Being late, I’d missed the introductions. The other two students under Joe’s tutelage included a stunning blonde and another girl across the table from her. I didn’t really pay attention to the other girl.
I sat next to the blonde. Her perfume reminded me of my mother’s weekly flower arrangements, which cost a small fortune. She didn’t even look at me; instead, she remained focused on Joe. He explained a problem from our homework, punching away on a giant calculator on the table in front of him.
“I think you missed something in your calculation,” Blondie interrupted him.
Wow. That was bold of her. Telling our tutor he was wrong.
“I have a completely different answer, too.” I finally gave the other girl a good look. She sported short hair and an old man cardigan in olive green. Not unattractive, just plain. Especially when Blondie occupied the same space.
“I don’t think so.” Joe shoved his notebook in our direction. “Check it.”
Blondie studied his calculation, then stood up and walked over to the big white board behind him. After copying the formula and Joe’s numbers onto the board, she paused.
“I see where he went wrong,” other girl said.
Wrong? He was supposed to be teaching us this shit and he got the problem wrong? I stole a look at Blondie’s notes. She’d already done all the work. I could see she had a different result for this problem.
“He missed the seven.” I pointed at the error on the board.
Blondie smiled at me in thanks for taking her side.
I cocked my head in reply. I’d be on her team any day, especially if it was a doubles team.
Joe stared at the board. “You’re right. Excellent catch.”
I shot him a sidelong glance. Was he testing us by making mistakes and hoping we’d catch them? This being my first study group ever, I had no idea how these things worked. I’d never had to put much effort into studying or classes before. Somehow, I coasted. Smarter and more clever than was probably good for me.
Blondie resumed her seat, slid Joe his notebook, and then turned to me. “Did you bring your homework?”
Oh, right. I pulled everything out of my backpack. “I did.”
“What are you stuck on?” Joe asked. “Let’s have it.”
I shuffled through papers, looking for the worksheet. Next to me Blondie sighed and tapped her pen on the table.
“Here it is. I had an issue with the population variance on the second question.”
“Oh, that’s an easy one.” Blondie once again went up to the white board. Erasing the previous equation made her ass wiggle in her jeans. No baggy man cardigan for her. Her figure looked athletic and toned, not like a jock, though. She probably worked out in one of those thong leotards like on Jane Fonda’s aerobics videos. A guy could hope.
She wrote everything down and then turned to me expectantly.
I stared at Joe, waiting for him to speak up and guide us.
“Wanna take a shot?” Blondie asked me directly.
I scratched behind my ear and squinted at the numbers. Everyone focused on me, waiting for me to solve it. If I could have figured it out, I wouldn’t need this weird ass study group.
Sighing, Blondie began adding to the formula while explaining her work. I couldn’t figure out if she were a kiss-ass or one of those know-it-all girls who had to always be right.
“If you’re doing simple random sampling, use the sample standard deviation?” Joe’s voice went up at the end like he didn’t know the answer.
“That’s the most basic approach.” Other girl’s voice held the same disbelief at this clown I felt. I gave her and her ugly sweater a mental high five.
“I understood that part. The calculation at the end throws me off.” I pointed to the board.
Blondie explained her work, slowly and thoroughly. She was much better at this than Joe. Maybe he was some sort of savant. Like he could count cards at casinos, but didn’t know to look both ways when crossing the street.
We worked through the rest of the questions. At the end of the session, I felt better about the equations. Maybe I wouldn’t bomb this week’s quiz.
As we packed up our stuff, we agreed to meet again on Wednesday after class.
I found myself following Joe out the door.
“Thanks for the session, Joe.” Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I caught up to him.
“I don’t think she heard you.”
I flinched. “She?” Whoa, what?
“I’m Curtis. She’s Jo.” He pointed down the hall at Blondie.
Ah, that made more sense. I snapped my jaw shut and followed her departure with my eyes. My stats tutor wasn’t a doofus savant. She was a beautiful girl with a big brain and a sweet ass.
“Around the Way Girl” ~ LL Cool J
IMPRESSING MY TUTOR ended up being better motivation than the threat of not passing global economics.
I wasn’t late on Wednesday. In fact, I arrived early and I had an extra to-go cup of coffee in front of me. Because I’d bet she took it sweet and milky, a bunch of creamers and a selection of real and fake sugar sat on a napkin next to the cup.
Cardigan showed up first and eyed my coffees. “Double-fisting?”
The old adage about bringing enough for the whole class flitted through my head. Shit. Obvious much?
My plan didn’t really work out the way I’d hoped. Curtis took the seat closest to me, leaving the head of the table for Jo or the seat next to Cardigan.
Jo arrived and sat at the far end of the table.
Aborting the mission, I pushed the extra cup across the table. I didn’t need two cups of coffee.
“That’s sweet of you.” Cardigan grinned at me.
I returned her thanks with a closed mouth smile. “No problem.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to have drinks in the library, but I’m going to pretend I didn’t see those.” Jo gestured at our cups.
This was not going as I’d planned.
Worse, she nailed me—and not in the good way—on two of the problems. Instead of letting us ask questions, she made each of us go to the white board and copy our own work for the group to figure out where we went wrong.
Every once in a while, I’d catch her checking me out. Her pert nose would wrinkle when one of us went off track with a problem. An adorable line appeared between her brows as she attempted to backtrack and find our errors.
Today, her long golden hair had been woven into a braid. She wore black leggings with sneakers and an oversized sweatshirt. Even casual, she looked beautiful.
She had no idea who I was, where I came from, or how much money my father made. To her, I was some schlub who couldn’t master something she could do easily.
Nor could I charm my way out of these calculations or buy myself a better grade. This was uncharted water for me.
Her no-nonsense attitude turned me on. I felt out of her league, which had never happened to me before. In the past, even at both of my former boarding schools surrounded by household names, trust fund kids, and a few distant royals from smaller European countries, I’d never felt anything but among my own kind.
She intrigued me.
At the end of the hour, as we put out stuff away, an idea came to me.
“Do you offer private tutoring?” If I had to pay her to hang out with me to see how charming I could be, that was cool. It wasn’t like I was paying for sex or anything. No Risky Business for me.
“Not getting what you need out of the group?” Genuine concern in her voice, she focused on me.
“No, it’s great. I think you’re doing a fantastic job.”
“Thanks.” She stood and came up to my shoulder. Next to me, she felt more petite, more delicate. “I guess I could meet with you one-on-one before the midterm if you think you need extra help.”
I liked the sound of one-on-one.
“When were you thinking?”
“This weekend.” A lightbulb flashed above my head. “I have a singl
e where we could study there uninterrupted.”
“I think we’d be better off meeting here or in the CAB.”
Clearly, she saw through my attempt to make this more private. “CAB works for me. We could combine eating and studying. Kill two birds.”
We made a plan to meet Friday afternoon.
She might not have thought of it as a date, but she didn’t know everything.
Friday afternoon none of us had classes. Gil showed up to chill in my room with Maggie in tow.
“Anyone want to smoke?” My mother’s over-the-top hostess skills had worn off on me. I had guests, I needed to offer them something. Although the idea of my uptight Yankee mother ever getting high was crazier than Nancy Reagan passing around pot brownies.
“Sure!” Maggie clapped her hand.
“Have you ever smoked pot before?” Gil gave her an incredulous look.
“Not really, but I did the inhale someone’s exhale thing freshman year.”
I shrugged my shoulders and grabbed the bong.
“It’s very pretty.” She stroked the tall glass cylinder.
“Thanks. I know a local guy who hand blows them.”
Gandalf the Gray was my favorite bong. Probably bigger than needed, various grays and white swirled through its clear glass.
“He’s got real talent. Does he make other stuff not related to drug paraphernalia?”
“Yeah, but the bongs and pipes are his best sellers.”
Gil put in the CD of the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. He and Maggie sprawled on the other bed. I leaned back on the pillows on mine. I couldn’t figure out their deal. They always seemed to be around each other, but I’d never seen them actually together like kissing or anything. If they were a couple, they weren’t into PDA. If they weren’t a couple, they acted like one. Weird.
A knock sounded on my door. I jumped up to put the bong in the closet, then sprayed the room with aerosol room deodorizer.
“Yeah?” I moved closer to the door, but didn’t open it.
“It’s Selah.”
Exhaling in relief, I let her in. Selah and I had a history, but that’s what it was: history. I blamed freshman freedom syndrome. Poor decisions made because they could be. We both knew it was what it was, nothing more.
“I could smell pot down the hall, and I figured you guys were hanging out in here. Share the good stuff.”
I’d forgotten to put the towel by the door. After remedying my oversight, I pulled the bong back out of the closet.
Maggie asked for snacks and I opened a drawer in the spare desk. I had cereal, Cracker Jacks, chips, peanut butter and pretzels—the perfect munchies emergency kit.
Maggie shoved a handful of Captain Crunch into her mouth and winced. “Ouch!”
“What’s wrong?” Selah asked from her spot splayed on the floor.
“I think I cut the roof of my mouth.” Maggie finished chewing with exaggerated carefulness. “Got any milk?” She eyed my mini fridge.
“I’m out.”
Frowning, she set down the box. “Selah, share your caramel corn with me.” She crawled off the bed and collapsed with her head in Selah’s lap.
“Here, but give it back to me.” Selah passed her the box.
“What’s interesting about a box of Cracker Jacks?” Maggie asked with a full mouth.
“In my aesthetics of advertising class we had a guest lecture this week. She talked about all the subliminal messages snuck into ads and illustrations.”
“Like what?” Gil shifted to stretch out on the bed.
“Mostly naked women to make things subconsciously more appealing to men.”
“And are there naked men to make things more appealing for women?” Maggie asked, studying the box of caramel corn.
“There’s a hidden man in the camel on Camel cigarettes. He has an erection,” Gil added to the discussion.
Maggie threw back her head and laughed. “The things you know.”
“Maybe I need to switch from Marlboro Lights to those,” Selah mused. “If women found pictures of penises as stimulating as men find boobs, such thinking might work. But would a penis make you buy something?”
“Probably not. Wait, I see a penis!” Maggie pointed to the box. “See? Right there? With a pair of balls below it.”
Selah peered at the box. “That’s totally a dick. Ben, can I borrow a pen?’
Gil and I locked eyes. We’d smoked the same thing, but I wasn’t hallucinating imaginary peckers.
He shrugged his shoulders and went back to reading the liner notes. “The Beastie Boys are geniuses.”
I had to agree. We ignored the girls and their giggling on the floor while we had a very serious discussion over the sampling of the Jaws theme on “Egg Man.”
Another knock pounded on my door. Over and over again.
“Hide the bong,” I told Gil.
“Who is it?” I asked, scrambling up from my spot.
“It’s Jo.”
Oh, shit. I squinted at the radio alarm clock on my desk as its numbers flipped over to display 4:00. Shit. I’d completely forgotten about our tutoring date.
I mouthed the word fuck a few times at the door, then banged the back of my head on the wall for emphasis.
Maggie and Selah, oblivious to my personal struggle, continued laughing and shouting about subliminal dicks.
“Can you guys shut up for two seconds?” I whispered at them.
A thin haze of smoke lingered near the ceiling. If I opened the door, a cloud of smoke to rival a Grateful Dead show would probably fly into Jo’s face. I didn’t know her opinions on recreational pot smoking, but something told me now wasn’t the time to find out.
“Sorry,” I told both the people in the room and Jo on the other side of the door. “I fell asleep and got out of the shower a minute ago.”
“You’re almost an hour late. Must have been an amazing shower.” Even through the door, I could tell she didn’t believe me. Who knew if she could hear the raucous giggling before she knocked.
“I’m sorry. Let me get dressed and I’ll meet you in the lobby in a couple of minutes.”
“Never mind. I don’t have time now to meet.” Yep. She sounded annoyed.
“Then why did you come find my room?”
“To let you know I don’t appreciate being stood up. Ever.”
I closed my eyes again and rested my head on the door. There wasn’t anything I could say. I’d already apologized. “Let’s reschedule then. I’m free all weekend.”
Silence greeted me for a few seconds.
“I’ll see you in study group, Ben.” There was no mistaking the disappointment and frustration in her voice.
“I’ll make it up to you.” I wanted to chase after her, but not when I was high.
She didn’t respond and probably didn’t even hear me.
“It’s Tricky” ~ RUN DMC
ON MONDAY I wore a tie to study group to show I wasn’t a pot smoking slacker.
It didn’t seem to charm Jo at all.
“Nice tie.” Other Girl complimented me. “When do the campus Young Republicans meet?”
“First Tuesday of the month at lunch,” I responded without pause. She didn’t seem the Republican type, more like Green party or whatever group would piss off her family the most.
Her laughter in response sounded like a seal barking. “Of course you knew that!”
I’d missed her sarcasm. Grumbling, I turned my chair to ignore her.
Instead of letting Jo walk away from me after class, I followed her. Not in some sort of creepy way. I matched my pace to hers as soon as we exited the library.
“Thanks for the tip on standard errors. It made some things click for me.”
“You’re welcome.” She picked up her pace. I easily kept up. “How did you master statistics?”
“Surprised? Because I’m a girl and girls aren’t good at math?” Her voice turned cold. The label “ice queen” came to mind.
I choked on my own spit. �
��No, that’s not it at all. I’m good at math in general, never had an issue with it, but something about this class fries my brain.”
“Maybe it’s not the class,” she mumbled.
“I’m sorry?” I said, thinking I didn’t hear her right.
She faced me, annoyance clear in her expression. “Maybe it’s not stats that’s frying your brain.”
Guess she smelled the pot.
“Hey, I’m sorry about Friday. I apologized already. My friends came over and we hung out. That’s what college kids do.”
“Not every college student gets stoned.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it. It might help you relax.”
The line between her eyebrows deepened as she scowled. “Are you saying I’m uptight?”
Her chest bounced with her quick breath. I’d pissed her off again. “I was speaking in the universal sense of you.”
“Right.” She strode away.
“Hey—” I caught up with her in the middle of the quad. Grabbing her arm, I stopped her from storming away.
She stared at my hand on her arm until I removed it.
“Listen, we got off on a bad foot or something. I’m a nice guy. You seem nice. Let’s start over.” I made my eyes big and bit my bottom lip. The look had worked for years, because it made me look like a sad puppy. What I discovered as a kid typically worked on girls, too.
She sighed. “We don’t have to be friends. Me liking, or not liking you, won’t make a difference in you passing this class. That’s the goal, right?”
Ouch. Her words stung.
I needed a different approach. “How about we make a bet?”
Doubt and a big dose of reluctance settled over her expression. “What kind of bet?”
I stared back at her. “I get a B or higher on the midterm in a couple of weeks, we hang out. As friends. No statistics talk. Get to know each other.”
Her lips twisted to the left as she considered my offer. “What’s in it for me?”
“Other than the pride of knowing you helped me master stats? What do you want?”
We Were Here: A New Adult Romance Prequel to Geoducks Are for Lovers (Modern Love Stories Book 1) Page 9