The Studying Hours

Money for wrestling clubs and college went right along with it.

So yeah, unlike most of my friends, I’m not blessed to be here at the expense of my parent’s deep pockets. I have no limitless credit cards or monthly allowance.

Nope.

I might have been blessed with a God-given talent for pinning opponents to the wrestling mat, but financially I’m only armed with an athletic scholarship (one I can’t afford to fuck up) and a job. That’s right. A job.

As in J-O-B.

As in, when I’m not in class, at practice, or studying, I’m busting my ass working up to twenty hours a week, driving the fork lift during the night shift at some rinky-dink lumber yard fifteen minutes from campus. It pays the rent on the shithole I share with my teammate Zeke, a football player named Parker, and his cousin Elliot.

The job helps pay what expenses the scholarship and my parents can’t cover—utilities, gas, and groceries—with little left for much else.

And if anyone finds out, I’m screwed.

Technically, I’m not supposed to be working; my contract with Iowa prohibits it. But there’s nothing I can do—I have to work, usually at night, when I should be sleeping, studying, and resting my body.

The body that takes a regular beating and is my only ticket to a Big Ten education.

An additional few thousand grand per year in scholastic scholarships help—those are sponsored by the insurance company my dad works for—but I could really use the money Zeke just threw down, even if it’s only a hundred bucks.

So.

I find myself studying the girl again, scrutinizing her with renewed interest. Buttoned-up cardigan. Serious face. Sleek, dark hair. Mouth pulled into a straight line, pink tip of her tongue peeking out of the corner, indisputably from concentration.

I guess I could stand to have her mouth on mine for a few seconds.

I give Zeke a stiff nod, and because I know he’ll pay, I say, “Make it five hundred and you have a deal.”

He snorts. “Done.”

Leaning back in his chair, my teammate crosses his bulky arms, urging me on with a flick of his fingers. “Best hop to it, Casanova, before she catches you staring and runs off with her tail between her sewn up legs.”

Sebastian

“I thought we already established I’m not a tutor.”

The girl is hunched, boxed out over her textbook, highlighter poised above the right margin. She still hasn’t looked up, but at least she acknowledged me before I had to take drastic measures like clearing my throat and beating on the table.

I call that progress.

“Right. I got that the first time I came over.”

Her neon highlighter stills, hovering above the book fanned out in front of her. She clicks it closed once, removes an earbud, and holds it suspended in the air as she waits for me to say something. “Is there something I can help you with?”

She tips her head to the side, waiting, listening for me to speak but continuing to study.

I decide to go for broke. “I need you to kiss me.”

Nothing.

No reaction.

No balking, no blushing, no comment.

Like this sort of thing happens to her on the regular.

“Would you look at me, dammit?”

That does the trick; that gets her attention.

Her head lifts, her long brown ponytail cascading over her right shoulder, classy and sophisticated.

Her eyes are brilliant blue, lashes long.

Our eyes meet.

Gazes connect.

Heartbeats pound.

Whatever the fuck cliché you want to throw out there—they’re all annoying, but there you have it. She’s watching me warily, those blue eyes narrowing in a surly way.

Agitation flares her nostrils.

Very unpromising.

Dismissing me after a long stretch of silence, she pushes the earbud back in place, head lowering, highlighter resuming its even, effortless strokes across the paper laid out in front of her.

“You’re ridiculous,” she mutters with a cool flick of her wrist. “Go back to your friends.”

“I can’t.” Might as well be brutally honest; maybe she’ll appreciate that. It actually seems like something we have in common: zero tolerance for bullshit.

I can work with that.

She lifts her head and rolls her eyes. “You can’t go back? What does that even mean?”

I smirk, anticipating the bomb I’m about to drop. “Sorry, sweetheart, that’s impossible. I’m here on a mission and I can’t go back until it’s accomplished.”

I hold my hands up helplessly, beseeching.

“First of all, don’t ever call me sweetheart again. I’m a stranger to you. Secondly, I’m not interested in whatever games you little boys are playing. I have serious work to do here, so…”

The girl puts down the yellow highlighter, rifles through the writing utensils on the table, and chooses a blue felt-tip pen. Whatever she’s working on has her full attention, and she goes back at it like I’m not still standing here bearing down on her—all six foot two of me.

Despite the fact that I’m not attracted to her the way I’d be attracted to, say, someone willing to bang me, the competitive D1 athlete in me refuses to budge from this spot; rather, I re-strategize.

I move closer to her chair, large hand resting on the corner of the wood table. Inches from her laptop, encroaching on her personal space, my coarse fingers tap the corner of the desk, slowly stroke the wood. A few more caresses and I’m pulling out the chair beside her, conscious of my teammates watching from across the room.