I used to think I was magic.

As a kid, I honestly believed I could control the world just by doing certain things.

Touching my nose as I entered a room.

Stepping out of bed with my right foot first, never my left.

Refusing to ride on the left side of the back seat in my dad’s car, only the right. This often meant I had to race out to the driveway early in order to beat my big sister Allie, who did not have magical powers no matter where she sat in the car, but did have an incredible knack for pushing my buttons.

If the trip involved the highway, I had to sit with my arms crossed without saying a word until ten cars passed. If I saw a tractor or motorcycle, I had to start over.

If the trip in the car did not involve the highway, I had to hold my feet off the floor the entire time, or at least until we passed two stop signs or one traffic light.

By doing these rituals but never speaking of them (or else the magic would cease to work), I was ensuring that all stayed right in my world, which was pretty fucking great back then.

In fifth grade, I was one of the most popular kids in school. I was good at math and baseball. I was on student council and in the band. I won the paper plate award for Most Likely to Go to Space and also an Astounding Attendance certificate, because I never missed a day of school. (Only I knew that was because being absent or even tardy would alter the balance of the universe and possibly weaken my powers, not because I was never sick.)

Then a bunch of really shitty things happened, including puberty, and my brain was completely rewired.

That’s when I started to hate the phone.

Or more specifically, the feeling of dread I experienced when faced with being the sole focus of someone’s attention on the other end of the line. You were granted no time to think before you had to answer questions—it was like a fastball coming straight for your head. You couldn’t see their reactions to anything you said. You had no idea how they might be judging you. You had no opportunity to weigh the risk of any possible response. In contrast to a text or email, a phone conversation exposed you completely.

I avoided them at all costs.

So when my cell vibrated in my back pocket as I was about to leave the house, I almost ignored it. If it mattered, the caller would leave a voicemail. Then I’d listen to the message and decide if it actually mattered and merited a text from me or—even better—a response from my assistant back in San Francisco. There wasn’t much that could make me answer or make a call in real time.

But when I saw who was calling, I took it. “You know I hate the phone.”

“I do,” said Felicity, “and I’m sorry. But I didn’t think I could convey the urgency of this matter in a text.”

I headed from the kitchen into the garage, pulling the door shut behind me. “Are you okay? Is your nose bleeding?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Good. The memory of that last one still haunts me.” I slid behind the wheel of my SUV, recalling the way her nose had suddenly and violently started to bleed while we were out for dinner one night back when she lived in Chicago six years ago.

I’d been in town on business, and I’d been looking forward to catching up with her, since we really hadn’t seen each other much since going away to college—I’d spent my summers on campus at M.I.T. and Felicity had spent hers working for her family at Cloverleigh Farms. I knew she’d abandoned her pre-med studies at Brown to follow her heart and attend culinary school, but I wondered if she’d changed in other ways too.

Did she still love sci-fi? Did she still hate thunderstorms? Was she still close to her family? Did she still cut her hair when she was stressed? Would things still feel easy between us, or was she so different that I wouldn’t feel okay around her anymore? What if she felt like a stranger?

Thankfully, the moment I saw her enter the room and smile at me, I knew everything would be fine. She raced over to give me one of those hugs I’d never quite known how to return, and even the way she smelled was familiar—like summer at home. She still wore glasses. Her brown hair still looked like she might recently have trimmed it herself. I could still make her laugh.

And my heart still did that strange quickening thing when she got close to me, the thing that tied my tongue and heated my insides and put troubling questions in my head, like, What would it be like to kiss her? What would she do if I took her hand? Should I tell her I want to be more than friends? But my nerves had always been stronger than my attraction. I was positive she’d think I was crazy and look at me differently if I acted on those urges or spoke those words aloud.

See, I might not be magical anymore, but I have a horrible superpower that, when combined with my mathematical talent, allows me to enumerate any number of catastrophic outcomes for a given situation. And my brain loved listing all the possible ways things could veer off track if I made the wrong move with Felicity.

But I was hoping that night in Chicago would be different.

After all, I was older. I was more mature. I’d had some dating experience. I’d had sex with three different women in college, and one of them even said I was “surprisingly great” in bed for someone so quiet. (It wasn’t all that surprising to me, since I’d done extensive online research on how to please a woman. I was excellent at research.) I’d also been seeing a therapist for my anxiety, and he’d noticed how often I mentioned Felicity . . . was there something there? He’d challenged me to find out.

But I hadn’t gotten the chance. Felicity had some kind of blood vessel disorder that had always given her these fuck-awful bloody noses, and it was clear about thirty minutes into our dinner that she hadn’t outgrown them. We’d spent the rest of the evening in the Emergency Room.

I took it as a sign that reaching across the table would have been a disaster. That the universe had saved me from catastrophe while also protecting my friendship with Felicity. That was something I did not want to mess with.

And when I got home, I ghosted the therapist. Fuck that guy.

“Yeah, that was a bad one, sorry,” she said. “Hope they got the stains out of the tablecloth. But this doesn’t involve blood, I promise. It doesn’t even involve talking on the phone!”

I switched the call to Bluetooth and backed out of the garage. “What does it involve?”

“Doing me a favor.”

“I’m listening.”

“Okay, but before I tell you what it is, you have to promise to at least consider what I have to say.”

“You’re not really nailing this sales pitch, MacAllister.” I headed down the driveway, which wound its way through birch and evergreens and sloped down the hillside toward the highway.

“Sorry, let me try again.” She cleared her throat. “Hey, Hutton! How are you?”

I smiled. “Okay, considering I’m on the phone.”

“Did you run in the park this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Were the Prancin’ Grannies out and about?”

“In full force. They just got matching T-shirts, which they were very excited to show me.”

Felicity laughed. “Oh yeah? What color?”

“I’d call it Pepto Bismol Pink. And they’re bedazzled—which is a new word I learned today.”

“I’m sure that addition to your vocabulary will come in handy in your line of work. So what are you up to?”

“I’m going over to my sister’s house to watch the kids so she can get a haircut. Neil is working today.” Allie’s husband was a cop who worked twelve-hour shifts. I’d offered him a job working security for HFX, but neither he nor my sister had wanted to move—their oldest was in elementary school, my sister was a child therapist with a growing practice, and my parents lived right around the block.

“That sounds like fun.” Felicity paused. “What about tonight? Do you have plans?”

“Why?” I asked, even though I had a hunch about what was coming.

“Because I’m going somewhere really fun, and I was thinking maybe you’d like to go with me!” she said with exaggerated excitement.

“You’re not talking about the reunion, are you?”

“There will be food and drinks and music,” she went on, like I hadn’t spoken, “lots of people we haven’t seen in ten years—”

“I’d gladly go another ten without seeing ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them.”

“—and I’m making zucchini fritters!”

“Felicity, you already asked me if I’d go to this thing, and I said sorry, but no.”

“Don’t you like zucchini?”

“I like zucchini just fine. But I didn’t like high school that much, I don’t like social events at all, and the thought of having to make small talk with any of those people makes me want to eat rat poison.”

She sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

“Also, I have other plans tonight.”

“What are you doing?”

“I promised my dad I’d come to his barbershop quartet poker night.”

“That’s social,” she objected.

“It’s slightly social, and I don’t really want to do it,” I said, easing onto the highway toward town. “But there will only be four old guys there, and we’ll be occupied with the card game. There will be snacks and beer, but no small talk. Minimal eye contact. No one asking for selfies. No prancing grannies. Possibly I’ll have to endure some old-timey four-part harmonies, and I’ll definitely be subjected to a lot of dad jokes, but I’ll live.”

“I love that your dad is actually a barber in a barbershop quartet.”

“The Clipper Cuts are available for wakes, weddings, and everything in between. They will meet all your entertainment needs.”

Felicity laughed. “Well, while you’re enjoying the snacks and harmonies, spare a thought for me trying to survive high school again, this time alone.”

“Just skip it, Felicity.” Avoidance was my specialty.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m catering some appetizers and it will be a good business opportunity. Plus, I might have to do some damage control.” She got all worked up telling me about a bad review she’d gotten this morning on some app. “And it’s all lies! That bride raved about everything all night.”

“Want me to buy the app and shut it down?”

She gasped. “Oh my God, can you? No, wait. Don’t do that—it’s a really helpful thing for a lot of people and businesses. Just not for me at the moment.”

“Your business is going to be fine,” I told her. “But I know how it feels to have people talking shit about you, and I’m sorry.” There were endless rumors about me out there—I was a cold-hearted robot (not really), I was an arrogant prick (occasionally), I was an undercover Robinhood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor (half-true), I was a commitment-phobic player (I guess also half-true . . . I avoided commitment, but I wasn’t a dick), I was shy and reserved in public but dominant and controlling in the bedroom.

Actually, that one I liked.

“Does that mean you’ll come with me tonight?” she asked hopefully.

“No. But if there are any leftover zucchini fritters, bring them over tomorrow. You can tell me how it went.”

She sighed. “Fine. But if I change my mind about the app, would you really buy it and shut it down for me?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Thank you. Have fun with your family.”

We hung up, and I felt guilty that I’d refused her request for a favor. I believed in doing good things for good people, and Felicity was as good as anyone I’d ever known.

Still, a high school reunion? A room full of people staring at me? Judging my every word, or worse, my awkward silence?

Fuck that.

A few minutes later, I pulled up in front of my sister’s house and parked on the street. Before getting out of the car, I glanced at my phone and noticed a text from my business partner, Wade Hasbrouck.

His home address was San Francisco, but since it wasn’t even eight a.m. there, I knew he wasn’t in California. Wade was a night owl, which used to cause some friction between us when we were roommates at M.I.T., since he was not a particularly quiet night owl, and I was an early riser. His family had a lot of money and owned several luxury homes around the globe, and he hopped from one place to another as easily as he hopped from bed to bed, which was why his marriage of two years was already on the rocks.

Yo, his text said. (I truly hated the media stereotype of the dudebro tech billionaires, but the image fit Wade to a T.) Date with Sam final. July 28. Can’t push it back. Gird your loins, bruh.

Sam referred to Uncle Sam, and the date I was hoping to push back—again—was the date I had to appear in front of the House Financial Services Committee in D.C. They wanted testimony regarding regulation of the digital-asset industry in general and our crypto exchange in particular.

My gut clenched. Today was the 9th.

I had just under three weeks.

While I’d known for months this was coming, the idea of having to give a public, live, televised statement and field questions on the fly was almost enough to make me want to cash out of HFX and go underground.

But what kind of person is so fucked up he can’t even handle the thought of defending the business he’d helped build, especially if it meant losing half his net worth? Not that money was everything. I’d never set out to get rich, and I knew better than to think money could solve all your problems. In fact, I liked giving it away just as much as I liked earning it—what was the point of being a billionaire if all you did was horde your riches? Collect yachts and cars? For fuck’s sake, how many Porsches does one person’s ego need? I wanted to do things that mattered.

But most of all, I wanted what money couldn’t buy.

I wanted to be the kind of guy who could testify without breaking a sweat—at least not visibly. The kind of guy who could conquer his fear of being put on display and subjected to pressure. The kind of guy whose nervous system didn’t react like he was walking into a den of angry lions every time he thought about all the eyes in the room on him.

The uncontrollable thoughts. The racing heart. The sweating, the nausea, the inability of my head to find words and my mouth to form them. The blurry vision. The dizziness. The refusal of my lungs to take a full breath. The sheer terror of knowing that I could publicly humiliate myself in a hundred different ways, expose myself as deficient. A failure. A fool. A fraud.

Actually, give me the fucking lions.

I’d take my chances with them.