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Addy’s breath caught and she planted her hands against his abs when he wrapped his other arm around her waist. Pulling her closer, he plastered their bodies together. He breathed her in, all warm vanilla and sunshine, and begged his already interested dick not to stand to attention.
Her hands scalded his stomach, making it spin and swoop as she brushed against his six-pack. He wanted to dip her and kiss her until she was breathless. But it was a fantasy. A dream that would never come true. Instead, he held her tightly and ruffled her hair—his way of saying I love you—and Addy responded, gripping his nipples and twisting. He sucked in a breath and squeezed his eyes closed, hissing as she twisted harder. His cock hardened and he pulled away, not willing to face her questioning gaze.
“That’s for messing up my hair,” she grumbled before adding in a murmur, “Look after King, yeah?”
Liam took another step back, his body screaming at him to do the opposite. “Don’t worry about your man. I’ll keep him busy.” Liam winced, not intending the double entendre, and hoping Addy didn’t call him out on it.
“Don’t stress. King’s got you. We’ll both ace our subjects.”
“I hope so.” He smiled at her, forcing himself to be happy. He was genuinely excited for her. The passion she had for her course was unmistakeable, but he wished she didn’t have to leave, albeit temporarily, to do it. He cleared his throat, dislodging the lump of emotion, and added, “Kick arse, Addy. See you soon. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.” She winked, then scampered off to the car, King already behind the wheel. He was white-knuckling it, his jaw tight as he looked straight ahead. When the door closed and Addy leaned into him, he softened, smiling at her and leaning over to press a kiss to her temple before flicking his eyes toward Liam. Their stare held for a moment too long, King’s gaze riveting him to the spot. It stripped him bare. Left him naked. It was as if King could see every secret he’d been trying to hide.
“So, um… Yeah.” He cleared his throat, motioned to his house with his thumb over his shoulder, and gave the others an awkward smile. He shuffled off and slipped through the back gate into the yard, diving into the pool for a few laps before King came back to start their tutoring.
Oh fuck. King was coming back.
*****
“Before we get started, how do you learn?” King asked him. He was being… nice. The glaring, angry dude who looked ready to throttle Liam was nowhere to be found. It was as if they were different people.
Liam sat at his kitchen table, King resting his forearm on the surface so they were facing each other. King was giving him his full attention. When the man had walked in acting as if nothing had happened before, it had thrown Liam for a loop. Now all he could do was stare blankly at him. What sort of question was “how do you learn?” Wasn’t that what a tutor was for? To teach him?
King chuckled, the sound a cross between exasperation and humour, but somehow Liam didn’t think the man was poking fun at him. Maybe it was the buttoned-up look he sported in his long-sleeved white cotton shirt and jeans, or the kindness in his eyes that comforted Liam. Or it could have been the way he'd squeezed Liam’s shoulder, reassuring him. King added, “You’ve never been asked that question before, have you?”
Liam shook his head and King’s eyes flashed with something—excitement, maybe.
“Right, that’s where we start then.”
He explained that there were different methods of teaching, and teachers adapted their educational styles to the learning method of the people they were educating. When they only had one student, it was a matter of discovering which suited the learner best. When they were juggling a class, they taught different methods—some students picked up the first way, some the later options. “What are your strengths? Sport, obviously, but is there anything else? Art? Music? English? Science?”
“English. I’m good at writing.”
King nodded, a smile forming. Liam sat back against the chair and blinked, his gut flip-flopping at the shape of his lips. Bringing out that smile was… heart stopping. Or maybe the opposite if the rapid flutter in his chest was anything to go by.
“Excellent. How do you study for the subjects that have a lot of written content?”
“I read anything and everything. I summarize the points in my own words—”
“How?” He paused for a moment, perhaps waiting for an answer, but Liam wasn’t sure he understood. “As in, do you write it down? Speak it out loud?”
Oh.“I type it out. Is that… good?”
“Oh, yeah,” King encouraged, nodding. “I’m trying to understand your process. The only right answer here is whatever works for you, so if you can narrow down how you learn, we can adapt the materials for this subject to your style. Then what? Do you do anything with those notes?”
“Yeah, I read and review them a few times. I look up practice questions and hand write mini essays using my notes. Typing them doesn’t help me remember but, I don’t know, maybe it’s the process of writing it out that helps. First I refer to the notes and I keep going until I can write the essays from memory.”
King grinned, his beaming smile lighting up his face. “Do you find you delve into the whys and the history and background information so you get a big picture of what you’re doing, or do you focus on what’s in front of you?”
He thought on that question for a moment, understanding finally dawning on why he found studying easier if he had extensive reading materials available. “I need to understand how it works and fits together to be able to put it in context.”
King laughed. “I could hug you right about now. I wish my students were like you. Most of them ignore me when I try to tell them what the maths I’m teaching them is used for in the real world. But what you’ve said will help so much.” He sobered. “When you’re in tutorials or studying for your statistics exams do you do the same thing?”
“No, our tutor told us to memorize the formulas. The practice questions we do are set up in the same format as the exams, so they show us how to pull the information we need from the questions. We’re then taught how to plug it into the formulas and get the answers. We have to write about the results we get, but I don’t understand what the hell I’m doing.”
“Because they’re teaching you to rote learn everything. That’s one of your roadblocks right there.”
King’s comment held a hell of a lot of truth. Every time Liam asked questions about why things were done the way they were, his tutors didn’t seem to understand what he was getting at. They repeated the formulas and how to gather the information instead of explaining why the information the formulas gave him was important to know and in what contexts. He’d walked out of meeting after meeting still no clearer, and in the end he’d given up, struggling through the questions himself. Most of the time he could follow the steps the tutors gave him, but when it came time to get the information to stick, his brain was like Teflon.
