: Chapter 11

“No freaking lie?!” Meyer’s lips curve up as she snags the paper I’m holding up in front of her. She scans over it and that smile of hers grows.

Laughing, I repeat her words. “No lie.”

“That’s killer for a pop quiz.”

“I’ve got a ‘killer’ tutor.”

Finally, her eyes come up to mine and she pulls her mouth to one side. “We didn’t go over this section. You read this one on the bus on the way back from your Arizona game. This is all you, Tobias Cruz.” Again, with that smile. “Be proud.”

Are you?

Meyer clears her throat and looks around, a small frown building along her brows. “Where’s your bag?” she asks, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“I didn’t get a chance to eat after practice, cool if we grab a pizza? There’s a patio we can work on.”

Her face smooths out and she looks out across the grass. “Um.”

“You won’t be sorry. They’ve got the best sauce around.”

With her head down, she timidly says, “I only have two hours.”

“I know.” I’m no fool. She’s here because she’s required, but that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way, right? I pull my keys from my pocket and walk backward toward the parking lot. “It’s only a couple miles from here, I have my truck.” My eyes roam across her makeup-less face. “I’ll get you back in good time, Tutor Girl. Promise.”

She begins to nibble on that lower lip of hers and I pull in a slow breath, willing my cock to behave itself.

I get it, my man, you’re fucking starved.

Meyer’s brown eyes come back to mine and she says, “Okay.”

“Wait, for real?” My head tugs back.

“I said okay.” She chuckles, flicking her gaze to the sky.

“Well, okay. Right this way, Tutor Girl.” I hop off the curb, unlocking and opening the door to my Dodge Ram for her. “Hop on in George.”

She looks to me with a goofy expression. “George?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s odd.”

“You ever met a George who wasn’t a reliable son of a bitch?” I lift a brow, walking around the hood to my own door. “Bet not.”

She pulls her lips in as she climbs inside the cab, and a few seconds later, I’m turning out onto the main road.

Pizza here we come.

Meyer runs her fingers along the doorframe, looking up at the ceiling and down at the stereo system I’ve yet to turn on. “This is really nice.”

I grin. “Perks of a pitcher.”

She nods, turning her head toward her window. “Of course.”

I cut her a quick glance, but she doesn’t face forward again, not until we’re parked and climbing out.

She looks over the little hole-in-the-wall, a mom-and-pop restaurant I found my first week here freshman year. It’s old and needs a fresh coat of paint, could use a new parking lot and sign, too, but the food is delicious, the sauce homemade, and the couple, kind as shit.

Inside, Franny, the mom of the place, greets us with a weathered smile and a wave. “How you doing, honey, get over here, and you brought a friend!” She quickly turns her head, shouting, “Joe, get out here, Tobias is here and he brought a friend!”

Meyer lifts her hand, disguising her laugh as a low cough.

I give Franny a hug and shake Joe’s hand when he steps from behind the swinging door a moment later.

Joe pats my back. “Been a couple weeks, huh? Thought you pissed on us for that new joint down the road.”

I laugh. “Not me, Joe, not me.” I turn to Meyer. “This is Meyer, she goes to school at Avix, too.”

“Well look at you.” The old man grins at her. “You don’t have all that shit on your face and you’re still prettier than this one.” He jerks his head toward me, kisses his wife and disappears behind the door once more.

Franny laughs, introduces herself and gets us seated on the back patio.

Meyer shakes her head as Franny leaves, and then turns to me. “They’re so cute.”

“Yeah, I want to be them when I grow up.” I smile.

She eyes me, a look of surprise crossing her face.

“What?”

“I guess that’s not something I’d expect you to say.”

“I wonder why?” I tease, knowing exactly where she’s coming from. “You know you can’t believe everything you hear … or read.”

Her laughter is light, and while her head lowers, those eyes hold on to mine.

“You okay with pepperoni? It sounds boring but Joe’s is fire, swear.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re eating with me.”

Her smile is sheepish. “I didn’t know you wanted to go eat. I like to leave my wallet at home so I don’t spontaneously spend.”

A quick meal is spending spontaneously for her?

As I think that, a sense of aversion washes over me.

Twenty bucks didn’t always come so easy for me either. My parents lived paycheck to paycheck all our lives, and the little extra they did have, they saved. Maybe I need to remember that next time I pop into the grocery store.

I shake off my thoughts.

“Contrary to what you may believe, or the shitty impression I gave with the whole ‘be my schoolwork slave,’ I’m not a complete dickhead.” I lean forward. “I wouldn’t invite you, order a pizza, and expect you to pay for any of it.”

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

A chuckle leaves me, and she grins at her joke, but hides it by focusing on pulling her laptop from her bag.

“Pepperoni isn’t boring, by the way.” She looks to me and pops a brow with a playful grin. “It’s a classic.”

Damn straight it is.

A little over an hour and a large pizza in, my assignments are done. We’ve already gone over a few ideas for my next English essay, and I officially have no pressing work that needs handled … but she hasn’t asked to leave yet.

In fact, she stood up and chatted with Franny for several minutes about plants and how to keep them alive, while I watched on, finishing up the last of the breadsticks.

She’s back in her seat now, though, has shed that awful sweater, and even let a flip-flop fall to the floor beneath the table, one of her legs now folded up in the chair.

And right this second, she’s accepting a refill of iced tea, only after making sure it’s not an extra fee.

Meyer sighs, smiling into her glass as she looks at me. “We got through a lot today. If you do your reading tonight and your professors stick to their schedules tomorrow, you won’t have any work while you’re away the next two days.”

I nod, staring at her, and while I think she wants to look away, she doesn’t.

“We still have a good half hour before we have to head back.”

For the first time today, she pulls her phone from her bag. “It looks like we do.”

“Read to me.”

Her eyes pop up. “What?”

“The sections I have left? Read them to me.”

Her chest heats, a soft red changing the color of her fair skin, and I want to reach out, run my knuckle over the spot to see if it’s warm to the touch.

I bet it is.

Something tells me she’s not capable of half-assing anything, not even a sudden, uncontrollable dose of adrenaline that causes one to flush.

She’s fire, I know it, and call me a fuckin’ pyro ‘cause, goddamn if I don’t crave the flame.

To be honest, I’m not sure what to do about this girl. She’s so hot and cold.

Okay, maybe she’s never hot, but she definitely gets to that lukewarm level, like the half empty water bottle you dig out of your back seat when you’re dying of thirst.

But I guess she could say the same about me. The hot and cold part, I mean.

I’m as good as whiplash when it comes to her, I know that, but she does that to me. She confuses my mind and sends shock waves through my brain that don’t quite compute the way I’m used to. My initial reaction is always to do what’s expected, to be who they expect when things around me begin to feel sour or new. Unexpected.

But maybe that’s the wrong way to go about it where she’s concerned.

Maybe she doesn’t expect a thing from me at all.

That’s an unrivaled, terrifying, electrifying ideal.

Licking my lips, I tip my head the slightest bit. “Please?”

At first, I think she’s going to decline, but Meyer reaches over, slowly dragging my history textbook toward her and flips open the page with the next little green tab she added for me last week.

She takes a small sip of her sweet tea and then starts at line one.

She reads to me without pause and I watch her all the while.

The way she tucks her hair every couple paragraphs and how she smiles to herself when she gets to a part that interests her. The way her voice elevates the slightest bit when she feels she’s come to a concept of importance and wants to make sure I’m engaged.

Both her feet are now bare and perched on the chair. Her knees pressed against the table’s edge, and she has the book laying across her thighs. With every turn of the page, her head tips from left to right, and every five minutes or so, she blindly dips her chin to pull the straw between her lips from the glass she has tucked to her chest.

Only when a loud slurping sound is made does she lose focus.

Her eyes fly up to mine, embarrassed, and right back down to the now empty glass.

A low chuckle leaves me, and I sit back in my chair, quickly sneaking a look at the clock. “I’m not sure we have time for another glass, but I bet Franny will get you one to go?”

“Of course, I will!” Franny shouts from wherever it is she’s eavesdropping from.

Meyer smiles sheepishly as she slides her feet back into her sandals and stands, beginning to pack her things into her backpack, so I do the same.

Before I can, Meyer picks my book back up, and I don’t say a word but lead us toward the front of the restaurant. Franny steps up, passing two large foam cups to me and hands a to-go bag to Meyer.

“What’s this?” Meyer smiles, peeking inside.

“That’s a half dozen cinnamon knots and they’re not to be shared with this one.” Franny slaps my chest. “Come back and see us, will you?”

“I will,” she promises, thanking her again. “And don’t worry, I’m not sharing these with him. My friend’s coming over tonight for a movie and she’s a sucker for sweets. You just made her night and she doesn’t even know it yet.”

Franny winks, running off to answer the phone.

“You’ll be back in a few weeks to help me finish the deck, huh, Tobias?” Joe calls from somewhere in the back. “We’re almost done with her!”

“Yes, sir, I will. Let me know once it’s delivered.”

“You know I will, and bring that girl with you when you come, huh? Franny likes her!”

Chuckling, I glance at Meyer. “Later, Joe!”

“Yep!”

We step outside and she turns to me. “You’re building them a deck?”

“Helping.”

“Like a patio or…?”

“Yeah, like a patio deck.” Turning, I point at the side of the building. “You can’t tell from inside the restaurant, but their little house is attached to the back. If you go around here, that’s where their front door is. They have a nice little table set and some comfy chairs out there, but it’s down a handful of steps. By the end of their day in the restaurant, their knees are hurting, but they don’t care, they go out there every single night, at least for a little while.”

“It’s their quiet time together.”

Nodding, I look to Meyer. “One of the times I came in, they asked if I wanted to visit for a bit, so I did. Next thing I knew we were at the hardware store,” I say with a laugh and Meyer smiles, clipping her seat belt into place. “I helped my dad put in a new fence years ago, so I halfway knew what I was doing. YouTube helped a fuck-ton, though.”

“I bet it means a lot to them, having your company and your help.”

“Does to me too. There’re not a lot of places I can go around here and take my hat off, so to speak.” I glance her way briefly, and her lips twitch. “That makes me sound like a bitch?”

Meyer laughs, shaking her head. “No, it doesn’t.”

I grin and head back to campus.

I’m about to strike up a random conversation in an effort to keep her talking, but then Meyer grabs her tea from the cup holder and opens up my book once more.

She picks up where she left off, so I slow my speed and take the long way home.

I’ve been trying to work my way through a single section of my sociology book for the last hour, but every few minutes, I realize I’m staring blankly at the page, my mind on something else completely.

More like someone else.

And to think I sat there completely engrossed in reading his book to him for nearly an hour. Something tells me it had nothing to do with the words themselves, and that’s a scary revelation.

An unwelcome revelation?

If I’m being honest with myself, today was nice. Dare I say, needed.

It’s been weeks since I’ve been off campus for any reason other than obligation, and this afternoon, while technically on the clock, felt like a small break I didn’t know I was dying for. I can’t pinpoint when exactly my life became a hamster wheel, but for a long time now it’s been wake up, climb into this circle, wash, rinse, and repeat.

I didn’t feel that way today. Today, my mind wasn’t already two tasks ahead, and I have Tobias to thank for that.

The short conversation with Franny was soothing in a way I’ve missed. She has that natural mother’s nature about her, but the photos lining the homey walls gave me the impression she may have never been blessed with the role she would have loved.

It’s easy to see she’s taken with Tobias, which is as equally surprising as it is expected.

He’s more than charming and completely over the top, but I’m beginning to realize some of that isn’t him. Most of it is, but not all.

Yes, he’s extremely cocky, but he’s kind of earned the right. He really is at the top of the game, so it’s not like his ego’s inflated where baseball is concerned. And the rest … I don’t know.

The Playboy Pitcher is said to be an egomaniac. A bad boy with an eye for trouble, bound by air too heavenly for others to breathe.

He is trouble, that’s for sure, but I get the sense he didn’t inflate the bubble people claim surrounds him. I think he wants someone to step a little closer, to look a little deeper.

He wants someone to open their eyes and look into his without prejudgment.

Or maybe he just doesn’t care what others think, and he does the only thing he can.

He accepts the misconceptions for what they are – beyond his control.

If he cared to uphold some sort of image, if he fit said image, Franny and Joe’s is the last place we’d have ended up today.

They care for him, that much was obvious, but what was surprising, at least at first, was that the man cares for them too. An adorable, hardworking old couple with no ties to him.

No tie, but a common felt emotion, one I know all too well.

Loneliness.

Sighing, I close my textbook and tug the blanket up to my chin.

I’m not so sure it was a good thing to see this side of Tobias Cruz, but I’m also not so sure I regret it.