Chapter 1

My sister, Ruby O'Brien—the family's formidable CEO—had just landed herself a top-tier celebrity boyfriend. Now the two of them were filming a reality show right in her house.

All I wanted was to go home and collapse on the couch. Instead, I wound up as his living control group.

While he worked out, I lay there.

While he read books, I lay there.

While he cooked gourmet meals, I still lay there.

The internet wanted my head on a platter.

[Poor Josh, stuck with a useless future brother-in-law!]

[Someone drag that lazy bum off the screen. We just want to watch Josh and his girl fall in love!]

[I heard he didn't even sit for the SATs. Total dropout, rotting away at home.]

[That's our Josh, though—a certified genius who just got accepted into Layne University's graduate program!]

I rolled over lazily, completely baffled.

Getting into Layne's graduate program was supposed to be impressive?

And I was the lazy dropout?

Were they talking about the guy who'd just won an international physics prize?

Chapter 1

I was trending across the entire internet, buried under a wave of hate, at the exact moment I was curled up on the couch catching up on sleep.

My sister Ruby O'Brien's boyfriend, the top-tier celebrity Josh Dawkins, was working out in the living room in a full set of athletic gear.

He stretched, offering a gentle explanation to whichever camera was closest, walking viewers through his secrets for staying in shape, and mentioning, almost as an afterthought, the research papers he'd stayed up late reading the night before.

The live chat scrolled by in a blur.

[Josh is way too disciplined! Up at the crack of dawn to work out and read. No wonder he made it into Layne's grad program!]

[I'm crying, Josh really is the best. Handsome AND hardworking!]

[Where's Blake, by the way? Saw him sprawled on the couch yesterday. Where'd he go today?]

[Where do you think? Still asleep, probably. I genuinely don't know how the O'Briens raised a son like that. Total trust-fund parasite.]

A second later, the camera swung over to me.

I was wrapped in a blanket, my hair a mess, sunk so deep into the soft couch that only my eyes showed.

The camera seemed to have all the patience in the world, holding a three-minute close-up on me. In those three minutes, the only thing I did was decide the living room lights were too bright, and roll over so my back faced the lens.

The chat exploded.

[So this is the real heir who came back from the countryside? An actual embarrassment to the O'Brien name.]

[Somebody get him out of that house! He's not fit to be in the same shot as our Josh!]

Finding them annoying, I frowned and pushed my face deeper into the cushion, trying to block out the noise.

Someone set a cup of warm milk down on the coffee table beside me.

"Blake," my sister Ruby's voice came low and a little helpless. "We're still live. Could you at least put on a show of trying?"

I didn't move. My eyelids didn't even twitch.

Ruby sighed and dropped her voice further. "Mom and Dad just came downstairs. They're clearly displeased. If you keep this up, they'll be on your case the second filming wraps."

I knew that already.

From the very first day I'd been brought back into this family, they'd never once stopped being disappointed in me. They hated that I had no trace of old-money polish, hated how lazily I carried myself, hated that I'd never even properly finished high school, an embarrassment to their name.

What they liked was Josh, the perfect son-in-law-to-be with his flawless smile. Josh was the masterpiece they'd carefully commissioned for the family. I was the defective piece that had accidentally slipped in with the shipment.

"Just look at Josh..." There was a note of pleading in Ruby's voice.

I finally moved, though not to sit up. I only pulled my head out from the cushion far enough to crack an eyelid and glance over.

Josh had finished stretching and was sipping from a glass of vegetable and fruit juice he'd pressed himself, taking small sips. He sat perfectly straight, as if even the act of drinking had been calculated in advance. Catching my eye, he raised his glass toward me from across the room and gave me a warm smile.

The chat erupted into another round of praise for him, and, along the way, took another swing at me.

"Blake," Ruby murmured by my ear again. "I know you don't like any of this, but just do it as a favor to me, okay? Go wash up, eat something, even just sit up and watch some TV, anything."

'Too much trouble.'

That was the only thought left in my head.

A second later, I dragged the blanket up over my head, wrapping myself completely and shutting out every last bit of light and sound from the outside world.

I could feel Ruby standing beside me for a long time. In the end, all that was left was one more barely audible sigh, and the sound of her footsteps walking away.

Chapter 2

With the world finally quiet again, I settled back in, perfectly content to keep sleeping.

The show blew up.

Overnight, my sister and Josh's little dating show shot to the top of every trending list in the country.

Josh's popularity climbed right along with it. He was sharp enough to figure out exactly what the algorithm wanted from him.

He started practicing calligraphy in the living room. He swapped out the popular novels he usually read for thick hardcovers with foreign-language titles on the spines. He even started teaching himself to cook elaborate meals.

Every single time, he'd "casually" show off the results in front of a camera, then turn and look at the couch where I was buried, his expression a careful mix of concern and helplessness.

The chat ate it up. They praised him as some kind of perfect Renaissance man and called me a waste of space.

I didn't care. I just thought he was a little loud.

That afternoon, for once, I wasn't asleep. I sat on the rug with a notebook spread across my lap, a few pages of scribbled-on scratch paper scattered over the coffee table. I was working through a problem, deep enough in thought that I didn't even notice when my sister sat down beside me.

"Drawing something?" Ruby asked.

I made a noncommittal sound without looking up, my pen still flying across the page, filling it with a long string of symbols neither of them could read.

Footsteps approached. It was Josh.

He walked over carrying a glass of water, a picture-perfect smile on his face.

"Blake, working hard? Have some water. You haven't moved all afternoon."

I ignored him. I was right at the crux of the problem.

Then the accident happened.

There was a crack as the glass hit the floor, and the water inside it soaked instantly into the scratch paper spread across the coffee table.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! I'm sorry, Blake!"

Josh dropped to a crouch immediately, his voice cracking with what sounded like real tears.

"I... I didn't mean to. I just wanted to bring you some water, and I lost my footing. This is all my fault."

He fumbled for a tissue, hands scrambling, his eyes rimmed red at exactly the right shade. The camera zoomed in for a close-up, capturing his guilt-stricken face in perfect detail. In the chat, his fans were devastated on his behalf.

[Don't cry, Josh! It wasn't even your fault!]

[This is all on Blake!]

[Seriously, look at his attitude. Josh's practically in tears over this, and he can't even be bothered to move?]

I really hadn't moved. I just sat there with my head down, staring at the pages warped and wrinkled from the water.

Anger flared up hot inside me, and I pushed it back down almost as fast. Getting angry never solved anything. It was just a waste of energy.

I reached out and, one by one, carefully picked up the soaked pages, my movements gentle so I wouldn't tear them. Then I got up, stepped past Josh, and walked to the window, laying the pages flat across the sunniest stretch of the windowsill to let them dry on their own. From start to finish, I never once looked at Josh, and I never said a word.

That silence made Josh's one-man show look painfully awkward.

Our parents came down from upstairs right in time to catch the whole scene.

My mother frowned and pulled Josh up, dabbing at his tears with obvious pity, scolding as she went. "Look at you, apologizing for something that isn't even your fault. Some people just have no manners. They've been coddled into laziness."

My father just gave me a look of pure, bottomless disappointment.

Only Ruby came over to wipe up the water on the floor. Then her gaze drifted to the damp pages laid out on the windowsill. She picked up one that hadn't gotten too wet and studied it for a long moment. Then she looked up at me, her eyes full of something searching.

Josh had no intention of letting it go at that.

The last "accident" had earned him plenty of sympathy on camera, but it had also made him look a little foolish and clumsy. He needed to win back the room and reestablish his image as the flawless star student.

So he pulled out Ruby's tablet.

"Ruby, Blake, come look at this."

He set the tablet on the coffee table, his voice bright with excitement. "I've been on the Layne grad forum lately. A bunch of upperclassmen have been arguing over an old Olympiad problem, and I found one that's actually pretty interesting. Want to work through it together?"

Then he glanced at me, his expression full of concern, and added, "Blake, why don't you come take a look too? I know you never finished high school, so it might be a little tough. But it's fine, I can walk you through it slowly."

Chapter 3

In the chat, his fans immediately started spamming the screen.

[Wow, Josh really is a Layne genius. Even the stuff he reads is next level!]

[Tutoring his future brother-in-law? Josh is way too good for this family!]

[What's Blake even going to understand? Don't waste Josh's time.]

I was drifting somewhere between asleep and awake when I felt someone nudging me gently.

It was my sister.

"Blake, wake up. Josh's calling for you." Her voice was low.

I let out an irritated grunt and buried my face deeper into the cushion. Sleep was the single greatest invention humanity had ever come up with, and whoever interrupted it was my enemy.

"Blake, just take one look. Just one."

Josh's voice picked back up. "This problem is a real challenge. The standard method for solving it is incredibly complicated. Apparently, fewer than ten people ever solved it completely."

Annoyed, I pushed myself halfway up, hair sticking out in every direction like a bird's nest, and squinted a bleary glance at the screen.

Seeing me finally react, Josh perked right up and launched into an enthusiastic explanation. "See, the key to this problem is constructing an auxiliary function, and then using..."

"You don't need to," I cut him off.

The rest of his explanation caught in his throat. He stared at me, blank.

I lifted a finger and tapped it in the air over the tablet. "Start from this singularity. You'll have your answer in three steps."

I paused awhile, then added, "I'd bet even the people who wrote the problem never found this solution."

Josh's face froze. He clearly had no idea what I'd just said.

My sister looked stunned too. She glanced between me and the dense cluster of symbols on the screen, that searching look in her eyes growing even sharper.

"Too easy," I concluded, then flopped back onto the couch and pulled the blanket up over my head. "Good for putting me to sleep."

The chat went completely still. The living room fell silent right along with it.

Josh's face had gone white as paper, and my sister Ruby's brow was pulled into a tight frown.

As for my parents, the look they gave me now carried something on top of their usual disappointment, an anger they couldn't quite place. They probably thought I was being not just lazy but rude, humiliating their future son-in-law in front of the entire country.

There was a sudden chime at the door.

Everyone's heads turned toward the entrance at once.

An elderly man in glasses hurried in.

"Ch... Chancellor Perry?"

Josh's pupils shrank the second he spotted him.

Layne University's chancellor. Benjamin Perry!

He'd only ever seen the man once, from a distance, at an orientation ceremony, but there was no mistaking him.

My parents froze too. They didn't recognize Benjamin Perry, but the way Josh had gasped his title made the situation clear enough.

The chancellor of Layne University, showing up in person! What an honor that was!

Whatever irritation had been on their faces vanished instantly. They exchanged a glance, and in each other's eyes, they saw the exact same wave of satisfaction over their future son-in-law.

"Josh is doing so much for the O'Brien name!" my mother whispered to my father, practically buzzing with excitement.

After a long stretch of stunned silence, the chat exploded back to life.

[Wait, did I hear that right? THE Layne chancellor? In person?]

[Oh my god, even the chancellor showed up! Josh is unbelievable!]

[He must have seen the livestream and come to reward him! His genius reputation is locked in for good now!]

Josh had already straightened up, a perfectly composed smile fixed on his face. Every camera, every light in the room, focused on the short stretch of space between him and Chancellor Perry.

He'd already worked out exactly what he was going to say, how he'd express his surprise, how he'd humbly thank the chancellor for the recognition.

But Chancellor Perry didn't so much as glance at him. He walked straight past.

Josh's smile froze on his face.

Chancellor Perry didn't slow down for a second. He strode toward me and stopped in front of the couch. Then, in front of everyone's stunned eyes, he bowed deeply to me, still buried in the cushions.

"Director O'Brien, I'm begging you, come teach as a doctoral advisor at our school!"