“You got it, little Coop,” he says, and Ellie rolls her eyes, giving me a thumbs up before disappearing into her room. “So you like the sexy doctor show?” Jack asks, a smirk forming, and my head snaps toward the television, where the screen is pausedon the show’s intro featuring a shirtless man with a stethoscope around his neck.
“I thought Ellie warned you to stop talking before I change my mind?” I ask, reluctant to stand up from the couch.
“I’m just making conversation. It was on your screen, and if doctors are your thing, I’m not going to judge you,” he drawls, continuing to talk, and I take a deep breath, reminding myself I’m playing nice.
“Please don’t call me that,” I say, giving him the fakest smile I can muster. “So you need help with Comp II?” I ask, picking a neutral question instead of continuing to go back and forth with him.
I slide onto the stool next to his, shifting away because his size is overwhelming. Biting my cheek, I glance over at him, noting how the tips of his ears turn a bright red and the color of his cheeks tint. “Yeah, um, I have dyslexia, and I do my best to keep up, but I get . . . overwhelmed, I guess? It takes me a long time to work through the assignments, but finding sources for the essays before even trying to write the papers is . . .” Jack trails off, shrugging his broad shoulders.
Holy fuck, I’m the worst human alive.
“Do you have any accommodations?” I ask, struggling to speak because I’m so fucking embarrassed by how quick I was to dismiss him when he was genuinely asking for help. I know there was no way for me to know about his learning disability, but it makes sense why Ellie was helping him the other night.
“I get audio recordings of the lectures, and I’m supposed to get extra time on assignments. Since we do a lot of peer review, it’s hard to explain why mine isn’t done unless I want to share why, so I try to hit the same deadlines as everyone else, but it’s not going so great for me,” he explains, opening his laptop. “I failed the class last year, but it’s a requirement to graduate, so I had to retake it this semester.”
“I’ll talk to our professor and see if we can be partnered the rest of the semester for any peer assignments,” I say, and his blue eyes slide to meet mine, widening for a moment. I’m a little surprised I’m offering to be stuck with him for the rest of the semester, but everyone has the right to an education. It’s not his fault that his brain works differently from others. “We’ll meet Tuesdays and Thursdays to work through the material from class, but if you need help with something outside of that, let me know and we’ll find time to meet.”
“Thanks,” Jack says, and I exhale, wiping my palms on my thighs.
“Don’t mention it,” I say, twisting my curls back to tie them up off my neck. “I tutored in high school, so I might be a little rusty, but you have to tell me if I’m going too fast or you need a break.” When he doesn’t say anything, I look up at him, only to find his gaze trailing over the exposed slope of my neck. “No funny business, okay? This is just tutoring,” I say, swallowing the lump forming in my throat, tucking my hands into the sleeves of my sweatshirt.
He flashes a cheeky smile. “Is friends on the table?”
“Nope.”
Jack chuckles, scratching the back of his neck. “We’ll see about that. I think you want to be my friend, but you’re afraid you can’t handle it.”
“You think I can’t handle all the glares from everyone who are desperate to get close to you? Please, Jack, give me some credit.” I snort, reaching over to pull his laptop closer to me, wanting to maintain the space between us.
“Then why can’t we be friends?”
Because you’re my dad’s star player, and a walking representation of sex on a stick?
I raise an eyebrow, wondering if he really needs me to answer this question. “Do you even have any friends who are girls?”I ask, skimming over the screen to see where he’s at with our current project. The number of tabs he has open on his browser makes my eye twitch.
“Ellie,” he says, sounding awfully smug.
“She’s your roommate’s sister. I don’t think Ellie counts.”
“I think she counts, but it’s cool if you don’t want to be friends right now. I’ll wear you down at some point.”
I bite back my smile because he has no idea I’m as hardheaded as my dad. Maybe I should refer him to someone who is actually qualified to be his tutor and has experience with learning disabilities, but it sounds like he really does need the help.
Agreeing to be his tutor is one thing, but becoming his friend would break my rule against having anything to do with hockey players.
“Walk me through what your paper is over, and we can start on some of the material on our midterm exam,” I say, redirecting the conversation back to why he’s here.
For the record, Jack and I arenotfriends.
CHAPTER 5
Jack
My energy is spentby the time I walk into the house I share with my teammates, and my brain is swirling with everything Alondra and I covered in our second tutoring session. She helped me sort through all the open tabs of potential sources by reading the abstracts to determine whether they would support my argument, and we created a brief outline to help me get started on each section of the paper. We also worked on reviewing sections of what our midterm covered.
Dylan is on the couch, his flavor of the week straddling his lap as they make out, and I shut the door louder than necessary. Their heads separate, but Dylan doesn’t look phased, and the girl doesn’t climb off his lap.
“Get a room,” I say, shaking my head as I drop my bag on the ground.
