And one member of her team was currently holding the sole of her ratty tennis shoe in one hand and rubbing her coccyx with the other.

Gavin strode up to Lucy with a smug grin on his face. His wet mop of curls hung limp along his lightly sunburned cheeks and that patchy hipster beard his DNA knew he was too immature to grow.

“Li’l Lucy.” He patted her on the head. “They relax the height requirement for this ride?”

She gritted her teeth. Being five feet nothing, Lucy was used to being treated like a dachshund or a two-year-old. But this was Gavin’s paw on her fresh blowout.

On the floor, Delia narrowly missed being stomped on by smartphone zombie Maddie’s foot. Her big . . . large . . . ginormous foot. Sasquatch had nothing on Maddie’s hooves. At least Lucy wouldn’t have to worry about either of her roommates borrowing her Louboutins. Being nearly six feet, Maddie had little chance of squeezing in more than her big toe, and being, well, Midwestern, Delia had little chance of telling a Louboutin from a leprechaun.

Fine. It’s. Going. To. Be. Fine.

Gavin smirked. “Stellar cohorts you got there, Lucifer.”

“Yes,” Lucy said, eyeing the two tall, thin white guys behind Gavin, the three of them decked out in the Silicon Valley uniform of nondescript jeans, a white tee, and expensive sneakers. She reached down to grasp Delia’s elbow. “In fact, they are. Don’t be too intimated, Cox.”

Blood boiling, Lucy marched down the hallway ahead of what she was trying to convince herself were her stellar teammates. She could feel Gavin’s thick fingers on her scalp and the phantom tingle in other places she should have never let them go. She jammed a “delete all” on the memory, nuking it from her brain. Step by step, Lucy breathed, calming herself by visualizing the endgame. Which would start here, in the vast study hall turned hackathon headquarters. She paused under the arched entrance feeling very small.

Table upon table was filled with Gavin-esque seventeen-to-nineteen-year-olds in hoodies and those same plain white tees, all waiting to be emblazoned with a Facebook-Google-Apple-Uber-Lyft-Twitter-eBay-LinkedIn-Airbnb-Snapchat logo—or, better yet, their own.

The testosterone nearly choked her. Or maybe it was the stench of old french fries and Axe body spray.

“There,” Delia’s meek voice said. “Twenty-two. That’s us.”

Lucy searched the area surrounding their designated table. “Damn,” she muttered. The judges’ table—Ryan’s table—may as well have been in Reno. She could barely see the top of his head, that sandy-brown “natural” tousle she was sure took an hour to achieve. (And was so worth it.)

“Does anyone notice what I’m noticing?” Maddie said, pushing her aviators back on her head. It was the first time she’d looked up from her phone all morning.

Finally. Lucy was relieved that at least one member of her team also realized what a complete disaster their placement was.