Third Degree

by Julie Cross

  “Did you get your flip-flop addiction when you lived in San Diego?”

  He laughs. “How did you know?”

  “It’s the only year-round warm climate in the list of previous locations you’ve lived in.”

  His eyebrows shoot up. “Right.”

  The image of a younger Marshall in swim trunks and flip-flops, surfing in California, sits in my mind, and then I fill in a military dad who ends up closely resembling Sergeant Holloway from my morning boot camp class. But is it just Marshall and his dad driving and flying all over the world? “What about your mom? Do you have siblings?”

  He fingers the textbook resting between us, causing his hand to land extremely close to mine. “My mom is your typical military wife, and I have four siblings.”

  “Four? Seriously?” A minivan full of bobbing heads and luggage surfaces in my imagination.

  “I have one older brother and three younger sisters.”

  I reach for a pencil and paper, but Marshall’s hand covers mine. “Don’t even think about taking notes.”

  “Right.” My face heats up. I pull my hand back and stuff it in my lap. “I’m an only child, so the idea of siblings is intriguing.”

  “It gets pretty wild at my house,” Marshall says. “But I can’t imagine it being just me. Were you too much of a handful for your parents to think about having more? I bet you were.”

  The word parents sits like a brick in the pit of my stomach, but I force a smile. “Um, handful is an understatement. And I’m adopted. My mom wasn’t able to conceive, so I’m not certain whether she would have had more children or not.”

  “You’re adopted?” Marshall says, surprised. “But isn’t your dad a—”

  “Heart surgeon.” I twist the straw wrapper into a knot and then reach for Marshall’s, tying them together. “Genetics aren’t the only factor in causing offspring to follow the same career path as their parents. And you’re not in the military, so obviously it didn’t work on you. What about your older brother? Is he in the military?”

  Yes, that’s a good plan. Focus on Marshall’s thriving family, not my dying family.

  “No, he’s a loan officer at a bank not too far from here. He went to school here, too. Football scholarship.”

  I give him a satisfied smirk. It’s a relief to be right. “Maybe the genetic link deters offspring from repeating their parents’ career choices more often than adopted children.”

  The mere mention of genetics drives my thoughts back to my own genetic link, and I get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I push it aside and keep myself in the conversation. I’ve gotten good at allowing myself to forget that the woman I really belong to is dead and has been almost my entire life.

  “Well, I wanted to, you know?” He finally looks away, his gaze flitting in the direction of the cashier, who appears to be closing up the register, counting a stack of bills. “Join the military like my dad.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I went through boot camp right after high school, but it wasn’t for me.” He shoves the tray toward the edge of the table and flips open his anatomy book. “I think I’ve procrastinated enough on this studying thing. Hit me with your best tactics.”

  I’m literally clamping my jaw shut to keep from blurting out more questions. I may not be a military expert, but I am technically a genius and know something about many different subjects that shouldn’t be on my radar. You can’t just quit a military service commitment after boot camp. There’s more to that story, but what little social awareness I do have picked up on the fact that he changed the subject a little too quickly.

  “Izzy?”

  I shake my head and focus on the worksheet lying on the table between us. “Mental mapping. Are you familiar with the characteristics of life?”

  He’s back to giving me that half grin, half smirk. “Oh, yeah. I’m very familiar.”

  “Funny.” I glare at him and tap a finger to the worksheet. “As in movement, responsiveness, growth, reproduction, digestion, circulation, excretion …?”

  “Right, those.” He twirls his pencil between his fingers like a mini baton. “Excretion is my favorite. What a cool word. Especially if you say it really slow, like slow-motion style: excreeeetiooon.”

  Well, at least my experience tutoring third graders will come in handy.

  “Which characteristic of life is described in the sentence I stop at the traffic light? The choices are movement, digestion, circulation, and response.”

  Marshall stares at the question then scratches the back of his head, messing up his hair. “It could be response, but—”

  “It is response,” I blurt out. God, I’m so impatient.

  “But,” he continues, “only if you stop at the traffic light as a result of the light directing you to stop. Do we know for sure that’s the reasoning behind the stopping? And the action of stopping is just as much movement as walking, so why isn’t it movement? Maybe I’m supposed to circle all that apply?”

  I snatch the pencil from his hand and underline the part of the question that says Select one from the following list.

  “And what about circulation? Standing and walking have completely different effects on circulation and blood flow to the lower part of the body.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I already told you the answer. Why are you arguing with me?”

  “You giving me the answer in relation to this specific sentence doesn’t help me at all when I’m given a completely different scenario,” he says, his calm contrasting with my impatience. “That’s why I already failed one quiz, which is the only grade recorded in the class thus far.”

  “Okay, how about this sentence: I’m eating a taco?”

  “Movement,” he says immediately.

  I groan. “Digestion.”

  He leans back in his chair, lifting his hands up. “Come on, eating is a verb. Verbs are action words. Action is movement.”

  “Thanks for the grammar lesson. I needed that.” I sigh, then jot the sentence down on the back of the worksheet. “Try underlining the key words in the sentence. Like eating and taco.” I underline those two words. “Those would best be associated with digestion. That’s how you find your answer.”

  His forehead wrinkles. “Why can’t you say I’ve eaten a taco, past tense? Eating means it’s happening right now, and that’s a decision you make in your head, which then requires a response from the nervous system to get your hands to pick up the taco. And then your mouth has to open and your jaw has to do the chewing. It’s not like we can say, ‘Okay, body, digest.’ That’s a process that happens on its own. So when you talk about eating, my mind is heading in the direction of controlled decisions and actions, which would be movement and possibly response. But if you’ve already eaten the taco, then digestion makes sense.”

  I’m as mesmerized by his emphatic speech as I am frustrated. “Why do you do that?”

  A blank expression replaces the wrinkled forehead. “Do what?”

  “Talk yourself in circles around the answer when you know exactly what is the most likely to be correct.”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t need help, would I?” A hint of annoyance finally leaks into his voice, breaking his relentless calm.

  My response is interrupted by the cashier, who’s now standing in front of us. “We’re actually closed now.…”

  Marshall and I both glance around and notice for the first time that the lights are turned off in half the restaurant and the metal gate is drawn down a few feet already. I stand up and reach for the tray of garbage while Marsh gathers his books.

  The cashier lifts the tray right out of my hands, flashing me a huge grin. “I’ll take care of this for you.”

  “Thanks, and sorry about—” I stop abruptly when I catch his gaze zooming over me, head to toe. My neck heats up and the warmth creeps toward my cheeks. Don’t recognize me, please don’t recognize me …

  Marshall tugs on my sleeve and pulls me toward the exit. He�
�s too tall to get under the metal gate without ducking, but seconds later we’re outside again, breathing in the humid night air.

  I glance over my shoulder several times as if the cashier might come running out of the student union calling my name. “I think he recognized me. Statistically speaking, my cover was bound to be blown sooner or later, but I was hoping for at least—”

  “Seriously?” Marshall levels a look at me that I have a feeling I’m supposed to be able to interpret without verbal explanation.

  “Didn’t you see the way he was looking at me?” I sneak another peek over my shoulder. We’re still alone.

  “Yep, I saw it.” He’s focused straight ahead on the path, so I can’t see his face, but I hear the amusement in his voice.

  “It’s exactly how you looked at me when we first met and you recognized me. Then Evan and Yoshi did the same thing, but I’ve run into them several times and neither has said anything …”

  Marshall’s laughter interrupts my theory-building session. “Nobody recognized you from Dr. Phil’s show, Izzy. I can’t believe you’re brilliant about certain things and so dense about others. That roaming gaze you speak of is you being checked out.”

  Checked out? Oh … like checked out. “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  I slow my pace, mulling over this new discovery. Marshall gets ahead of me and turns around to face me, half walking backward, half jogging in place. I’m beginning to think he has hyperactivity issues. “I haven’t really been exposed to an environment where a large pool of males would see me as a potential—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence.” Marshall holds his hands up in front of him. “There’s no way it can end well. And you make it sound like you’re an alien or something.”

  He’s still jogging backward, but manages to dodge a girl on a bike without a glance over his shoulder. I’m waiting for him to start doing jumping jacks. My gaze shifts to his feet. “How are you not losing a shoe right now?”

  “Practice. It works the muscles in my shins really well.”

  “And which muscles would those be?” I say, returning to our anatomy lesson.

  He shrugs. “Shin muscles.”

  “Tibialis Anterior.” Finally, one of his shoes slips off, landing right in front of me. I bend over and snatch it up before he can stop me. “Some experts claim that barefoot running can really build the rectus femoris and the sartorius.”

  He lifts his right foot and removes the remaining flip-flop. “You’ve convinced me. Nothing like a sexy voice reciting Latin terms to persuade a guy.”

  “What happened to you being the RA and me being the resident you’re forbidden to flirt with?” I throw the shoe in my hand at him, but of course he snatches it out of the air before it can hit him in the face. “Whatever. It’s your grade, not mine.”

  “We’re still studying, aren’t we? Was the weak attempt at hitting me with a shoe a movement or responsiveness?” He resumes the backward jogging, placing more distance between us. “Or could it be reproductive? With many species, the mating process starts with a little squabble. Are you trying to create offspring with me, Izzy?”

  I lunge forward and snatch the worksheet from under his arm, then take off running. “I’m filling this out for you and you will memorize all the right answers,” I call over my shoulder.

  My running speed must not be totally pathetic, because it takes Marshall a whole fifteen seconds to catch up to me. Maybe that triple burger is slowing him down. He wraps an arm around my waist, lifts me off the ground with ease, then pulls the paper from my fingers, tearing only a tiny corner.

  “I think I’ll do this assignment solo. Maybe I can ask questions at the beginning of class and distract the teacher from giving the quiz.”

  “Does that actually happen?” No college course I’ve ever attended could have been disrupted in that manner.

  “Probably not,” he admits. “I was trying to be nice. Let you off the hook. I can tell I’m not an easy person to teach.”

  Now I feel like an ass. “If it helps any, I’m not easy to work with, either. In fact, that’s basically the reason I’m here.” That and my broken home.

  As he sets me down the back of my body slides down the front of his and I’m suddenly wondering if he’s right: maybe this is instinctive reproduction-driven behavior. I turn around without allowing much space to settle between us. Marshall’s hand rests on my lower back. I reach behind me and hold his fingers in place. “This is the college experience, right? Checking out people you’re physically attracted to, either hooking up like Kelsey and that William guy, or maybe dating before hooking up. I bet that’s a big factor for at least seventy percent of the students on campus.” I lift my gaze to meet his. The numbers and stats swirling around in my head pop and vanish like a soap bubble, replaced by the swirl of blue eyes. Warm fingers press firmly against my lower back, drawing us closer.

  He leans down, giving me a good whiff of his soap and deodorant, which, chemically speaking, shouldn’t cause a reaction from me but totally does. My breath catches in my throat when his lips get dangerously close to my ear.

  “I think you just stopped the process of circulation. Is that a movement or a circulatory characteristic?” he says.

  “Responsiveness,” I manage to whisper. “Definitely response.”

  Goose bumps pop up all over my neck and arms. My heart rate speeds up.

  “And your heart,” Marshall says. “Is that pulmonary or responsiveness?”

  “You’re mixing lessons.”

  I close my eyes, already anticipating the feel of his mouth against my neck. His breath tickles my skin and I release all the air from my lungs.

  “I think,” he says, grazing my skin with the tip of his nose, “you’re not as different from everyone else here as you think. We definitely have common interests.”

  Definitely.

  My fingers act on their own, reaching for the back of his neck, ready to pull him closer, but a small round object hits my fingers, and then another hits Marshall in the back of the head. He releases me and spins around to find a couple of the RAs from the third and fourth floor standing in the dark, laughing at us. One of the guys is the same one who spoke about me in the cafeteria this morning without knowing I was sitting right across from him. The reality of that moment ruins the temporary lust that came over me. I step back and glance over my shoulder at the door to our dorm.

  “Dude, way to be professional,” one of the guys shouts at Marshall.

  Marshall turns to me, adjusting his position near me to a much more innocent one. “So … you think I’ll do okay on that quiz?”

  Right. Because we were studying. Nothing more.

  “I predict you’ll get a sixty.” I don’t give him a chance to ask for details before taking off and leaving him to deal with the immature RAs from upstairs. I don’t want to be around when the one guy finds out that he called me a crazy nutcase to my face this morning.

  Maybe I am … yup, probably more than a 60 percent chance that I am.

  Chapter 9

  @IsabelJenkinsMD: If you woke up this morning with a sore throat, it’s not because you slept with wet hair. #StupidMyths #IgnoreGrandma

  “How did you know?”

  I rub the sleep from my eyes and stifle a yawn. Sergeant Holloway yelled at a girl the other day for yawning. Told her to give up and take her ass back to bed. The blurriness clears from my eyes, and I take in the paper Marshall’s holding out in front of me. A big blue 60 sits at the top.

  “Lucky guess.” I shrug and internally praise myself for such a normal answer. I want to tell him that I bought and read his course textbook in one night, then found copies of all the exams online. I mentally awarded him credit for the obvious choices and then assumed he’d chase his tail on the more open-ended statements, the way he’d done two days ago when we were studying. That probable score worked out to be 60.

  He narrows his gaze at me but doesn’t say anything else. T
he paper gets tucked into his bag, which is resting on the track that surrounds the obstacle course.

  “Private Collins!” Holloway shouts, then blows his whistle to follow up. “Ready for duty?”

  Marshall jumps to attention. “Yes, sir.”

  “We won’t be stopping after the first three stations like we did during the last session,” Holloway explains, pacing in front of the twenty-two students. “Each and every one of you will complete this course in its entirety. Private Collins will demonstrate. Pay close attention to the safety precautions on the wall climb and rope station. If you kill yourself, you get an F.”

  Jesus Christ, talk about a lack of logical reasoning. The student handbook clearly states that deceased students can’t be graded, therefore they can’t be flunked.

  Marshall takes off, first running through the tires, then under the wire for the army crawl station. He’s got a very specific technique on the army crawl that I could have used the other day. I make a mental note to try his way. Hopefully I won’t end up eating a mouthful of sand for breakfast. After running across a wooden balance beam, he quickly moves on to a long rope that’s spread between two beams but less than three feet off the ground. Marshall turns upside down and hangs from it like a possum, then climbs across it without landing in the sand pit. (I’m assuming we aren’t supposed to land in the sand.)

  The hardest obstacle by far is the wall at the end. Marshall uses a rope to help him make it up the twelve-foot wall, but even with the rope, it requires a great deal of upper-body strength, something a large portion of the females here won’t have—including me.

  After climbing down the ladder on the other side of the wall, Marshall returns to the group, only slightly out of breath. Does he come here and train on this course in the middle of the night or something?

  “I didn’t realize that you were a private,” I whisper.