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“Down here,” he said. “Where you work out the difference between distance. It should be T plus delta T.”
My eyes shifted to the part of the problem he was referring to, the section below where I was at in my explanation. And . . .
He was right.
My face flushed as I realized my mistake—a dumb mistake at that.
I chewed the inside of my cheek as I quickly erased it and rewrote the equation.How? How did I not catch that? Worse yet, how did he?
“No need to feel bad about it. You probably just switched it up by mistake. Could happen to anyone.”
“I know what I did,” I snapped.
“Whoa. Touchy.” He raised his hands in surrender.
“How are you so good at this anyway?” I asked, angrily gesturing toward the paper. Yesterday I noticed the same thing. He wasn’t exactly desperate for my help. “Aren’t I supposed to be tutoringyou?”
He shrugged and stole another chip from the bag before I could swat his hand away. “Whoever said I didn’t know what I was doing?”
“Um, that’s kind of what needing a tutor implies.”
He bit his lip, and I tried my best not to follow the movement with my eyes and failed. “I have a 4.0.”
The circumference of my eyes quadrupled.
“But I thought you were dumb,” I blurted, then sucked in my lips, wishing I could take it back.
Topher laughed. “I’m glad you think so highly of me, but the truth is I’ve had a tutor since freshman year to ensure I keep my GPA up. Think of academics like a sport. The more you practice, the better you get, and I don’t really like to study by myself, so . . .”
I arched a brow. So he was both hot, popular, captain of the water polo team, and incredibly smart. Fantastic. Life was so fair.
“So let me get this straight. You have a tutor to practice math instead of studying on your own . . . just because?”
“I’m kind of a perfectionist.” He leaned casually back in his chair.
“But . . .” I frowned. I didn’t like this version of him, mostly because it didn’t line up with the one I knew and hated.
With a sigh, he rolled his eyes and shot a hand through his golden locks. “Not that it’s any of your business, but my dad puts a lot of pressure on me to get perfect grades. I can’t even slip an inch. This is just insurance.”
“Why? I mean, does it really matter? Aren’t you just going to work for his company?”
“That’s what he wants.” He avoided my eye as he picked up his phone and started fiddling with it.
I thought about what he just said and how he implied that he didn’t want to work for his father and filed this away for future analysis.
My phone pinged from where it sat in front of me. Distracted, I swiped at the lock screen to see a new text from “Jerkwad.” Before I could click it off again, Topher craned his neck over my shoulder to see my screen, which is when I realized he hadn’t been just h with his phone, he’d been texting me. Or Julie. Or . . . crap, this was going to get confusing fast.
I quickly drew my phone to my chest, away from his prying eyes, but it was too late. The damage was done.
He snorted. “Who’s Jerkwad?”
“No one. What did you see?” I demanded, a quiver in my voice. If my cover was blown, I was screwed.
“Enough to see the name and know someone you don’t like must be texting you.” He whistled, eyes wide. “I’d hate to be that poor guy.”
A nervous spurt of laughter escaped my sealed lips.If you only knew.
He looked at me like I had two heads before turning his attention back to his own phone and began typing again.
