Fierce(39)

Why can’t she just be happy for me?

“Good night,” she says.

“’Night,” I say, and we turn off our lights and go to sleep.







The next morning Evie’s already gone when I wake up. She’s never an early bird, and it surprises me she managed to get out of bed without my help. On her bedside table I find a note with a scribbling on it.



A.

I’m hanging with Scar today. She’s payin’ up today, plus I’m getting extras if I stay longer, so …

See you tonight, I guess.

E.



The note crumples in my hand. I know what this is. She’s really avoiding me.

Reading this makes me so goddamn sad, I could cry.

Someone knocks on my door, and I immediately brush away the single tear dripping from my eye.

I turn around with the note clenched firmly between my fingers. It’s Hunter.

“Hey,” he says. At first he looks confident, but then his gaze turns compassionate and worrisome. “Everything okay?” He glances at my fist that holds the note.

I briefly close my eyes and sigh. “Not sure.”

“I was gonna ask you to be my study buddy today, but if you’re feeling crappy, I can come back another time.”

He’s already turning around, but I walk toward him and grab his hand. “No, wait.”

He turns back around, and only then do I realize I’m actually holding his hand. A flush spreads across my cheeks, and I quickly release him from my grip. “Um … I could use some distraction.”

He smiles. “You sure? I mean, studying isn’t really a distraction, more a bore.”

I shake my head and laugh. “To you it is. I think it’s fun.”

Chuckling, he walks back to his room, and I follow him. “I can think of a few more things that are way more fun to do …” The low, intimate tone of his voice gives me the shivers, because I always hear these sexual innuendos in his sentences that I just can’t ignore.

Maybe I’m imagining things.

“Like having girls on my lap.”

Or maybe not.

I don’t think my temperature can get any higher. It’s so hot, I’m practically swimming in my clothes right now. And I know it’s not a heating problem; it’s me.

There are books spread out across his bed, but they’re all closed. It makes me think he just put them there so I’d see he’s doing his best. Or at least trying.

Grabbing one of the books, he sits down on his bed and flips through the pages. “I tried this morning,” he says.

I sit down across from him, on his pillow, and can still smell his scent drifting in the air. It’s such an intoxicating scent, I just want to sniff and take it in. It’s a mix of aftershave and his body, but I love the two mixed together. I just love smelling him.

God, I feel so stupid right now for thinking about how he smells. As if that’s all that matters. As if I can’t resist his presence, in any form.

I hate to admit it, but I really can’t.

“Could you tell me how you do it?” he says, holding up the book.

I wake up from my trance and look at him. “Yeah, of course.”

We work on his homework for the next couple of hours. Now that I’m spending so much time with him, I can clearly see why he was cheating the other day. He has so much trouble remembering things he reads. And not only that; reading itself is hard for him to do, too. It amazes me he went through all those Harry Potter books with his reading skills. It must’ve cost him a lot of perseverance.

He keeps insisting he tries it, though. He doesn’t want me to tell him the answers, even when he tried peeking at my notes before. He’s too stubborn to admit he can’t do it on his own. Or just too embarrassed by the fact that he fails every time.

It takes him such a long time to find the answer, but he keeps trying, never giving up. I admire his tenacity. His willpower. I admire a lot of things about him.

“I can’t do this,” he says after a while. He puffs and throws the book aside, dropping his head between his arms.

I pat him on the back. “Don’t say that. You’ll get it eventually.”

“No, I won’t.” He looks at me with sad eyes, ones that make me want to hug him tight. “Goddammit … I tried everything. Asking you to help me out was one of the few things I thought would help.”

“But it can, if you give it some more time. It takes a little more effort to really get the hang of how to do it fast.”

“No! You don’t get it. I …,” he stammers.

It’s unusual for him not to know what to say.

“You what?”

He shuts his mouth and starts grating his teeth again. Seems like he’s hiding something again.