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“No, don’t do that. Tell me why you’re pissed off?”
“Because you won’t tell me whyyou’repissed off. You know, a problem shared is a problem halved and all that.”
I sat next to her, flopping onto the chair so hard the wood creaked in protest and resting my elbows on the table, holding my head in my hands. “I didn’t do very well on my paper. I thought it was decent but apparently, it’s not.” I sighed in defeat.
“May I take a look?” She held her hand out and I passed her my paper, her only reaction to its crumpled state was an arched brow. Her eyes darted back and forth as she read over my work and its annotations; I briefly wondered how she read it so quickly. “Er, Brent?”
“Hm?”
“Have you ever been assessed for dyslexia?”
“What?” My anger bubbled. “I’m not fucking stupid.”
“I never said you were, don’t be so fucking ignorant,” she snapped. “People with dyslexia are not stupid, their brains just process things differently and they need information presented in a different way to take it in.”
I blinked at her genuine anger.
“Now, are you going to let me help you, or are you going to keep being a whiney lil’ bitch?”
More blinking.
She went back to looking at my paper and got her own pen out, clicking it open and starting her own annotations. I looked over her shoulder feeling more like a lost puppy than at six-foot-six cage fighter. She made a couple of thoughtful noises and made notes, scratched some out and circled words. Why did I care so much what she thought? The why didn’t matter. The point was, I was terrified of her reading my work and realising that I was an idiot.
“Okay, obviously I’m not a business student so the actual content wouldn’t really be for me to comment on, but I think you make some good points, I just don’t think you’ve explained it as you want.” She bit her bottom lip, still studying my work and my stupid heart hammered in my chest. I watched her, taking time to really take in her features. Her hair had changed significantly in the eighteen months that we’d known her. What was once honey blonde was now the colour of autumn leaves. She’d cut it down from hanging almost to her arse to just beyond her shoulders and now there was a thick fringe skimming her eyes. I had preferred her blonde, but I couldn’t say I hated the new look. Her lips were full and lusciously pink, her bottom lip plumper than the top, giving her a permanent pout.
She really was beautiful. I’ll admit that she had occupied my mind far more than I would have liked. I’d tried to keep my distance, but Lance spends most of his time with her and where he goes, I go. I have found myself enjoying the company. Back in the city, I act as Lance’s shadow but all of his associates are Daos and I have no interest in becoming friendly with them. Hayden and Elle aren’t in that world and their natural carefree ease was refreshing. If only my dick would realise that she was completely off limits, maybe I could be as relaxed around her as Lance or Hayden.
“Some of these notes,” she continued, breaking through my thoughts. “Are clearly just your professor being a dick. I mean, he asks if this entire paragraph is necessary but it clearly is as it relates to your business proposal, so I don’t know why he’d say that, he clearly has a micro-penis and needs to feel big.”
I snort at that, and she gives me a cheeky side smile.
“But there are some issues here with spelling and wording, which is what makes me ask about the dyslexia.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face and stroked my beard. “I don’t like feeling stupid.” I admitted, quietly and reluctantly.
She tilted her head and looked at me with a sad smile. “Anyone who’s had a conversation with you knows that you aren’t stupid, Brent.”
“What does it matter if I have it? Knowing doesn’t help me write better.”
She rolled her eyes and went back to her laptop. “No, it doesn’t. But first of all, you don’t know you have it yet, so you need to be assessed. Then if you do have it, you get all sorts of support from the university.” She clicked a few times. “It says here, if you are found to be dyslexic mid-way through term time, then your most recent papers for each module can be re-submitted and reassessed once you have received whatever equipment or support that the university sees fit to provide.”
Her words seemed to flurry around my brain and didn’t sink in at all. She could obviously tell from whatever face I was pulling that I didn’t understand.
“You can be evaluated by the university, it’s free, all you have to do is book a slot. Then, once they have assessed you, they will decide if you need extra support. There are all sorts of things they can do such as allow you extra time for assignments or provide equipment like a laptop with inbuilt dictation software that will basically write your papers for you. Once you have all this, whatever your last graded piece of work was for each of your classes can be re-written, if you want, and your professors have to accept the submission again.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “That all sounds a bit…dramatic. I’ll just get over it.”
She turned on her chair to face me completely with a confused look. “You once told me that the only reason you are here is for your education. So why wouldn’t you do all you could to help yourself in that respect?”
I blame Lance for this. I huffed out a breath and dropped my head slightly, which is when I realised how close we were. Her silver eyes met my blue ones, and her warm breath skimmed my cheek. I swallowed hard and failed when I tried not to look at her lips. “I guess you’re right,” I said. Although, I wasn’t sure what we were talking about anymore.
She bit her lip with a smirk. “Why Mr O’Reilly, I believe I may have just discovered your secret.”
I frowned and a moment of panic hit me, but I tempered it down, convincing myself that there was no way she’d worked out who we are. “And what might that be?” I kept my voice as even as possible.
I nearly flinched but schooled myself when she lifted her hand and stroked her fingers through my beard and over the slightly raised line over my jaw. “You grew a beard to cover a scar.”
I tried to formulate words, tried not to concentrate on the fact my skin tingled beneath her touch and my dick started to strain against my jeans. “You caught me.” My voice was rougher than I’d have liked.
