: Chapter 5

In a rush, I blindly tie my hair back, grab the cereal bowl off the floor and drop it in the sink—Cornflakes, dinner of champions.

“You all right over there, girl?” Bianca teases. “I know you’re always channeling your inner Barry Allen, but you’ve been looking at the clock every five seconds with a whole new kind of dread, more than the usual.”

I swallow past the itchiness creeping up my throat and smile. “I hate last-minute sessions. I like to have everything ready so we can jump right in and waste no time, but I don’t even have time to go to the tutoring center or athletic department to print what I need. I’ll have to split my screens, look at things one at a time, and that’s annoying.”

“I hear you.” She yawns.

“Bailey ate about an hour ago, and she’s been down for about twenty minutes now.”

“Are you still running the humidifier even though she’s better?”

“Only through the night, so don’t worry about it. I’ll turn it on later.” I tug my sweater over a tank top, not bothering to change out of my leggings. “Thanks for getting here so fast.”

“Of course, I was planning on coming over before work anyway.”

“You sure you won’t be too tired later?”

“Not as tired as you. Besides, they’re lucky I’m coming in to help them close when I just got moved to mornings.” She shrugs. “So, who is it tonight? Quarterback? Point Guard?”

“I wish,” I mumble. “Pitcher.”

Her brows jump. “Ah, the tall, tan, tasty-looking Tobias Cruz?”

I turn, frowning at my fuzzy boots as I slip them on, and quickly retie my hair on the top of my head. “That would be him.”

“Does every college athlete suck at school, or what?” She drops back on the couch bed I never had a chance to fold up this morning, and I follow.

“Not even close.”

“So why do they so desperately call on you, dear friend?”

“Because I have something they all want and can’t get enough of …” I play along, and Bianca and I look to each other.

She wags her brows while I tap at my temple.

“Ugh, of course!” She teasingly groans, nudging my leg with hers. “A genius swimming in a pool of powdered protein.”

“Blended, not stirred,” I add with a low laugh, shrugging against the cushion. “Honestly, I never have too much of a problem with my students. Some do struggle pretty bad, so I help them find ways to connect. Then there’re the ones who use me for a second eye on papers and things. It’s always a mix, but for every bag of apples I’m thrown, there’s always one with a rotten core.”

“I met Tobias a couple times when I was with Cooper.” She fake vomits at the mention of her ex. “It wasn’t enough to have an opinion outside of the boy is fine, but are we thinking Avix U’s Playboy Pitcher is rotten at his core?”

A choppy sigh escapes, and I push myself to my feet, shoving my laptop into my bag. As I zip it up, my phone vibrates from its place on the charger.

I don’t have to look at the screen to know who the message is from, but I do so as I pick it up.

Student T. Cruz: I’m here, Tutor Girl. Prompt enough for you?

I stare at the name I’ve programmed him under, trying to keep my frown hidden as I look at Bianca. “I have no idea what to think.”

“Well.” Bianca laughs. “I guess you’re fated to find out.”

Am I?

My head snaps up when a bulky ass bag is slowly set onto the tabletop.

I follow the pasty hand that hesitates to let the thing go to find a pale-skinned brunette with bed head and that oversized sweater I remembered sliding into the seat across from me.

Ever the patient guy, I wait for her to say hi, make eye contact or acknowledge my presence in some way, but she doesn’t. Instead, she pours her attention into pulling out a bunch of shit—pens, papers, notepad, fuckin’ highlighters. Let’s not forget the busted-ass laptop.

I focus on her face again, and while she has yet to bring her eyes to mine, the girl’s fully aware mine are locked onto hers. A tinge of color brightens her fair cheeks.

Grinning, I sink a little farther in my chair.

Chick’s nervous, and rightfully so.

It’s like Echo was getting at, I’m kind of intimidating—dark hair with eyes that rival the Pacific Ocean, as the Avix Inquirer likes to put it. I’ve got what my ma says would be a million-dollar smile if it weren’t so crooked. Little does she know that works in my favor.

I may not be Hulk huge, but I am cut like the captain, lean and fit with little to no body fat to speak of.

I dress clean and drive a nice ride, thanks to Coach.

I’m a fucking catch.

Not that I want to be caught—no, fuck no—but I understand the attraction women have toward me, and I do my best to give them the attention they wish for, even if it’s not the kind they’re hoping for. Sometimes, though, a smile goes a long way.

“Okay, so I’m not as prepared as I should be. I don’t have your assignment list on hand, so if your professor hasn’t had a chance to input recent work, I’ll need you to tell me what it is we need to work on today.” She opens her laptop and begins typing. “I’m a little tight on time tonight, so we have to stop right at the two-hour mark.”

She wants to cut to the chase.

I get it, get in, get out, right?

But the girl still hasn’t looked up and now I’m getting pissed.

“Tutor Girl …” I drag out, cocking my head to the side. “Look at me.”

Her shoulders stiffen and she gives herself an extra second by running her tongue across her rust-colored lips before sitting back in the chair. She tucks her chin in and a little to the right, slowly lifting her eyes to mine.

It’s as if she’s afraid to meet my gaze head-on, but now that she’s forced herself to make the move, she doesn’t cower or quickly flick them away.

She stares, pretty sure without breathing, and I stare right back.

Girls got a soft-looking face, like she uses lotion or something on it, and her eyes, they’re a strange brown, like a rainy day, postponed game, mud brown.

A rusty red-brown, kind of like her lips.

She could use a couple days of sleep with the dark circles under her eyes and maybe a burger or some sun. Her body’s hidden, so I can’t tell if she’s bones under all that mess or if she has curve appeal.

She fidgets, and unable to maintain eye contact, glances away, but I keep staring, watching her grow more on edge, more uneasy, and it hits me.

Oh, hell no.

“Are you a tweaker?”

Her eyes slice to mine. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Her mouth is agape, but quickly twists in anger. “Are you freaking kidding me right now?” she hisses in a whisper.

I lift my hands. “Look, I get you’re hired through the university, but I can’t have a drug addict around me. Bad press and all that. I deal with enough bullshit from the school paper as it is.”

“I assure you.” She holds my gaze strongly now. “I am not on drugs.”

“Not even a little phentermine to get ya goin’?” I raise a dark brow. Her cheeks are kind of hollow …

Her lips pinch into a tight line and she fights a glare, putting on her professional cap when, visually speaking, she looks anything but. “Thanks for your interest in whether or not I eat highly addictive diet pills like candy, but if you’re done with your passive aggressive way of pointing out I’m not a size four, can we move along?”

“Whoa.” I jolt forward in my chair. “That is not what I meant. I was only saying—”

“I don’t care,” she cuts me off. “Can we get started or not?”

Tapping my palm on the tabletop, I frown. I didn’t mean to offend the girl. It was a legit question that, okay, I probably could have worded differently, but I can tell from the small interaction we’ve had, she’s not interested in an apology. To be honest, I’m not convinced I’m off the mark here, but I have a game to play in two days, so …

“Yeah, all right.” I lean forward, resting my forearms on the fake wood. “We’ll start, but real quick, let’s get this outta the way, yeah?” The pull in her brows tells me she’s paying attention and maybe even a little more nervous than before.

“I really gotta get this shit done, so can you try to keep this ‘I’d rather shit Flamin’ Hot Cheetos than be here with you’ act you got going until we’re at least halfway done? Not sure I could say no right now—game days amp me up and I could use the release.”

She stares, eyes wide, and then a quick, unexpected laugh bubbles out of her.

And you know what? It ain’t a bad laugh.

I grin.

Suddenly, she stops, her fingers flying to her mouth as if to keep the sound inside.

Her eyes cut to her screen as she clears her throat and starts typing away.

“Okay, so I have the class syllabus, but I was right, and can’t see what’s missing. I’d need to sign in at the tutoring or athletic center, but they’re closed this time of night.”

“It’s six.”

“And they closed at five.”

“Maybe you’re not as good of a tutor as you think if you can’t fly when given wings.”

Her eyes pop up to mine, and she opens her mouth to speak but slowly closes it.

“Nah, nah, Tutor Girl.” I drop my head to the side with a small grin. “Speak.”

She hesitates a moment, but only for a moment. “I schedule ahead so I can come up with a game plan and make sure I’m giving you my all. So that you feel you have someone in your corner through every stage of the process and never failing you. That way, in the end, if you never set foot on that baseball field again, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

This girl’s either really taking this tutor stuff seriously, or a damn good bluffer—neither are important. All I need is to skate by enough to play ball.

“That sounds … textbook great, but so you know, I’m not interested in studying. I need to get my work done and turned in, that’s it.”

“And when you have a test? Midterms? Your finals?”

“We worry about it then.”

She drops back in her seat. “That’s working backward. I can teach you to learn as you go, so it won’t be so overwhelming on either of us when exams come up.”

“I have a lot on my plate, Tutor Girl, and it might sound shitty, but what overwhelms you isn’t something I can afford to worry about.”

“I’m aware,” instantly flies from her mouth. It’s not harsh or damning; in fact, it’s soft and nearly whispered, but by the way her eyes widen the slightest bit, I think she wishes she hadn’t said a word.

We keep eye contact, but I can’t read what’s going on behind hers, they’re too guarded, so to move us along, I reach forward and push my assignment list toward her. At first, she doesn’t look at it, and small creases form along her brows as her eyes travel along my face, maybe without her realizing. With every shift of her gaze, the lines along her forehead deepen until she finally blinks and when her eyes reopen, they’re on the paper in front of her.

She scans over it and quickly looks to me. “There’s two courses on here.”

“Oh! Right.” I bend, snag my bag from the ground and pull out the third, slapping it on top of the other.

She blinks. “Three classes.”

“Three classes.”

Double-checking something on her screen, she says, “I have you down for one. I don’t think I have space for such a heavy workload.”

“That makes no sense, Tutor Girl. We’re here, let’s get the shit done.”

She shakes her head. “I have to work in two-hour increments, each credit is two hours of study time. Each class is four credits, on average, which is eight hours and that translates to—”

“Four sessions a week. I got it. Math’s not my problem area.”

She sits straighter in her seat, and for the first time since she arrived, I see an outline of breast. It appears there may be something hiding under that ugly ass sweater, after all.

“This is serious. If I take you on” —when I grin, she scowls at me— “I’ll have to drop another student and that’s not fair. We’ll just … we’ll have to work on the class you have the lowest grade in.”

“Not gonna work for me.”

She drops back and I can tell she’s about to argue, so I Aladdin her ass, and say the magic words, forcing her to play Genie.

“Coach’s orders.” That right there sets her straight.

Literally.

Her spine squares as her entire body grows rigid, and all signs of stress vanish from her face. In fact, any sign of life vanishes from her altogether. “He told you I’d tutor you in both?”

My smirk is slow. “He told me to take up every spare minute you had, Tutor Girl. Starting right this second and ending the moment the bell rings on the last day of the semester, metaphorically speaking, of course.”

The girl quickly pushes to her feet, excusing herself for the restrooms.

And she doesn’t invite me to join her.

“Okay, time’s up for today.”

I look up from my laptop screen with a frown, quickly glancing at the time on my phone.

It’s 8:03 on the dot, three minutes past her two-hour mark. “But I’m not done.”

She ignores me and begins rushing to pack up her things. “We finished all the overdue anatomy assignments, and two for history. All you have left is a page of section questions for that class and English has no new assignments listed yet. You should be able to finish up at home.”

“That won’t work.”

“Why is that?” she asks, without looking at me. She’s only looked at me a handful of times since we’ve been here. It’s annoying.

“Because it’s due tomorrow.”

“And you have the rest of the evening.”

“I live with another dude who, by now, has guests, so as soon as I get home, all the blood in my brain is gonna drop to my dick, and my shit won’t get done.”

Her cheeks color once again. “Sorry, but I can’t stay.”

“Again, not gonna work—”

“Look.” The chick finally makes the conscious decision to look at me, her brown eyes on the frustrated side. “I understand why you think you make all the decisions, considering most people allow you to, but I have to leave right now. You can stay all you want if going home is distracting. I’ll even review your paper for you sometime tonight if you email it to me, I promise, but I really have to go.”

There’s a plea in her eyes, even if it’s not heard in her practiced tone.

Now I’m curious. “Why the rush?”

Her lips smash together, and she quickly finishes shoving shit into her bag.

What is with this chick?

Here I am, doing what girls wait for me to do and initiating conversation, yet she’s still pretending not to be interested.

Not that I’m interested, but she should be.

Putting my own things away, I tell her, “You need to meet me tomorrow.”

“Fine. Tomorrow at three. Same spot.”

“Nope.” I make sure to pop the P like a dick. “I have to have all this in before noon, or this was pointless. Tomorrow at ten.”

Her shoulders drop and she shakes her head. “I can’t. I can’t be here before twelve thirty.”

“Not my problem, Tutor Girl. Better tell whoever it is you save your mornings for their happy days are on pause until June.” On my feet now, I shrug and step past her, forcing her to turn and follow. I shove open the door, allowing her to walk through it first, but only so I can turn my back on her and call out, “I’m priority number one, remember?”

And then I’m gone.

Tutor Girl thinks she can dictate when we meet?

That’s not going to happen. I’ll make sure of it.

Her morning dude can suck it.

I wonder who it is?

And now I’m wondering why the fuck I’m wondering.