He smiles and laces his fingers together, propping his forearms on the desk. They’re thicker than my thighs. “You sure can! We have a variety of students in senior-level classes as well as master’s programs who may be able to assist you. Do you have a copy of your schedule so I can check availability for you?”
Wow, he’s super nice. And extra friendly. Maybe this won’t be so bad. “Oh, yeah, of course.” I let my backpack slide down my arm and plop it on his desk, nearly knocking over his coffee mug.
He moves it out of the way and motions to the chair behind me, still smiling. “You can have a seat. It might be safer.”
“Oh, right. Yeah. Thanks. Sorry.” I drop down in the chair and rummage around until I find my schedule. I smooth out the rumpled paper and pass it over. I guess I could’ve just as easily showed it to him on my laptop, but I always have a paper copy in case of tech fail.
He scans my schedule, his smile easy. He has a big chip out of one of his front teeth. “You’re freshmeat?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
His gaze lifts. “A freshman?”
I must be hearing things. I’m blaming it on lack of sleep. And living with a bunch of jocks. “Uh, sophomore. I transferred this year, but I have a first-year class I need to complete.”
“Ah, makes sense. How are you liking it here so far . . . Lavender? Is that your real name?”
“Um, yup. My mom likes purple and uh . . . so far I like it okay—aside from economics, anyway.” I clasp my hands together to keep from picking at my nails.
“I like purple too.” He gives me a flirty wink. “And econ can be a tough one. I’m a history major, so the numbers I deal with are mostly dates, you know?”
I nod. My mouth is dry, and my hands are clammy. I don’t deal well with blatant flirting. Especially not from jock types, because they might look nice, but they’re often players, and full of themselves.
When I don’t offer any words to go with my nod, Merlin turns to his computer. “Let me see who matches your schedule availability.” He clicks away for a minute and mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like “lucky fucker.” But I could be paranoid and hearing things.
“I think I found someone for you.” He spins around in his chair and brings his fingers to his lips, whistling shrilly. “Hey, Bowman, I got a new student to introduce you to!”
My already-dry mouth feels full of sand, and a bead of sweat trickles down my spine. “Bowman?”
It’s a fairly common last name. There’s no way Kodiak has time to tutor students. And definitely not Intro to Macroeconomics. That would be a colossal waste of his incredibly huge, brilliant, asshole brain.
Merlin nods, but his gaze is trained on the doorway. My attention shifts to his reflection in the window—where I note that his friendly, nice-guy smile has turned smarmy—and then to the hulking figure now standing in the doorway.
Dressed in a school hockey T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans is Kodiak.
I guess it’s not so common a last name.
His hair is still wet, likely because he came from practice. He’s holding a massive apple in his equally massive hand. His gaze shifts from Merlin to me. I can’t imagine what my expression must be—somewhere between disbelief and horror, I’m sure.
His lip twitches, and he grabs the schedule from Merlin. Aside from being freakishly intelligent, Kodiak has a photographic memory. All it will take is thirty seconds with my schedule for him to remember every single course code, date, time, building, and room number.
I sit there, helpless, as he scans it. His lips barely move, but I know the mental trick he’s using to memorize it, likely so he can torment me some more, as seems to be his MO recently, and during the holidays two years ago.
He showed me his true colors then, none of them pretty.
“I don’t usually tutor economics.” His gaze finally lifts to me.
“I’m sure you can manage for an hour a week.” Merlin gives him a wide-eyed what-the-hell look, like he can’t believe Kodiak is passing up the opportunity.
I would like to be flattered, but mostly I’m disgusted, and sadly, not surprised. It’s not my face that gets the attention; it’s my rack.
I flip Kodiak the double bird. “I would rather fuck a cactus than have you tutor me.” I push out of the chair and nearly trip over my backpack in my rush to escape. I nab it from the floor and hurry out of the student services office. As I go, Merlin asks Kodiak what that was about, and Kodiak says something about obsessions.
I loathe him so much.