The Tutor's Clause

Chapter 4

By the third week, people had noticed.

Simona found out during lunch, when her friend Petra slid into the seat across from her with a look that meant trouble.

"So," Petra said. "George Ricci."

"What about him."

"You tell me. You've been disappearing twice a week."

"I'm tutoring him. It's part of my scholarship service hours."

"That's what you're calling it."

"That's what it is."

Petra raised an eyebrow. "People are saying you two were laughing together in the library. George Ricci doesn't laugh. Not in public."

"We were discussing calculus."

"Nobody laughs about calculus, Simona."

"I made a joke. He laughed. It happens."

"To normal people, sure. Not to George."

Simona pushed her tray aside, appetite gone. "It's not what you think."

"I don't think anything. I'm just telling you what people are saying."

"And what are they saying, exactly."

Petra leaned in. "That the scholarship girl is getting a little too close to the rowing team's favorite disaster."

"That's ridiculous."

"Is it?"

Simona didn't answer right away, which was answer enough for Petra, judging by her face.

"It's tutoring," Simona said finally. "Nothing else."

"Okay."

"I mean it."

"I believe you," Petra said, in a tone that suggested she didn't, not entirely.

---

George found her after school, waiting near the library entrance like he'd been standing there a while.

"We need to talk," he said.

"About page sixty?"

"About the fact that half the school thinks something's going on between us."

Simona's stomach dropped. "You heard that too."

"Hard not to. Someone asked me at lunch if the tutoring came with extra credit."

"That's not funny."

"I didn't say it was funny. I said someone asked me."

"What did you tell them?"

"That it's none of their business." He shifted his bag on his shoulder. "Is it going to be a problem? For you?"

"It could be. If Voss thinks the arrangement looks unprofessional, he could pull the hours, and then I'm back where I started, scrambling for forty hours somewhere else."

"That would be bad."

"Extremely."

George was quiet for a second. "So we keep it strictly business. Library only, door open, nothing that looks like anything."

"That's what it already is."

"I know. I'm saying we make sure it stays that way. For your sake."

Something about the way he said it, careful, deliberate, made Simona look at him a little longer than she meant to.

"Okay," she said. "Strictly business."

"Strictly business," he repeated.

Neither of them moved for a second.

"We should go in," Simona said. "Before someone sees us standing here having a very serious conversation about not looking suspicious."

"Fair point."

They walked in together, sat at their usual table, and opened their notebooks like nothing had happened, though something had, quietly, in the space between strictly business and whatever this actually was.

---

Halfway through the session, George set his pencil down.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You're allowed to ask. I might not answer."

"Fair. Why do you care what people say about you? You've got the top marks in the year, you're basically untouchable academically. Why does a rumor matter?"

Simona considered the question longer than she expected to.

"Because I don't have a safety net," she said. "You fail a class, your father's disappointed, maybe you lose the rowing team. I fail at this, I lose the only thing keeping me here at all. Rumors have a way of becoming reasons, if the wrong person's looking for one."

George absorbed that.

"That's not fair," he said.

"No. It's not."

"I didn't think about it like that."

"Most people don't have to."

He didn't say anything for a moment, just looked at the notebook like it had suddenly gotten more complicated than page sixty.

"I'll be more careful," he said. "About how this looks. I mean it."

"Thank you."

"Doesn't mean I'm going to stop laughing at your jokes, though."

"I never asked you to."

"Just setting expectations."

Despite herself, Simona smiled. "Page sixty

," she said. "Before Petra starts a rumor about us smiling at each other too."

"Too late for that one, probably."

"Don't remind me.”