The Tutor of Two Rivals

Chapter 3: What Julian Didn't Say

Mira stood under the streetlight for a full minute before she typed anything back.

Her first instinct was to ignore it. Block the number, pretend the whole night had ended cleanly at the gate, walk home and let Priya's texts talk her down from whatever this feeling was that kept climbing up the back of her throat.

Her second instinct, the one that actually won, was curiosity. It had gotten her into this mess in the first place, agreeing to call a stranger back at ten at night because the words no matter how late had sounded important. It wasn't going to stop now just because the stranger had turned into two rich boys who apparently hated each other on a level she still didn't fully understand.

Mira: How did you get this number that fast. We left the house four minutes ago.

Julian: I told you. Intake form. Your handwriting is very neat by the way. Almost concerning.

Mira: That's not an answer to why you're texting me at ten at night, Julian.

Julian: Fair. Can we talk tomorrow. Not at the house. Somewhere that isn't either of our dads' houses, ideally somewhere Ezra isn't also standing three feet away being furious about something.

Mira stared at the screen. Somewhere out on the dark street a car passed, headlights sweeping briefly across the sidewalk before disappearing, and she pulled her jacket tighter against the cold that had nothing to do with the weather.

Mira: I work the diner shift tomorrow after school. Ruby's on Fifth. You can catch me on my break if it's actually important.

Julian: It's actually important.

Mira: Then four thirty. Fifteen minutes, not more, I have tables.

Julian: Deal. Thank you.

She put the phone away before he could say anything else, and she didn't look at it again until she was home, lying on top of her covers with her shoes still on, staring at the ceiling and trying to piece together what exactly had just happened to her Thursday night.

Her mother's voice came through the thin wall between their rooms. "You're up late."

"Long night."

"Good long or bad long?"

Mira thought about the study, the ice in Ezra's voice, the way Adrian Cole had gone completely still at the sight of Julian standing in his house. She thought about the number, significant, doubled, and what that number could actually do to the envelope in her sock drawer.

"Good," she said, because it wasn't a lie, not exactly. "I got the job. Both jobs, actually. Long story."

Her mother didn't push. She never did, not because she didn't care, but because she'd learned a long time ago that Mira told things on her own schedule or not at all. "Bread's in the kitchen. Don't forget it's there this time."

"I won't."

She lay awake another hour anyway, replaying the sound of Adrian Cole's voice going quiet and dangerous, replaying the flicker of something raw underneath Ezra's ice when he'd looked at his father, replaying the strange, uncomfortable warmth of Julian's grin thinning into something realer right before she left. She didn't know these boys. She'd known them exactly two hours, most of which had been spent watching them try to dismantle each other in front of a man who clearly wielded silence like a weapon.

But something about the whole night had lodged itself under her skin anyway, and she didn't love how little control she had over that.

The next day dragged in the particular way school days dragged when you were counting down to something you couldn't stop thinking about. Mira sat through two classes without absorbing a word, got cornered by Priya at lunch and gave her the short version, the two boys, the fathers' feud, the doubled pay, deliberately leaving out the part where Julian Voss had texted her the second she left the property.

"So you're going to be alone in a room, twice a week, with the two hottest and most insufferable boys at this entire school," Priya said, chewing thoughtfully on a fry. "And your plan is what, exactly. Survive?"

"My plan is to teach them physics and take the money."

"That is never going to work and you know it."

"It's going to work because I'm going to make it work." Mira stabbed her own fry into a puddle of ketchup with more force than necessary. "I don't have the luxury of it not working, Priya. That money is real. It's not a crush, it's not drama, it's tuition."

Priya softened, the teasing dropping out of her voice. "I know. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying be careful. Boys like that don't play by the same rules as everyone else. They've never had to."

Mira didn't answer, because she didn't have a good one. She was still thinking about it when the bell rang, still thinking about it walking to the diner after her last class, tying her apron on in the back with hands that weren't quite steady.

Julian showed up at four thirty exactly, which surprised her more than it should have. He slid into a booth by the window, out of his uniform now, in jeans and a jacket that still somehow looked expensive even doing nothing, and Mira approached with her notepad like this was a normal table and not the boy who'd texted her at ten the night before with something actually important hanging unsaid between them.

"You actually came," she said.

"I said I would."

"People say a lot of things."

Something flickered across his face, there and gone, and for a second the easy charm dropped enough that Mira caught a glimpse of what might have been underneath it. "Yeah. I've noticed that too."

She poured him a water he didn't ask for and sat across from him for exactly the fifteen minutes she'd promised, notepad down, order forgotten, because whatever this was, it clearly wasn't about food.

"So," she said. "Talk."

Julian wrapped both hands around the water glass without drinking it, like he needed something to do with his hands while he figured out how to start. "What Ezra said last night. About our dads not speaking for six years. That part's true. What he didn't say, because he probably doesn't fully know it either, is why."

"I wasn't going to ask."

"I know. That's kind of why I'm telling you." He looked up at her, and for once there was nothing performing in his expression, nothing angled for effect. "Our dads used to be best friends. Like, actual best friends, not the kind of friendship people fake for business photos. They started their companies practically side by side. There are pictures somewhere of them as kids, younger than us, arms around each other like nothing could ever come between them."

"What happened?"

"Nobody will say. That's the thing. Ezra thinks it was a bad business deal. My dad's never given me a straight answer, just gets this look on his face like the question physically hurts him. Whatever it was, it broke something so completely that they built entire empires just far enough apart to never have to look at each other again." Julian's jaw tightened. "And now they've handed that broken thing to us, like we're supposed to finish carrying it just because we happened to be born into it."

Mira sat with that for a moment, thinking about Adrian Cole's face going still and dangerous, thinking about the tight, controlled way Ezra had said your father can't be in the same room as his father without something breaking, like he'd said that sentence a hundred times before and never once gotten an answer underneath it.

"Why are you telling me this," she said finally. "You've known me for one night."

Julian's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite his usual grin. "Because you're about to spend two hours a week, twice a week, sitting between me and Ezra Cole, and I don't think it's fair for you to walk into that blind. Whatever happened between our dads, it's going to leak into that room whether we want it to or not. I'd rather you hear it from me straight than watch you get caught in the crossfire without knowing why there even is one."

"That's surprisingly thoughtful of you."

"Don't sound so shocked. I have layers." A flicker of the old grin came back, thinner but real. "Also, selfishly, I'd rather you not think I'm the villain of this story before you've even gotten to know me. Ezra's going to make his case eventually. I wanted to make mine first."

Mira almost smiled at that, almost, before her manager's voice cut across the diner floor behind her, sharp and impatient. "Delgado, table six is still waiting on their check, and table nine just walked in."

"I have to go," Mira said, standing, grabbing her notepad off the table.

"Yeah. Of course." Julian stood too, dropping a bill on the table that was easily three times what the water he hadn't touched would have cost. "Thursday, then. I'll see you at the house."

"Thursday," she agreed.

He was almost to the door when he turned back, hand braced against the frame, something uncertain crossing his face for the first time all conversation.

"One more thing," he said. "And I need you to actually hear this, not just file it away as more Voss drama."

"What."

"Ezra's going to seem like he hates me tonight, and every night after that, probably. He's not wrong to. There's history there that isn't just our dads." Julian's voice dropped, quieter now, stripped almost completely of performance. "But there's something else you should know before Thursday. Something about why my dad specifically wanted you, out of every tutor in this town, the second he found out your name."

Mira's stomach went cold. "What are you talking about."

The bell above the diner door jingled as a group of customers pushed inside, loud and laughing, cutting straight through the moment, and by the time they'd passed, Julian's expression had already shuttered closed again, the easy grin sliding back into place like a mask clicking shut.

"Not here," he said. "Not like this. I'll tell you Thursday, before Ezra gets there."

"Julian."

"Trust me. You're going to want to hear it when there's no one else around to hear it with you."

He was gone before she could ask him anything else, the door swinging shut behind him, leaving her standing frozen in the middle of the diner floor with her manager calling her name and a question burning in her chest that she now had two entire days to sit with, unanswered.