"Good morning, Miss McCarthy," I greet, coming closer, unhurried.
"Morning, Hayes," she gives back with just a slight tremor in her voice and her cheeks a little flushed.
I set my backpack on her table before even pulling out a chair and sitting across from her.
"And you're here to..." She leaves the question hanging, and my smile widens.
"Get help with Professor Whitman's assignment, of course," I say, and I catch her scrunching her nose for a second, then quickly returning to the neutral expression she must have trained for being a teacher's assistant.
"Sure, how can I help?" she offers, and I let a little smile slip out. I grab my computer from my backpack and boot it upquickly. She pulls out a notebook and takes some time choosing a colored pen from the big collection I see in her case. I use that little window to study her more closely.
Even though I already found her beautiful with the natural blonde hair from before, I have to admit the pink shade had looked really good on her, seemed to bring out the blue eyes and the soft pale skin. The rosy cheeks, like the tip of her nose, made her really cute, but it was the full lips wearing just some kind of gloss that crowned it all.
Beautiful as fuck.
No wonder Ethan had decided to break his own rules for her. But it highlighted the scale of Jonathan's stupidity for letting her slip away.
Charlie finally settles on a pen and lifts her eyes, catching me staring at her. I'm not embarrassed, on the contrary, I widen the smile and watch her blush a bit more, then clear her throat.
"Let's go, tell me what you've done so far."
"I started collecting the data and..." I start to explain, but she cuts me off.
"Which data set did you pick?"
"The Royals players' performance: rushes, receptions, and passes over the season," I explain, and she nods in understanding.
"Great that it's a context you know well, it makes things easier."
"That's what I thought too. Except then the actual calculations phase started and I got totally lost," I confess, turning the computer screen so she can see my spreadsheet.
"You've already done the means, great. I'm guessing the trouble started when you got to standard deviation," she guesses, and I run a hand over my face, slightly embarrassed. I liked being good at everything I did, and I chose the Marketing program because I liked the subject and had a knack for most things. It was relatively easy to balance with football, which had always been my real focus.
Math and sciences subjects in general, though, weren't one of those easy things. Those I always had to study twice as hard for.
"That's right," I finally answer, and Charlie flashes a little sideways smile.
"Okay, it's more manageable than it looks, I'll show you," she says, already grabbing the notebook and starting to break down what I needed to know, and I watched her go fully into teacher mode, which was kind of fascinating.
It takes maximum effort for me to pay attention to at least two-thirds of what Charlotte explains, instead of noticing every tiny detail about her. Like the two little freckles on her right hand, or the different-colored stains on her left, definitely due to the fact that she's left-handed. Long, slim fingers that had once been pulling the hair at my nape...
"Logan?" My friend's deep, familiar voice invades the room and pulls me out of the trance. Charlie and I turn ourheads at the same time to see him walking into the room and coming over to us. "What are you doing here?"
I break into a big smile, just because I love provoking Ethan Clarke way too much.
"Studying, of course. Charlie's clearing up all my questions. She's really good at what she does, isn't she?" I use her nickname on purpose and I can almost see Ethan bite his tongue to keep from giving me a rude answer. He lets out a "mm-hm" through his teeth at me before leaning over the girl and planting a kiss on her lips.
Now she blushes for real.
"Hi," he greets.
"H-hi," she stammers back. I hide a smile with my hand and watch Ethan drop into the chair next to Charlie, ending up across from me. "What did you come here to do?"
"I had some free time this morning and I knew you'd be here, so I came to keep you company, since you mentioned that a lot of the time no one shows up at the start of the semester," the player justifies. Charlotte blinks repeatedly, as if unsure what she should answer.
"Hmm... thanks. But I'm helping Hayes and..." She tries, but she's interrupted by my friend.
"I've got another subject I need to study too, I'll stay here with you two, if you don't mind," he decides, and the slight narrowing of the eyes he throws my way doesn't go unnoticed. I bite my lip to hold back a laugh.
