maybe one day. Hopefully soon. “No.”

  She continued to watch me, then she arched her brows. “Is she your cousin or something?”

  “No.”

  She laughed, though I couldn’t imagine why. I hadn’t said anything funny.

  “Is she your friend?”

  Definitely. Always. But also, hopefully more. “Yes.”

  She nodded, her lips pursing as she studied me. She seemed to be waiting for me to speak. My cheek muscle twitched as I looked out the window again. Still no Liv.

  I cleared my throat and turned back to find her still watching me. “Thank you,” I said, realizing belatedly that perhaps she was waiting for a sign of gratitude. I gestured toward the security desk. “Thank you for helping my friend and I with our dilemma.”