I draw a small circle around the percent sign and slide the page back.
“Three for three. Except you wrote the answer in the wrong format on the last one. Decimal, not percentage.”
He looks at the page and closes his eyes for half a second.
“Are you serious?”
“Markham has rules about it. Decimal versus percentage on his midterms is the difference between full credit and zero. He told us about it on the first day of class last year. He printed out a worksheet about it.”
“You went to the same Markham class I’m in.”
I nod. “I did.”
“And he made a worksheet about format that he didn’t bother to mention this semester.”
I shrug. “He underlines the word in the question. On the midterm. On the homework. On the worksheet about it. Always underlines.”
He picks his pencil back up. In the margin of the notebook I gave him, the one with his name on the washi tape on the cover, he writesdecimal unless underlined.He underlinesunderlinedand draws a small box around the whole thing.
He’s not annoyed at me. He’s annoyed at himself. He notes the mistake and moves on. No defensiveness, no excuse.
I lean back in my chair. “I feel like I didn’t teach you anything today. So, I think you need an accountability partner more than a tutor.”
He leans back too. Mirrored. He puts his pencil down on the closed notebook and tilts his head, half a degree. “Is that your professional opinion?”
His voice does something at the back ofprofessional.A small dryness. His eyes are staring straight into mine. I can’t tell if it’s sarcasm or amusement or the way Benson Reeve naturally talks to people he’s spent ninety minutes with. I’m not going to assume anything else, because if I assume anything else and I’m wrong, I’ll think about it until Thursday. I can’t have that.
I make myself look away, and then heat crawls up my neck when my eyes divert back to him. He’s still looking at me.
I look back at the notebook. “If you think you’ve got the material, we can be done here.” It comes out clipped, but I don’t do well with flirting. I want to keep this professional.
“No,” he says, easily. “I need the tutoring. Coach’s orders.”
I nod, biting my bottom lip. “Right. Yes.”
He asks, “Thursday at four?”
“Thursday at four,” I say kindly, meeting his eyes again.
“Same room?”
“If I can book it. They usually let me have it.”
“Okay.” He nods.
I glance at my phone face up on the table. The lock screen has the calendar widget I added at the beginning of the semester for tracking sessions.
We pack up. He puts one of my pencils into his bag, and I almost ask for it back. I remind myself not to be petty or weird about a pencil. I have a hundred others. He picks up thenotebook with his name on it and says, “You bought this for me?”
“It’s no big deal.” I nod. “I do it for everyone I tutor.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
That’s not what everyone typically replies with, so I blink. “Oh, no. That’s alright.”
“Do you use your own money every time?”
I swallow, glancing at it. “Yes.”
