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Tully’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped slightly. It wasn’t a big secret that Nathan didn’t take school super seriously, but failing three classes. “It’s only been three weeks since the semester started.”
“Exactly.”
Yikes. Failing three classes at the start of senior year was not a good look for anyone.
The dots connected in her head.
He stepped closer again, and Tully leaned further. “If I don’t graduate with at least a B average, I’m screwed. No college for me. My dad says that if I don’t take school seriously enough, my fund will be cut off.” He gestured his fingers over his neck, imitating the motion of cutting his neck.
Tully nodded slowly. This was all starting to make more sense. His desperation was more than just passing classes to graduate, it was about the next steps entirely. She sympathized with that more than he could imagine.
“To be clear, this is not a favor. It’s a negotiation. A proposition. I help you, and you help me. We both get something out of it,” he said.
She crossed her arms over her chest—her time and knowledge in exchange for his time and lies.
Something they could each benefit from.
She sucked in her bottom lip, hesitant to grab ahold of something like that just yet. It sounded easy and simple and quite frankly, perfect, but deals like this were bound to go horribly wrong somewhere down the line.
“I don’t know.”
“You said you would do anything if I did what you asked, remember?”
Her gaze flicked between his eyes, searching for a warning sign, but there wasn’t one that she could recognize right off the bat.
“Yo, Nathan.” Tully jumped in surprise as a new voice intruded the conversation. She and Nathan turned to see Tommy Burnett standing at the alleyway entrance glancing between the pair. One of his light-red eyebrows was perched high on his forehead as he took in the strange combination. “What’s going on here?”
She didn’t realize how close she and Nathan actually were until Tommy’s suspicious look lingered on the thin space between them. Only then did she finally give in and step away from Nathan, putting a significant amount of distance there. Both Tommy and Nathan noticed it.
Why did it have to be Tommy to find them here? If anyone was going to go around the entire school and make sure that every single soul knew what he saw, it was him.
An uncomfortable silence sat in the interrupted moment, and Tully was too focused on worrying about Tommy to break it. Nathan had to do the honors. “Uh, hey man. Um, we’re just talking.”
“Wait,” Tommy said. He stepped closer, and caught Tully’s eye, then looked her up and down like he was trying to remember who she was. She glared and chewed on the inside of her lip. After a few seconds, Tommy—ever the slow one—perked. “Is all the shit they’re saying about you having a girlfriend true?”
His eyes widened and Tully turned to Nathan.
Without saying anything, she gave him a pointed glare:This is your fault.
He gave her a look of his own, returning her mental accusation with a question:Are you in or not?
She would have liked to take more than five seconds to consider his proposal, but—thank you, Tommy—her timeline had been cut down considerably and she needed to answer right now.
She ran over her options in her mind, flipping through them like book pages.
Option one: Say no. She doesn’t have to help Nathan get his grades up or even talk to him again, but in the end, it will come out that he lied about being her boyfriend and Joliet will know that Tully made up everything she said. No one would believe they were dating or even slept together.
Or…
Option two: Say yes. She helps Nathan make his way to college, and in return, he pretends to be her boyfriend. Joliet is humiliated, Erik feels awful, and maybe Tully would finally get some peace and quiet.
The con? She wasn’t sure yet, but there had to be one.
She inhaled slowly, closing her eyes momentarily to collect herself. The answer seemed obvious, but it didn’t feel that way.
Her time had run out.
She opened her eyes, exhaled, and gave Nathan the slightest of nods.
