Page 9 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
We pull back. Ethan drops his hand from her back. Asher steps away. I take a sip of my drink, my throat too tight to swallow.
Harper pushes back into the circle, oblivious. She’s grinning, flushed from dancing.
“God, it’s hot in here,” she laughs, fanning herself. She looks at us, beaming. “So? How are the nerves holding up?”
Ethan immediately pulls his phone out of his pocket, the screen lighting up his face.
Harper rolls her eyes at the three of us. “God, you three are buzzkills. Put the phones away.”
“Not until the migration is prepped,” Ethan says, not looking up.
“You’re at a club,” Harper counters, snatching the device out of his hand. “Relax. Mosaic isn’t going to collapse before Monday. You can stress out then.”
Beside me, I see Tessa go completely still.
She is standing next to Ethan, smoothing her dress, but her hand stops dead on her thigh. Her face goes dull in the strobe lights.
“Mosaic?” Tessa asks. Her voice is barely a whisper, but it cuts right through me.
“Give it back, Harper,” Ethan warns, his voice tight, missing Tessa’s reaction entirely.
“Not until you celebrate,” Harper insists. She looks from me to Ethan to Asher, then grabs Tessa by the shoulders, beaming.
“I can’t believe you guys actually pulled it off,” Harper announces, her voice ringing out clearly over the music. “I was going to wait until Monday for the big reveal, but seeing you all here together? I can’t not say it.”
She steps into the center of the circle, pulling Tessa along.
“I knew you three were looking for a unicorn, and I knew Tess was perfect. But I didn’t want to jinx it with favoritism. So I kept my mouth shut and let your blind review process do the work.”
Tessa looks like the floor just dropped out from beneath her.
“When she told me she got the job, I almost screamed,” Harper beams, wrapping an arm around Tessa’s rigid shoulders. “But I wanted it to be a massive surprise on Monday when she finally realized her new bosses were you guys.”
Ethan goes motionless. The color drains out of his face so fast he looks like he might pass out.
“Harper,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. “What are you talking about?”
Harper ignores the warning in his tone, squeezing Tessa tight. “I’m talking about your new Lead Brand Strategist, Tessa!”
The world stops. The music doesn’t actually cut out, but for me, the room goes silent. I stop moving, my beer bottle halfway to my mouth.
Lead Brand Strategist.
Not a startup. Our startup. Mosaic. The Phantom Trio. Us.
I look at Asher. His eyes have widened, the cool, detached mask slipping for the first time in years. Then I look at Ethan. The hungry, predatory look vanishes, replaced by a dawn of absolute horror. He looks from Harper, to me, and then down at the red slip dress that is currently doing unforgivable things to my ability to think.
“Her?” Ethan whispers. His voice goes dead flat.
“It’s going to be great!” Harper claps her hands, oblivious to the nuclear winter descending on the circle. “Having family in the office! You guys are going to take such good care of her.”
“Well, see you on Monday,” Ethan says to Tessa, his voice dry.
I look at Tessa. She looks like she wants to cry.
She didn’t know. The look on her face says it all—she had no idea Mosaic was us. And we had no idea the genius candidate was her.
We can’t fire her. Harper would never forgive us. And firing her now would look like retaliation, the kind of mess that turns into a story before our app even launches.
