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Chapter One

It was my first day of class for Econ 102 Junior year I’dout in office hours, staying up late nights, living off of caffeine Somehow I’d survived

I thought getting into Harvard was the hard part and the rest was grade inflation, but the classes were actually pretty tough Of course, others cruised by on raw intelligence and superhu up water Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that I was the exception Whichcloser friends with textbooks than I did with real people

The lecture rooh to fit two hundred students and it was nearly packed Aht the eyes of the ht blue irises, tousled brown hair, high cheek bones, and chic glasses sitting atop a sharp nose He looked like a itally enhanced—he was real His features were sculpted with precision and econo the subjecthe was seated in the front rohich meant he was the teacher’s assistant

I took a seat in one of the middle rows and waited for the professor to start the lecture I could already tell this was going to be my favorite class of the semester

“You know, out of over a hundred students, you’re probably the only one who coularly,” he said with a heart-stopping smile

I’d found out his name was Martin Pritchard A senior econo It took an extraordinary aet distracted by those vivid blue eyes that somehow seemed to burn hot with intensity and cold with calculation at the sairls had co of the course in hopes of snagging a lay They giggled, flitted their hair, and batted their eyes Once they realized he was only there for academic concerns—not sexual ones—they lost interest

He was sitting across fro to help s Just the two of us

I blushed and looked down at e laws and Nash equilibriums I had no idea what any of it meant

“I need the extra help This stuff is kind of hard for me”

“You ask great questions Ones I’d expect to hear frorinned a perfect set of teeth “I think you’re just detailed in your thinking Learning is a lot like putting together a puzzle And different people have different sets of pieces The ones with ether, but once they do, it’s a bigger picture”

I s it to hiht of it that way”

He tapped his head “Big picture”

We both chuckled then smiled at one another It was definitely a shared moment and I didn’t knohat to say to follow it, which is why I was glad he ended up breaking the aard silence

“Hey,” he said brightly “There’s a presentation by Gary Becker today in Lowell Hall You wanna go?”

At the risk of sounding ignorant, I asked, “Who’s that?”

“A famous economist known for the ‘rotten kid theoreot excited about econo office hours His energy was infectious—evenme excited about the stuff from time to time

I wrinkled reat name for a theorem”

He chuckled “Great naine a bad brother takes pleasure in harive more inheritance money to the child who needs it more then the bad brother ant to help his sister do well so that he will end up getting more inheritance His welfare has become dependent on the welfare of his sister You can turn a bad boy into a good one with the proper incentives”