Easy

by Jordan S Gray

  “No, Shayler. I don’t.”

  “Fine. I’ll go without.”

  “Don’t you want a cardigan?” Rebecca asked, holding the nerdy jacket close to her body like it was another limb.

  “I don’t want you to take offense to this, but never in a million years.”

  Rebecca pursed her lips. “Did you get enough supplies?”

  Shayler gestured to the pile on the bed that she’d yet to toss in her bag. “Yup. I’ll return it later.”

  “Aren’t you going to use it?”

  “No. I’m gonna set it all up on my desk so I look extra smart.”

  “Um…”

  “Don’t worry, Becca, I’ll return it in pristine condition.” Shayler scooped them up and wobbled her way to the kitchen so she could dump them in her bag.

  Rebecca eyed her cautiously. “Sure, Shay.”

  “Am I forgetting anything?”

  “Did you study?”

  “I read over the notes.”

  “Really? Because I’ve had them in my purse since last night.”

  “Ugh. Just give them to me.” Shayler held her hand out, waiting for Rebecca to fork them over.

  She slapped them into Shayler’s hand. “It’s not what’s on the outside, Shay. It’s what’s on the inside.”

  “Thanks, guidance counselor. Tell me, what should I do about the bullies?”

  “You’re so funny.”

  “I know.” Shayler smirked.

  Her bag was packed to the brim, she had notes in hand, and her outfit was more on the intelligent side than the sexy side. She couldn’t have been more prepared… Well, unless she’d actually studied.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shayler strutted into the Criminology classroom, unable to keep the swagger out of her steps. She was high on the possibility of showing up her caveman professor. Her body shook and her teeth rattled as she wondered how his usual once over would go. Maybe his jaw would drop open. Maybe he’d keep her after class to apologize.

  She nestled into her usual seat, her leg jogging up and down. Somehow, she’d been fifteen minutes early, and she was going to spend that time soaking in the awed gazes.

  But ten minutes passed and no one gave her so much as a second glance. She checked her phone again and hung her head on her hand. Perhaps a wardrobe change wasn’t enough to impress people. If a cute girl could take off her glasses and become the school hottie, couldn’t the opposite be true? Or had nineties rom-coms totally screwed her?

  Her good mood was quickly replaced with a grumpy one as the time for class to start came and went without a sign of her professor or David. She was about to stuff her neatly stacked supplies in her bag, call it a day, and head straight to the bar. Unless, she thought, it was too shameful to order a whiskey on a Friday afternoon. The door opening interrupted her internal debate, and she waited for Hale’s newly shined dressed shoes to step in.

  Instead, David’s blue and white sneakers entered, and he walked straight to the podium. A grin blossomed on her face as she watched him shuffle a stack of papers, his gaze flitting to her for a brief moment.

  “Hi everyone,” he began, rubbing a hand on his chin. “Professor Hale called in sick about an hour ago and asked me to instruct in his place. Now, I’ve looked at the agenda, and today we just need to go over a PowerPoint. I’ve taken the liberty of printing everyone a copy so you don’t have to sit around in silence, copying notes. Come up, grab one, and consider class done for the day.”

  For fuck’s sake. Of course the day she decided to pull a reverse She’s All That would be the day that Hale would be absent and they’d be let out early. As her peers called out their thanks, Shayler huffed and neatly packed away her things. It was a stampede as her classmates ambushed the podium to collect the packets and dash out the door. When the last person had left, Shayler stood and trudged forward.

  She pulled the remaining stapled packet from David’s fingers, ignoring the need in her gut as her hand brushed against his. “No class, today?”

  “I thought it’d be a nice break. It’s Friday, after all, and apparently Fridays are very important to the student body.”

  She mulled over the notes. “I’m surprised your first time playing teach you let everyone go.”

  “Eh, I thought it was better than having everyone resent me for making them scribble down notes for an hour.”

  “I don’t think anyone would resent you.” She leaned on the podium. “But you picked a really crappy day to be nice.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m super prepared today.”

  He met her gaze. “So you studied last night? Went over my notes?”

  “Oh, yeah, totally.”

  “What was the last thing I wrote?”

  “As if I can remember that.”

  David chuckled. “I apologized for possibly embarrassing you last night, which you’d know if you actually read them.”

  Shayler swatted a stray curl away from her face and winced. The memory of describing how she wanted to fuck David was somehow more embarrassing now than it had been the night before. “Why would you have embarrassed me?”

  “It didn’t seem like you wanted your friends to know about me.”

  “I’ve told you, I don’t have guy friends. I didn’t want them to get any ideas.”

  “Did they?”

  She glanced at her papers. “Nope.”

  “Good.”

  There was a quiet lull as Shayler read over the first page and David wrote some things down in a small notepad. Usually, she was terrible with silence, always wanting the conversation and laughter to continue, but it didn’t bother her this time.

  “You want to get together tonight?” David asked as he capped his pen.

  Shayler stuffed the new notes into her bag. “I guess.”

  “Does seven work for you? Kyle usually leaves by six and comes back around eleven.”

  “Yeah, that’s cool with me.”

  “Okay, it’s one of the small houses off of Cedar, and—”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Does it look like the we’re in the stone age? Just text me your address later, and I’ll use my phone’s GPS.”

  He crossed his arms. “Just look at it before. It’s not safe to drive when you’re staring at your phone.”

  “All right, Dad. I’ll be sure to do that.”

  “I’m just looking out for you,” he defended.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Like a friend?”

  “Yes, as a friend.” He stood up straight, and Shayler realized just how much he towered over her. The small semblance of dominance did strange things to her lower half.

  “Whatever. Thanks for canceling class,” she stated. “I’ll have time for a longer nap at least.”

  “A nap?”

  “Yeah, I woke up early to get ready,” she complained.

  “You didn’t even read my notes.”

  “Uh,” she gestured to her clothes, “I was putting together my Good Student outfit.”

  “Right.” He laughed. “I wondered why you look like a housewife.”

  Her jaw fell open. “Are you fucking kidding me?” She couldn’t have imagined a worse insult.

  “What?”

  “I was going for smart, not for forty-year-old woman who mops floors and picks up dry cleaning for a living.”

  “You still look pretty.”

  Shayler had been called a lot of things before—mainly sexy, hot, and sometimes smoking—but pretty? Was David trying to ask her to a middle school dance? “Thanks.”

  He nodded and moved to the desk, separating papers into exact piles and setting a row of pens in front of them. Shayler stayed put, not wanting to leave. She told herself it was because she didn’t have anywhere else to be.

  “What are you doing now?” she asked.

  He glanced up. “I’ve got to do some homework and then check next week’s PowerPoint, make sure the facts are all up to date.”

  “On a Friday afternoon?” She gri
maced and took a seat on the edge of the desk, letting her legs dangle beside David.

  “What else should I be doing?”

  “I don’t know, but there has to be something more fun you could do than homework.”

  “Sometimes I call my mom.”

  Shayler snorted. “Your idea of a good time is calling your mom?”

  David crossed his arms. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she lives in Georgia, and I don’t get to see her often. Or my little sister.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Yeah, but my mom had her the year before I came to college, so I haven’t gotten to spend much time with her.”

  Shayler hated that her chest panged for him. Who the fuck was she to care about some guy’s sibling? “Your mom had a kid recently? Geez. My mom and dad were done the second I was born.”

  “Mom had me when she was young, and she got married my senior year of high school.”

  “New dad wanted a kid?”

  David shook his head. “No. Brett’s cool. They both wanted one.”

  “You’re…” Shayler stopped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  He pinched her leg. “Come on.”

  “Nice.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  Shayler shrugged. “Your fixation with polos isn’t.”

  He glanced at his royal-blue shirt that annoyingly brought out his eyes. “What’s wrong with polos? Does it look bad?”

  She ran her gaze down his body, a wistful sort of sigh lodging itself in her throat. “No, David, it doesn’t.”

  He smiled and went back to work, marking things on one page and then turning to the next. Shayler took the break to imagine what his hands could do if they weren’t always occupied by a pen. She clenched her thighs and counted to twenty, just in case she’d throw herself on him by accident.

  “Okay, well you have to take a break sometime, right?” Oh God, was that desperation in her voice?

  “I might meet up with some friends for lunch, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time.”

  She froze. Was he subtly trying to tell her to go the fuck away? And, if so, why was she feeling so flustered? Rebecca had told her to go away a million times in a million different ways, and yet this one stung the most.

  “I, um, should go take my nap,” she said with a laugh, but the sound was weak, like an old cough that’d returned.

  “You can stay,” he said, his words tripping over themselves.

  Her chest tightened, and her fingers tingled. She closed her eyes, wishing her brain had a refresh button. “Uh, that’s okay. Sleep calls. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Drive safe.”

  She backed up and left, her steps heavy and her mind numb. Her lack of sex was obviously messing with her. Her body was so lonely that it’d tricked her into crushing on someone who should’ve been an easy target. It was the only explanation for the fluttering that lingered in her stomach. At least, it was the only one she’d accept.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After changing out her geek-chic outfit for a cozier one that consisted of leggings and a blue sweater, Shayler threw her head upside down and collected her locks into a messy bun and swiped on two coats of mascara. Finally, she was ready to go to David’s and only five minutes late.

  Thinking she could slink out the door unnoticed, she was surprised to find all of her roommates waiting for her in the living room. Gigi held up a hand as Shayler slid her tote onto her shoulder.

  “Hold up. Where’re you going?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re getting tutored, aren’t you? On a Friday night.”

  “I told you guys, it’s not tutoring. And I need to, if I want to pick the right major.”

  “What about our contract?” Whitney asked, her arms and legs crossed.

  “I’m not staying home to watch Lifetime and binge on Lean Cuisine pizzas. I’m going out.”

  Gigi shook her head. “I’m disappointed.”

  “Come on. One night a week I won’t be able to get drunk and dance on tables with you. We’ve still got six other nights.”

  “Mhm.” Gigi nodded to the door. “Go ’head.”

  “You guys need to chill,” Shayler said with one hand on the doorknob. “It’s not a big deal.”

  But the talk left her hollow and guilty, and she spent the drive to David’s snacking on a bag of old Doritos that’d been left in the glove compartment while she wondered if she was actually changing.

  She still wasn’t sure when she pulled up to David’s house. Refusing to let it ruin her night, Shayler forced the thoughts away as she climbed out of her car and onto the driveway.

  The path to the house was made of chipped gravel and pebbles, and Shayler thanked herself for being smart enough to wear flip flops instead of heels, even if her toes felt like frozen baby carrots at the moment. She knocked on the door, not wanting to be out in his neighborhood for longer than she had to. Yeah, he had a nice-looking house, but it wasn’t far from the shadier part of town.

  After the second knock, the door opened. David stood inside, holding the door in place as he greeted her with a bigger than normal smile. Shayler grinned, flames licking at her neck and thawing her toes as she took him in.

  She’d only ever seen him in jeans and collared shirts before. But this … this was better. His sweatpants and white Under Armour shirt would’ve been boring on anyone else, but on him, it made her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. Hot. He was so hot. Not just hot either, she thought the longer she stood there, gaping at him. He was kind of gorgeous.

  Ugh. She wanted to go at her brain with a pickax. What would she do next, pass him a note asking him to check yes or no and then run away giggling?

  He laughed as though he could read her thoughts and widened the opening. “Hey. Come in.”

  She made a face before stepping past him, shivering when her body briefly rubbed against his side. It was then that she made it her next mission, after their little study session, to get laid. Whether it was the bartender, her demeaning professor, or some random creeper, she didn’t care. It was obvious her body needed some attention. Perhaps then she might be able to hang around David without nearly combusting from hormones and lust.

  “I set us up in the dining room, but we can work wherever.”

  Shayler followed him, setting her bag beside his laptop and textbook that were on what looked like a dinner table. “Now what?”

  He laughed, and the sound hit her right in the chest. “You can take a seat, Ms. Thompson, and we can get started going over the stuff you missed in the first week.”

  Shayler grinned. “All right, role-playing. That I’m good at. Order away, Professor.” She batted her lashes at him.

  “Just take out your damn notebook.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  David pushed his textbook toward her, opening the first chapter and showing off the thousands of yellow rectangles that filled each page. “I’ve written most of this stuff down for you, but we should really go over it so you can fully understand.”

  She picked the book up. It sounded simple enough. But as she stared at the words, she realized the terms were flying right over her head. She found the phrase that’d condemned her to Hale’s Shit List and was suddenly sorry she hadn’t paid attention in class. Or showed up to most of them.

  “You wanna go over the social control stuff?” he asked.

  “Probably should.”

  “Okay. Take a second to read the paragraph and tell me what you think.”

  Shayler grumbled, trying to understand what the fuck the book was talking about. It was like she could see the words clearly, but they weren’t registering in her brain. Rather, they were sitting in her mind as one giant jumbled mess, a puzzle with so many missing pieces she couldn’t begin to solve it.

  “So?” David slid the textbook in front of him, still bent over her in a way that made her wish she’d worn a deeper V-ne
ck.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “What do you mean you don’t get it?”

  “It’s just words to me. Values. Dominant. Society. Blah blah blah. Doesn’t make sense.” She peered up at him, but he was already taking a seat beside her.

  “Social control is just the way that society tries to keep people in line,” he explained. “Lots of things fall under the category, like police, religion, all the things that make us stop and think about what we’re doing.”

  “So, it’s kind of like morals?”

  “Eh, Informal Social Control is. Formal Social Control, like what we deal with in Criminology, is—”

  “People that make the laws and enact shit?” She nodded. “Okay. So on one hand you have magazines that tell you that wearing leggings as pants is wrong, and they show a row of embarrassing pictures of people wearing nude-colored leggings around Walmart. And now we’re all terrified to wear them so we won’t. And on the other, you have the law that says don’t steal or we’ll put you in jail, so they’re more serious about consequences instead of trying to coax us into their mindset.”

  She bit her lip and looked at him when he didn’t answer right away. David was staring at her, and she had to poke him in the ribs to get him to wake up out of his stupor.

  “Did you even hear me?” she asked.

  “I heard you.”

  “So?”

  “Uh, yeah, you got it.”

  “Cool.” She beamed. “All right, next subject.”

  They mulled over the first four chapters for a few hours, and Shayler had spent more time sneaking peeks at him whenever he was deep in thought than she had studying. Actually, she hadn’t minded the learning part that much either, though she almost peed herself from joy when he finally closed the book.

  “That’s it?” she asked, hope creeping its way into her voice.

  “Yep.” He stretched his arms behind his head and cracked his back.

  “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, I’m fucking ecstatic that it’s over now, but it wasn’t too torturous.”

  “‘Wasn’t too torturous,’ I think I’m going to have to put that on my resume.”

  Shayler stood and rested against the chair. “What now?”

  “What now?” he echoed. “Did you need to study something else?”