“All truths,” Luca says matter-of-factly.
I toss my hands up into the air. “You’re full of shit, Luca. You’d never let me go!”
“You’re right. As my wife, you are bound and tied to me, forever.”
There’s a fire in his blackened gaze, and I step back.
Luca Ricci hates me.
Most of my classes this semester aren’t too bad, except for statistics. I’m drowning in numbers and formulas.
After a terse discussion with Luca and then a dreaded statistics class, I’m seated in the study lounge in the house, going over the day’s homework assignment.
It’s all a bunch of nonsense.
Kind of sums up my life.
“You look either confused or really constipated,” Ashton says as he walks by.
“I hate statistics.”
“Oh, I took that last semester. Super easy.”
I snort. “For you, maybe. Any chance you took notes in that class?” Maybe I can make sense of his notes from last year and use them to understand what I’m trying to accomplish, because right now I’m drowning, all over again.
I thought economics was hard, but that was a breeze compared to this class.
“None that I saved. Here, let me help.” He pulls up a chair beside me and glances over the information that I have written down.
“Yeah, this is wrong.” He points at the homework assignment and my first two answers.
“Okay.” I exhale heavily and stare at him, frustrated. “I spent an hour on that. How can it be wrong?”
“I mean, it’s wrong,” Ashton says. He flips through my textbook and tries to explain to me how the example isn’t matching what I’m doing. “You’re just like way off,” he says and gestures with his hands.
“And you know this because?—”
“Because I got an A in statistics and my minor is in forensic accounting. I know numbers. I can do them in here,” he says, pointing at his head.
“Show off.”
Ashton helps me erase my answer, and then he walks me through doing it the correct way. Which I’m not quite sure I understand.
He explains it again.
Overwhelmed, I scoot my chair back.
It’s not he’s a bad teacher; I’m just not getting it.
I glance at the clock. We’ve been at it for over an hour, and I need to pick up Zeke soon from daycare and then work on dinner.
“You’re done,” Ashton says. “I’ve seen that look in Nova’s eyes when the information doesn’t seep in and your eyes glaze over.”
“You help Nova study?”
“We both have psychology together. It’s more of a mini study group, just the two of us,” he says with a wicked grin.
I roll my eyes and hold up a hand. I don’t want to know if his idea of studying doesn’t involve books and school assignments.
