Chapter 09
1310 Words
~HAILEY~
Maya was going to be insufferable about this. I'd known that before I even opened my mouth.
"You said yes?" She grabbed my arm with both hands, nearly making me drop my bag. "Hailey. You actually said yes?"
"Keep your voice down.”
"I am keeping my voice down, this is my quiet voice.”
"Maya."
She released my arm and pressed both hands to her mouth, visibly containing herself. We were walking the path between the humanities building and the main quad, and there were enough people around that I genuinely needed her not to make this a whole thing.
"Okay," she said, at a slightly more human volume. "Okay. I'm calm. You're going to spend two to three hours every day with Brayden alone. Just the two of you.”
“Studying.” I said, already fully aware what crazy thoughts were running through her head, “The two of us studying.”
“Sure.” She patted my arm, “Listen, all I ask, all I require as your best friend and the personal wo told you to say yes is a minimum of three photos.”
I stared at her, “What?”
“Hot ones. Ideally shirtless.”
“Maya,” I called,
“I will accept candid if shirtless isn't available. I mean, I'm not that unreasonable.”
“I'm not taking any photos of Brayden.”
“Think of it as a consultation fee. I gave you advice, it was super good, and I deserve compensation.” She held up three fingers, “Three photos, that's it.”
“There will be no photos because this is a professional arrangement between two people who absolutely dislike each other and keep things completely…”
“Hailey,” She squeezed my arm, grinning at me completely unrepentant,
“I believe you completely. I'm just saying, if the opportunity presents itself—”
“It won't.”
“But if it does.”
“Maya, I swear—”
She hummed in a way that suggested she had her own opinions about that and had simply chosen not to share them at once. We turned into the main path, and I was just starting to feel like I had successfully redirected the conversation when Maya stepped beside me,
“Hailey.” She called in an entirely different tone but I didn't turn,
“I'm not…”
“Hailey.”
I finally turned. A car had slowed to a stop along the curb ahead of us. Sleek and red and quite expensive and even the window came down smoothly, my breath hitched.
Brayden?
He had one hand on the wheel and eyes already turned on me. He didn't wave, didn't smile but just looked at me with an unbothered patience,
“Get in.”
I glanced around quickly to notice a few students nearby, none of them paying attention to the car. I quickly grabbed my bag strap and turned to Maya who had that dreamy expression on her face that I couldn't entirely describe,
“Not a word.”
Knowing who Maya was, I knew she was already hatching up multiple thoughts in her tiny head,
“I'm saying absolutely nothing.”
I heaved knowing she was saving up a lot for later instead, walked into the car and got in. The door had barely closed before I turned towards Brayden,
“You drove here?”
“Clearly.”
“I thought we were being discreet. What if someone saw…”
“Nobody saw anything.” He pulled up smoothly away from the curb unhurriedly. “Nobody recognized the car so we're safe.”
I looked at him, then at the car’s interior. The clean lines, the softer leather, the dashboard that looked like it had never been touched before today. Something about it prickled at the back of my mind.
“This is a new car,” I said slowly,
“Yeah.”
“How new?”
He glanced at me sideways, “New enough.”
“Brayden.” I turned in my seat to face him properly, “Did you buy a new car so nobody would recognize it picking me up?”
There was a beat of silence before he spoke,
“I've been meaning to get one anyway. So I figured it'll be killing two birds with one stone.”
I groaned, forgetting for one second that that was the kind of person Brayden was even in middle school. He always got everything he wanted even though they were completely unnecessary but I also couldn't deny that Colton benefited so much from it back then.
Outside the window, the campus disappeared behind us. I stared at the road ahead, trying to think about anything other than the fact that I was going to Brayden's place and it was just going to be the two of us.
Come on Hailey. Snap out of it. It's just tutoring.
****
The apartment was nothing like I'd expected. I didn't know exactly what I had expected but this wasn't just an apartment, it was a suite
The space was wide and clean with ceilings high enough to make me feel small and floor-to-ceiling windows that poured afternoon light across everything like the place had been designed specifically to show off.
I stopped in the entrance for a second too long, taking it in,
“You can sit wherever.”Brayden said behind me, already moving towards the stairs, “I'm going to shower and come downstairs”
“I'll just be here getting everything set,” I yelled as his figure finally disappeared.
I found my way to the large dining table near the window and set my bag down. I pulled out his assigned textbook, my own notes, and the practice problem sets if printed this morning while still trying to convince myself that this was absolutely normal
I organized the papers into two neat piles, straightened them, then straightened them again.
By the time footsteps sounded on the stairs, I had arranged myself into what I felt was a very convincing picture of a calm, collected, professional person.
I looked up and every single thought I'd ever had left my body while I forgot how to breathe at the same time.
Brayden came down the stairs with damn hair and grey sweatpants sitting low on his hips and absolutely nothing else. No shirt, no layer of any kind between me and the fact that hockey apparently did that to a person.
His shoulders were broad, his torso lean and defined and he was toweling his hair dry with one hand like he hadn't even registered the fact he's left a fundamental article of clothing upstairs.
He looked up and met my eyes and almost immediately, my heart slammed against my ribs as I looked back down at the papers, staring at the worksheet in front of me with a focused intensity of someone defusing a bomb.
“You good?” Brayden asked,
Heat rushed into my cheeks, “Yep.” I said to my worksheet instead, refusing to look up to confirm a smile I definitely saw from the corners of my eyes on his lips. The moment he rose to his feet, and started walking towards the refrigerator, I let out the long breath I was holding watching him grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Damn, even his back view looked divine.
He pulled out a chair across from me and sat down,
“So, where do we start?”
I looked up, keeping my eyes strictly, deliberately, and professionally at his face level
“Budgeting basics,” I said with tremendous dignity, but the corner of his mouth did something unforgivable as he replied,
“Right, Budgeting basics.”
Damn it! This tutoring arrangement was definitely a bad idea!
- Writer
