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Tully had different plans though. She looked shocked by her own outburst in an attempt to clear the air. He stared as she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and began to nibble on it, waiting for him to say something.
Yes. He realized the kiss had ulterior motives, but for it being a fake kiss, she sure was a good actress.
Was he disappointed about it? No comment.
“Yeah, okay,” was all he could say. “I wasn’t having weird ideas.”
She looked nervous, but why the hell didhefeel nervous?
Maybe her energy was rubbing off on him.
Play it cool.That was something he could do.
He proceeded with his task and picked up the clothes like nothing was wrong and walked them over to her. He held the folded outfit out for her to grab, not oblivious to her eyes focusing too intently on the clothes just to avoid looking at him.
The more time he spent with her, the more bizarre she seemed.
Half the time she looked like she couldn’t stand him, and that she gave no shits about anything.
Now she looked like she might crap herself in his proximity. He wasn’t sure which version of her was the most accurate depiction of Tully Harding.
“I was drunk anyway. Can barely remember anything,” he lied. He wasn’t drunk. He was so far from drunk that he remembered every little detail in impeccable quality. If he told her that though, she might run away.
It seemed to do the trick, and she relaxed a bit, finally crossing the line into his room and accepting the clothes. “Good,” her chin raised, and she met his eyes, daring him to say anything or tease her.
He took the safe route and just gave her a closed-lip smile as she walked past him and put her things down on his bed.
He closed the door.
It wasn’t a surprise that she wasn’t the small-talk type. She skipped most of the talking entirely, and Nathan watched her from the corner of his eye as he pulled out his desk chair and the extra one that he had stolen from the kitchen for her to sit next to him. She rummaged through her backpack, trading the clean outfit he’d returned for several different books, notebooks, and pens.
He watched silently as she gathered them all into her arms, then walked to his desk and dropped them down with a loud thunk. Jumping a little, he stared down at everything she’d brought.
At most, he had a textbook for the classes that required them. She’d somehow managed to take the three classes he’d told her he needed help with and multiplied that by ten. Now his desk was barely big enough to hold about six books, three large notebooks, and a pencil bag–from which she drew out five different colored pencils, all sitting on top of his own few books.
“How is your back not broken from carrying all this around?” he asked, his mouth hanging open.
“You’ll find out soon enough because these are now all yours.”
“Mine?” He looked up at her, standing over his shoulder and spreading everything out so he could take it all in. Horrified or grateful? He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
She stuck her finger out and pointed at three piles she’d made of different books and notebooks. “Physics, world history, and literature. The three classes you’re failing.”
“Wow, this is . . .”Too much work.“Very thoughtful of you. But won’t you need this stuff to study on your own?”
She met his eye, her face straight. “I finished these classes sophomore year.”
Nathan had never felt so incompetent as at this very moment.
It looked like a bunch of clutter to his untrained, uneducated eyes, but on closer inspection, it was meticulously organized. He flipped open the cover page of one of the books. On the inside, a small sketched-out box titled ‘key’ showed different colored markings with labels:
Red: Not mentioned in class
Orange: On the test
Yellow: Memorize
Green: Important
