I don’t skip a beat. “It’s been a while, Lucy. Do I need to start scheduling appointments to see you?”
She smiles shyly. “Maybe.”
I reach down and grab my planner. I keep my eyes on her as I flip to the month of October. I slide it over to her.
She glances down, seeing her name written in all caps every Tuesday and Thursday and chuckles. “You have me written down twice a week, Reeve. I think that’s fair.”
“Are we calling each other by our last names now, Moss?”
She grins, passing my planner back to me. “I would like to start the tutoring session now. We’re a few minutes past the clock.”
I pat the chair next to me. “Come sit next to me.”
She looks to my right at the open chair. “Oh, is that why you’re sitting there?”
I nod.
“I have a hundred percent tutoring success rate, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“You said so yourself that I don’t even need these sessions.”
Her eyes glare up at mine.
I add, “You can still keep your high success rate if you sit next to me.”
“We have this room booked for the next hour, so let’s get your work done.”
“Do you want to hang out after?”
She tilts her head. “Depends.”
I smirk. “On what?”
“How well you do.”
Game on.
She grabs her notebook and flips it to a fresh page. Then she reaches over and grabs my textbook. “Now, where did we leave off?”
“Six four.”
She flips to six-four and reads me a problem.
I work it. I get it wrong on the first pass — I miss a step in the conditional probability — and she catches the error and explains why. Then I fix the problem. She marks it correct. She slides the page back to me and her fingertips brush the back of my hand.
We do five problems in twenty minutes. The tutoring is happening. But my mind has other ideas. I watch her lips, look at her neck, her chest in that long sleeve that’s modestly covering her entire upper body. I want my mouth all over her.Shit.I tryto concentrate on what she’s saying, but I can’t. Fuck, I might fail the midterm.
We work. She reads. I do. She marks. I write. She slides. I read.
At some point around four-thirty, her foot rests against my ankle under the table. I didn’t think she meant to do it at first, but when she doesn’t pull away, I like that she’s touching me.
I get the next problem wrong. She’s telling me how to get it right, but I’m staring at her neck. The spot right behind her ear.
“Benson,” she says. “Focus.”
I mutter, “I am.”
“You’re not.”
