Chapter 3
830 Words
“Why can’t I get this right.”
Jennie dropped her pen on top of the textbook, harder than she meant to, and the sound cracked across the quiet library.
“Quiet, please,” a girl at the next table said, not looking up.
Jennie shot her a look and got nothing back for it.
“You won’t get it fighting the textbook.”
She turned. Damien Yates stood at the end of her table, one hand resting on the back of the empty chair, watching her with something close to amusement.
Her mouth opened, and nothing useful came out of it. “I... was...” She stopped, took a breath, tried again. “I wasn’t fighting with everyone. I didn’t fight with you.”
“Not yet.” He pulled the chair out. “Can I sit?”
“Sure.” She waved a hand at it, too fast, too eager, and immediately regretted how it looked.
He sat, dropped his own book on the table, and glanced at the mess of crossed-out equations in front of her. “You’ve been at this a while.”
“Hours.” She pushed the textbook toward him. “I’ve tried three different equations and none of them work. I have a test tomorrow.”
“Let me see.” He pulled it closer, eyes moving down the page. A beat passed. “It’s easy.” He caught himself, glanced up. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
“No, it’s fine. Obviously it’s easy for a genius.” She said it without any real edge everyone knew what Damien Yates was, on top of everything else people said about him.
He walked her through it, unhurried, tapping the page at each step, and by the third example she was nodding along before he finished the sentence.
“You should be the teacher,” she said, sitting back. “Mr. Jones explained this same thing for twenty minutes and I got nothing out of it. You did it in five.”
He almost smiled at that. “If you want, I can tutor you properly.”
She stared at him. “You want to tutor me.”
“If you want.”
“Of course I want that. Who would say no.” She caught herself sounding too excited and tried to dial it back, failed. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. I’m volunteering.”
“Okay.” She nodded, still a little stunned. “Thank you. Sorry I’m Jennifer Duke. Jennie.”
“I know.” He said it simply, no explanation offered, and she didn’t ask for one.
They looked at each other a second too long before either of them looked away.
“I can’t believe Damien Yates offered to tutor you.” Leslie fell into step beside her in the hallway, practically vibrating. “I’m so jealous.”
“I know. I was just as surprised.” Jennie couldn’t stop the smile pulling at her mouth.
“Hey, Jennie.”
She didn’t need to turn to know the voice. Jason, closing the distance behind them with the easy confidence of someone who’d never once worried about being unwelcome.
“You are so lucky,” Leslie whispered, already peeling off toward the parking lot. “Both Yates brothers. See you outside, babe.”
“Hey, pretty.” Jason fell into step beside her, close enough that she had to shift half a pace to keep her own space.
“What do you want.” She kept walking, aware of a few heads turning around them.
“I already told you. I want us to be close.” He matched her pace easily. “As friends.”
“Friends.” She glanced at him, unconvinced.
“Unless you want something more.” His voice dropped, light, teasing, close to her ear.
“Absolutely not.” She stepped sideways, putting distance back between them. “And you have about five girlfriends already.”
“I could drop them. If you wanted.” He smiled like it cost him nothing to say.
“I’m not interested, Jason.”
“Fine.” He raised both hands. “Friends, then?”
She sighed, weighing whether saying no again was worth the effort. “Fine. Friends.”
He stepped toward her like he might hug her; she stepped back before he could.
“No touching.”
“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up again, easy, unbothered, like the rejection hadn’t landed at all. “Can I at least walk my friend to her car?”
She let him, mostly because Leslie was already waiting by it, and because saying no to every single thing felt exhausting.
They reached the car in comfortable enough silence, Jason’s hands in his pockets, a small, satisfied kind of smile on his face the whole way there the kind of smile that had nothing to do with friendship, and everything to do with patience.
- Writer
