It doesn’t mean anything. He’s doing it because you’re fake dating and he’s trying to make it look real.
I ignore that flicker of disappointment in my chest. After my tea is ready, Nick grabs the mug, and I follow him back out to the living room and into his bedroom. He closes the door and sets the tea mug at his desk against the wall.
I sit down in the chair while he sits on the dining chair he brought in from their kitchen table.
“So. What are you having trouble with in college algebra?” I ask while pulling out a notebook and my laptop from my backpack.
He runs his massive hand through his thick, messy hair. “Everything.”
He shows me the last two quizzes he took. He scored Ds on both of them. I look over the problems that he got wrong.
“Okay, so it looks like you’re having issues with quadratic functions and equations.”
“To say the least,” he says softly.
I look over and offer what I hope is an encouraging smile. “It’s okay. I promise this is fixable. Why don’t we work through a few of the problems you got wrong on these quizzes, and I’ll show you how to do them correctly?”
For the next twenty minutes, I show Nick how to correctly solve three problems. He seems to understand more each time we tackle a different problem.
I hand him a pencil. “Here, why don’t you try to solve this one by yourself?”
After a couple of minutes, he solves it correctly.
I beam at him. “You got it right.”
He grins. “I did?”
“Yeah. Nice work.”
He gazes down at the notebook, still smiling. “The way you explained it makes it way easier to understand.”
“Algebra was my favorite math subject in school.” I take a sip of the lemon mint herbal tea Nick made for me.
“You’re a genius,” he teases for the millionth time.
I chuckle. “I’m not a genius.”
“Okay, well, you’re a really great tutor. The way you work through it makes a lot more sense than how my professor did it.”
We go through his other quiz and work through a few more problems. He’s able to solve most of them correctly by himself.
We work through a tough one together when he gets stuck. After I show him the correct formula to use, he solves it.
When he pumps his fist in the air in triumph, I chuckle.
“I had no idea it could feel so good to get a math problem correct,” he says.
“You’re doing so well, Nick. Great job.”
I pull up a short practice quiz I found online and hand it to him. “Give these a try. I’ll give you twenty minutes and see how many you can do.”
While Nick sits at his desk and works through the equations, I skim through a reading assignment for one of my classes.
When he finishes, I check his quiz and see that he got all but one correct.
When I hand him the quiz and he sees the score at the top of the paper, his eyes go wide.
“Seriously? I got almost all of them right?”
