Chapter 15
15
TUCK
W hen I see Olivia on campus, I rush over to her, wrap my arms around her, and lift her off her feet, spinning her around so fast her legs fly back behind her.
I got a ninety-four on my latest essay in Martinello’s class—all thanks to her.
“Tuck! What are you doing?” she asks through a bubble of surprised laughter.
“Ninety-four, Olivia,” I say, still whirling her around, creating a scene in the middle of campus that students are stopping to gawk at. “A ninety-fucking-four!”
She gasps in my arms. “Your essay?”
“Damn right,” I reply, beaming. “All thanks to you.”
“It’s not all thanks to me,” she protests as I set her down. “I wasn’t the one who wrote it.” Then she adds, with a grin, “Despite your best efforts.”
For just a second, looking at her standing in front of me, my brain short-circuits. I’m thrust back to last weekend, when I held her tight against me and fucked her with my finger. My mouth tingles with the memory of her taste, when I sucked off her juices.
My chest squeezes, desire igniting in my blood. My cock twitches as I remember how stiff I was when I got home that night.
Never in my life was my dick as rock-hard as it was when I got to my bedroom and immediately pulled down my pants, fisting it with the same hand that reached up Olivia’s dress and into her panties.
But I clamp down on the desire, and it subsides.
We didn’t see each other until our tutoring session the following Monday. When she walked into the room, I was already sitting there, waiting for her. Our eyes locked, and she said, in a firm tone, “We act like nothing happened. No one else knows.”
I shrugged and answered, “You got it.”
Since then, that’s what we’ve been doing. Acting like nothing happened. We’re back to normal.
Not our old normal, where Olivia can barely stand me. But our more recent normal, where she acts like she only tolerates me, but I know she’s actually enjoying my company. The new normal where she only halfway tries to hide it when I make her laugh.
Of course, we might be acting like nothing happened, but we both know something did happen. I sure as hell don’t forget that fact for even a single moment of the day.
I know Olivia can’t forget it, either. The way I felt her shudder in my arms as I made her come, I’m pretty damn confident I gave her an orgasm that no woman could simply forget.
Still, we’re doing a pretty good job of pretending. Even though there are times when our eyes meet, and a charged silence passes between us.
With this solid A on an essay from a notoriously difficult grader, Coach has already relieved me of needing to continue the tutoring session. Both Olivia and I have busy schedules as it is, and those sessions were only meant to be temporary until I turned my performance around enough that Coach is no longer worried about me getting dinged with an academic eligibility issue.
My chest falls as I think about no longer spending those forty-five minutes together with Olivia twice a week. Without that, I wonder if we’re going to default back to our old normal, where she avoids me at all costs and we can’t even have a conversation with each other, can’t even joke around a little bit …
Damn. The thought feels like a pinch to the heart.
Olivia’s walking to the arts building for her next class, so I join her on the brief walk.
Today is pretty nice. The temperature is low, but there’s no wind, and the sun shines down on campus, tempering the chill. It’s almost mild when you’re standing right under it.
Olivia’s wearing a pale purple knit beanie on her head, her light chestnut hair billowing out from underneath. Her cream-colored puffer jacket is zipped up, and her legs are encased in a pair of tight black jeans. The outfit might be pretty basic, but there’s nothing basic about how adorable she looks in it.
As the excitement of my unprecedented ninety-four-percent grade wears off, and we’re still chatting as we walk towards the art building, I can tell that something’s bothering her.
I seem to be pretty good at sniffing out when Olivia’s in a bad mood. When she’s feeling off about something.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
“No. Nothing.” Her answer is far from convincing.
The possibility occurs to me that she might be regretting what we did at Starlite on Friday. The thought makes my chest ache. I need to be assured that’s not it, so I keep pushing.
“Olivia,” I say, a sing-song tease in my voice. “You know you can’t hide your emotions from me. If I can tell when a craving for Pretzel M&M’s is making you grumpy, then you know that no secret is safe.”
She blows out a laugh, rolling her eyes. There aren’t many sights I enjoy seeing more than when Olivia can’t help but let her lips form a reluctant smile at something I say.
“Fine. I am in a bad mood. It’s …”
“Yes?” I prod, leaning towards her.
“It’s this play I tried out for in Burlington. It’s a production of MacBeth happening in the spring. I went to the first round of auditions, and yesterday they called me back to tell me I made it to the second round.”
“And?” I know that she has to give up a great acting opportunity over the summer because of an internship that’s important to her, but I don’t see why a spring performance should be an issue.
“My car,” she says, a mournful grumble in her voice. “It’s still shot. There’s no way I’m going to be able to make it back and forth from here and Burlington for all the auditions and rehearsals relying on the bus.”
“I’ll drive you, then,” I say. I say it like it’s an instinct, a reflex, the same way you kick your foot forward when the doctor bangs you on the knee with that rubber mallet.
She side-eyes me. There’s a trace of wariness in her eyes, an expression that says she still wants to hold me at arm’s length. “No, Tuck.”
“Why not? I don’t mind.”
“You don’t even know what the schedule would be. I don’t even know. It might interfere with your games, or your practices, or your classes.”
“I’d make it work.” Again, it’s an instinctive reply. Even though she’s right. There’s every possibility that I couldn’t make it work, as much as I’d want to. There’s no way I’d be able to rearrange my hockey schedule around driving Olivia back and forth to Burlington.
But I still can’t stop myself from offering. The prospect of having Olivia alone in my car for the half-hour drive each way is something I’m pouncing on, like spotting the puck unattended on the ice during a hockey game.
“So, what? You’re just going to pass on this opportunity?” I ask.
She shoots me a look of reproach. I feel a pinprick of guilt as I realize there was a word unspoken in what question, but which still had to ring loudly in her ears: I really asked her, You’re just going to pass on another opportunity ?
“I can’t ask you to take time out of your day shuttling me back and forth between here and Burlington, not to mention how long the rehearsals there are actually going to be.”
“You didn’t ask. I offered.”
“And you don’t even know whether it’s going to conflict with your hockey schedule, which it probably will. The worst thing I could do is agree to take the role, and then end up having to miss rehearsals or even performances because you have a game or a practice you can’t get out of and leave them high and dry after I’ve already committed.”
I draw in my bottom lip and gnaw on it. She’s right.
It sucks, though. For two reasons. One, I’d really like having her in my car twice a day, multiple times a week. And two, it sucks that she has to miss out on another opportunity just because she’s not as fortunate as some people and can’t afford to have her car repaired.
Then, a thought occurs to me. A flash of inspiration that has a zap of excitement racing up my back. My lips want to carve upward in a smile, but I keep them straight—because I don’t want to give away to Olivia what I have in mind.
I want this to be a surprise.
I shrug, feigning nonchalance. “Alright.”
She tilts her head back a little, leveling me with a skeptical glare. She’s not used to me giving up this easily. But she finally nods with acceptance. “Anyway, here’s my building.”
“Enjoy your fingerpainting class,” I joke.
That gets me another huff-slash-laugh-slash-eyeroll combination. It’s quickly becoming my favorite thing. “It’s Art History,” she says.
“Uh-huh. Well, if you’re such an art historian, answer me this. Who invented fingerpainting?” I cross my arms over my chest, arching an eyebrow in challenge.
“You’re ridiculous, Tuck,” she says on a laugh that she doesn’t even try to hold back this time.
“It’s been said before, it’ll be said again,” I drawl.
“Bye,” she says, her brow bouncing in amusement.
She turns around to walk up the stairs of the art building, and I find myself wishing very badly that the hem of her jacket was higher, so I’d get a glimpse of that heart-shaped ass I love so much. No such luck, though.
But I’ve still got a grin on my face as I walk away, because Olivia’s about to find her problem of how to get back and forth to Burlington unexpectedly solved.