Chapter One
KAT CHEWED ON her pen and studied her tutor’s bent head. Ashley’s shiny black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, held in place by a . . . scrunchie.
Seriously? Was that really a sparkly teal scrunchie? Kat bit down harder on her pen in concentration. Did they even sell those anymore? The last time she’d seen one, she’d been six and wrapped it around her side ponytail, pretending to be Kelly Kapowski while watching Saved by the Bell reruns.
Ashley droned on about something, and Kat yawned. She looked down at her notes but some of the words blurred, increasing her headache, so she gazed around the library. Through the windows, the late-January wind rattled the bare trees.
“Kat? Did you hear me?” Ashley’s voice needled into her ear.
Kat snapped her head back. “Um . . . yeah?”
Ashley slumped her shoulders with a sigh. “Look, I’m going to be honest here. I like you, okay? But I don’t think you’re getting anything out of these sessions. I think my time would be better spent with someone else.”
Kat opened her mouth but then snapped her jaw shut. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard it before. Her inability to stay focused had annoyed plenty of tutors. Not to mention just about everyone else in her life. She jutted out her chin with as much confidence as she could muster. She’d find another tutor.
“I think that’s a good idea, Ashley. I’d planned to say the same thing.” The lie came easily. “I’m doing better in statistics anyway, so I don’t need the help anymore.”
Ashley raised an eyebrow while gathering her papers. “Okay, well, it was . . . nice to meet you.” She winced, as if it was painful to say, then waved meekly and left.
Kat groaned softly. She was in the second semester of her sophomore year at Bowler University and already on academic probation. If she failed another course, she would be kicked out. This semester’s bane of her existence—statistics.
She hated her brain. Absolutely hated the way it could never make sense of words and numbers on the page in front of her. How it wandered and couldn’t focus on one thing for very long. How it was to blame for the dumb blonde jokes that had followed her like an unfunny comedian her whole life.
She wasn’t even blonde. Not really. She held up a wavy curl and picked at the ends. It was more like a light brown. Caramel. Or whiskey. With blonde highlights. Were those split ends? She needed a haircut, stat. And a root touch-up because her highlights were growing out. And maybe an eyebrow wax. There was that place over on Lexington that took walk-ins . . .
Her cell phone vibrated on the table, announcing an incoming text message from her boyfriend. She swiped her thumb across the screen, automatically launching the text-to-speech app she’d downloaded after repeatedly reading her text messages incorrectly. She’d thought downloading it was genius at the time, until a clearly audible Your ass looks hot today text read in a sexy male Australian accent scandalized an unfortunate seventy-year-old at the drugstore.
Luckily, this message was tame.
Come over tonight.
She muttered to herself, “And that’s an order, Private.” Would it kill him to type please? It was only an extra six letters.
Max Payton didn’t know she had a tutor. He didn’t know much about her at all, really. But he was hot—really hot—and fun and as a junior, lived in a house off campus with his own room. And he liked to bake. Seriously, the man baked her chocolate-chip cookies. They were really good, too. When she asked him about the secret ingredient, he’d laughed and said flour. She was pretty sure he was making fun of her. But she’d learned at an early age to pretend mocking was just teasing.
She gathered her books and stuffed them into her plaid Burberry messenger bag, then headed toward the front doors, smoothie from the library snack shop in hand. Head bent, fiddling with the clasp of her bag, she stumbled into a wall of human on the pavement outside.
“Oh, I’m sorry—” Her voice dropped out when she realized the solid flesh belonged to Alec, Max’s best friend.
She’d only met him once or twice before he’d moved in with Max this semester and every time, he cocked his eyebrow with a half frown like he knew something she didn’t. Which he actually did, since he had brainy superpowers. Smarter than a speeding Einstein. Able to leap over C-minus students like her in a single bound.
She didn’t trust people that smart. And she didn’t trust a guy who didn’t ogle her ass or leer at her boobs like every other member of the straight male species on the planet.
She once asked Max if Alec was gay, and Max had laughed so hard, she feared he’d pop a blood vessel in his forehead. Then he assured her his friend was in fact, very straight.