It takes everything inside me not to lay into him about putting hockey before his studies. Considering he needs to do well on these make-up assignments to evenplaythe rest of the season, it would make the most sense to refocus his priorities.
But I bite my tongue and manage to grind out a soft, “Well, we only have this study room for another half hour.”
His ocean blues lift to meet my gaze, and he frowns. “Tell me again why we can’t just do this at the house? From the comfort of our living room? Then it wouldn’t matter if I was running late.”
Two things happen in the span of a second.
The first? I’m irritated as hell by his lack of regard formytime.
The second? Well, Lexi’s face flickers into my mind.
The lies I’ve told her already feel like a mountain of deceit, and if I’m honest, the biggest reason we’re here and not at home is because I’m terrified I’ll fuck up this fake-boyfriend shit in front of her. That the truth will come out, and I’ll lose one of my best friends because of it.
Avoiding the possibility altogether feels like the best option. At least until I get better at pretending I’m into Camden, not her.
“Because the house has everyone coming and going, and you don’t need any more distractions than necessary,” I tell him, using the best excuse I can muster. “And speaking of distractions, hand over your phone until we’re done here.”
Camden, clearly one to take words at face value, chuckles as he drops his phone on the table and slides it over to me. “Yes, Drill Sergeant.”
Ignoring his teasing tone, I motion toward the stack of three notebooks on the table in front of him.
“Are those Theo and Holden’s notes from when they took the class last year? Did they label any of the stuff that was on the tests?”
“Uh, yeah, these are their notes,” he says, lifting the top two notebooks. “But I didn’t see anything marked as more important than anything else.”
Great, so we’re doing this the hard way.
I let out a sigh and rub my temple, fighting back my building frustration, before reaching across the table for the notebooks.
I set to work immediately, flipping them both open to the first page. “All right, then let me see what you have written down and we’ll cross reference them. Then we should be able to deduce what information they’ll question you on for finals if it shows up in both places.”
“And this is why I asked for your help to begin with,” hemuses, leaning back in his chair.
I glance up at him, the picture of nonchalance, and mutter, “How the hell did you survive three years of college before this?”
“Do you really wanna know?” he asks with a suggestive wink, causing my stomach to drop.
“You didn’t sleep with your professors, did you?”
A bark of laughter leaves him, and he shakes his head. “That would’ve been the easiest option, but no. Just the TA. And before you get all high and mighty on me, it was only once for an English class freshman year,” he admits with a shrug—as if it’s the most normal thing in the world—before continuing to floor me further. “Otherwise I’d either buy the tests off an upperclassman or pay someone to swap tests with me before handing them in.”
Jesus Christ. I don’t know which is worse.
I gape at him, at a loss for words with how cavalier he’s being.
“You could get expelled for literally all of those things,” I tell him, my gaze locked with his as I grab the third notebook containing his own notes, dragging it toward me.
He shrugs, completely unperturbed. “I don’t test well.”
Scoffing under my breath, I drop my attention to his notebook and flip open to the first page. I expect for the pages to be relatively empty; maybe some doodles in the margins, since that’s the no-fucks-givenattitude Camden clearly displays about school.
Yet to my surprise, the page is filled with notes, as is the next one, and the one after that.
The only issue is…
“Apparently, you don’t fucking spell or take notes well either,” I state, flipping through more and more pages. It all looks like utter nonsense. “Jesus, were you drunk in class when you wrote these?”
His nostrils flare slightly before he offers a clipped, “No, Iwasn’t.”
