4. Calista
FOUR
CALISTA
T he round table in the study room was cluttered with notes—old and new.
Some were relics from courses I had taken in the past. Others were new tidbits of information that I jotted down during that day’s lecture.
Tutoring wasn’t something I was new to, but I was slowly realizing that the task wasn’t going to be an easy one, purely because I was expected to attend all course lectures.
Lincoln and I hadn’t even had our first session yet, and it was already sucking up precious time from my own studies.
On the bright side, Ella reminded me before I left that morning that going to these anatomy lectures kept me on Hamilton’s radar.
And you bet your butt that I sat front and center.
A sizable window spanned the length of the private study room wall.
There was nothing else to look at. The walls were coated in a coat of dull beige paint.
One wall had a corkboard with nothing on it besides a handful of outdated fliers.
The only other items were a wooden table and a couple of chairs.
I guess it might have been a good environment for those who were easily distracted, but it just encouraged me to look out the window as I waited .
People trickled in and out through the library doors, some coming to study, others trying to find a quiet place to nap.
I checked my phone again. It was fifteen past four and there was no sign of anyone even peeking in my direction.
I barely knew who I was looking for. The only visual information I had to go off was the headshot Ella had shown me on the university’s website.
It was right there under the webpage specifically curated for Fenton’s athletes.
“I’m assuming he’s here on some sort of scholarship,” Ella explained the night I’d told them about Hamilton’s offer. “He’s been Fenton’s star boxer since he started his freshmen year here.”
“How do you know about him?” I was still squinting down at her phone. Lincoln’s dark eyes peered back at me—his face devoid of a smile. His hair consisted of messy, short waves guiding my gaze down to his sharp jawline.
“Some of the sorority girls I lived with during my sophomore year were obsessed with him—like low-key stalker obsessed. They would go to every fight and try cornering him while he was out celebrating with his friends.” Ella gazed off into the distance.
“You didn’t care to join?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Ella said, placing a manicured hand on her chest. “I saw the appeal, but I had just broken up with Liam a few months earlier, and I wasn’t even so much as looking at men. It was unfortunate, really.”
Liam Doyle. That wasn’t a name that I heard too often.
Liam was Ella’s high school boyfriend and the scumbag that broke her heart at the end of freshman year when she took a surprise trip down to his college in Texas and found another girl staying in his dorm room. Ella had been rightfully jaded ever since.
“I don’t have time for boys,” Ella had declared on one of our wine nights. “I’m not going to become a high-power attorney crying over someone who isn’t worth my time.”
Harper winced and threw herself back onto my bed. “I’d say you dodged a bullet.”
“Oh yeah?” Ella asked. “What have you heard about him?”
“Enough to know he’s going to give you a hard time, Cal.”
I seriously hoped she was wrong.
As I sat in the study room, I considered texting him. His phone number was the only other useful piece of information I received from the administration office, but I had a funny feeling that I wouldn’t get a response.
The day after I officially accepted the position, I sent him a quick message, introducing myself and asking about a time that would work for us to meet. When I didn’t get an answer the following day, I impatiently said I would book a study room, right after his lecture.
Regardless of the messages being read, I never received an answer.
At first, I thought I had the wrong number, but a quick email to the administration office confirmed that the information was correct.
Whether he showed up or not, I decided I wasn’t about to waste a perfectly good study period. Pulling a textbook out from my bag, I started on my own weekly reading. I was just getting to the nuts and bolts of metabolic disorders when the study room door clicked open.
Standing there, in all of his thirty-minute-late glory, was Lincoln Pierce.
I blinked up at him as if coming out of a daze.
The mugshot he had taken for the boxing team did not do him justice.
I knew he was an athlete—specialized in MMA, according to Ella—but I definitely wasn’t expecting him to be so…
broad. His biceps, which rivaled my thighs in width, bulged against the material of his thin black T-shirt.
Leaving the door ajar, he dropped his timeworn backpack and took a seat. The heavy anatomy textbook he carried met the table with a bang. It was only after I registered the sound that I realized I'd been staring.
Remembering my manners, I stuck out a hand. “Hi, I’m Calista. You can call me Cali. You’re Lincoln, right?”
A few awkward seconds later, my hand was still lingering, unshaken, between us. It was only then that I grasped just how large Lincoln was. There was no way this man’s diet didn’t consist of protein shakes and chicken.
I cleared my throat and sat back down. A tension swirled around the tiny room, suffocating me.
“So,” I continued, making the executive decision to fast forward through the unwanted introductions. “I sat in on your lecture today just to get a better idea of where the course is currently. Did you want to start from today’s material, or do you want to backtrack a bit?”
“I'd rather we didn’t,” he said bluntly.
It was raspy but smooth all at the same time, like some whiskey I'd been given once at a party during freshman year. The sound of my page-flipping came to a halt.
“You rather we didn’t…?” I trailed off, hoping he could fill in the blanks.
“I’ll cut you a deal,” Lincoln said. His brown irises were dark enough to conceal his pupils. The color of the most decadent espresso.
I blinked; his textbook still open in front of me. “A deal?”
“I didn’t agree to this tutoring thing. If I’m being honest, I don’t have the time for it.
I understand that you get paid or something for being here.
Just keep Professor Hamilton thinking you’re tutoring me, and we can both forget about having to actually go through with this, okay?
” His arm rested on the round table. “You can get whatever payment you were promised, and I can quit wasting my time.”
Silence enveloped the room. I parted my lips only to shut them again. Alarms bells began to sound off in my head. This was the kind of thing I was worried about happening.
Why was Harper always right?
He looked at me as though I had brain damage. “I said?—”
“I heard you the first time,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
“Great, so we have an understanding.” Lincoln's monstrosity of a hand reached for his textbook. My own hand shot out, slamming down onto the open pages. Irritation licked at my nerves.
“Just because I heard you doesn't mean we've come to some sort of an agreement .”
Tutoring Lincoln Pierce was my one-way ticket to the program I’d been dying to get into since I was twelve—my only secure way in. I wasn't going to allow him to ruin everything. Fat freaking chance.
“Trust me when I say you’re not the only one who doesn’t have time for this.
I’ve been drowning in readings and assignments since the moment this semester started.
On top of that, I start practicum in a hospital’s intensive care unit next week.
So, trust me, I could do without this as well. But I need this.”
“I don’t think you actually understood me.” His eyes sparked like a match being struck. With his forearm on the table, he leaned in. He was close enough that the hairs on the back of my neck rose to attention. “I don't need a fucking tutor. ”
“And I don't need you giving me a hard time. If you want to walk out now, be my guest. But I will be telling Hamilton,” I said, hoping he wouldn't catch my bluff. I was never good at using scare tactics.
Lincoln didn’t realize how tempting his offer truly was. But if my name was going to be on this, then I was going to make a scholar out of him. There was no way I would allow him to make me appear incompetent before the one person whose opinion mattered most.
“ You’re going to tell Hamilton?” he seethed, seemingly trying to call my bluff.
I offered him a shrug, adrenaline pumping through my veins. “If I have to.”
“Wouldn’t that leave you without a way to continue to kiss his ass?”
I leaned into the table, the hard edge biting into my ribs. I couldn’t bring myself to care. He was beginning to piss me off. “I’m sure there’s plenty of athletes at this school who are just as unserious about their studies as you are.”
“Why don’t you go find one of them then?” His murky eyes flashed a shade darker.
“Unfortunately, you’re the one Hamilton thought needed the most help.” I shot him a sugary sweet smile. “ Lucky me .”
Lincoln's glower didn't leave my face, and I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable under his scrutiny. I waited for an outburst, thinking he was seconds away from giving me a piece of his mind. But his full lips failed to open.
I took that as a cue to go ahead and start the lesson.
I filled my lungs with the recycled library air that poured in through a dusty vent in the ceiling.
My eyes roamed over a couple of pages, wondering if it was safe to question Lincoln about the last thing he remembered from the course.
Peeking through my lashes, I came to the conclusion that probably wasn't the smartest idea.
Neither was accepting this tutoring position.
Lincoln resembled a statue. Not like Michelangelo's David—calm and calculative—but a peeved hunk of stone, frozen in a state of utter frustration. The only movement that came from him was the slow, irritated clicking of his jaw.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat for the third time. “I figure it'd be easier to start from the beginning. So, how about we start with a generalized idea of the human body before we get into the finer details?”
I didn’t wait for Lincoln to respond. Instead, I launched into a mini-lesson with the time we had left in the study room.
Lincoln sat in silence for most of it. Did I think he was paying attention?
Most likely not. If I was being honest with myself, I was sure he was plotting another way to try and get rid of me.
But I didn’t let that thought get to me.
When five o’clock flashed across my phone screen, I reluctantly closed Lincoln’s textbook.
“Are we done here?” Lincoln’s arms were crossed over his chest, making his forearms swell as he leaned back in his chair.
“Yeah,” I muttered, suddenly feeling drained. “We’re done here.”
All I got in response was a curt nod. Without so much as a word, Lincoln grabbed his anatomy textbook out from in front of me. Veins webbed through his monstrous hand.
“Same time on Monday?” I asked as he rose from his seat and stared down at me.
When he was at his full height, I felt overwhelmed, and maybe a teensy bit of intimidation consumed me. Lincoln Pierce was not the average height of the men on campus. He wasn’t average in any sense of the word. And I was dwarfed in comparison.
I made no move to stop him as he bent to grab his bag off the floor.
“Unless you want me to consult with Hamilton about a more appropriate schedule?”
The mention of our professor seemed to do the trick. Lincoln drew in a deep breath, steam practically funneling from his ears as he stewed.
“Why can’t we just meet once a week?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “You have an exam in a couple of weeks, don’t you?”
He was quiet for a long moment. “What if I paid you?”
“To make me give up on tutoring you?”
He replied with a stiff nod.
“No,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest as I leaned back into my chair. “I’m not in it for the money. Actually, I’m not getting paid at all. So, unless you can get me a letter of recommendation from Professor Hamilton, you’re stuck with me.”
Lincoln pulled his lips into his mouth, fixing the strap of his bag on his shoulder. “I can’t say I’m in his good graces, so I’m out of luck there.”
I rested my forearms down on the table. “Then I guess I’ll see you on Monday.”
Lincoln regarded me with his dark eyes. “Guess so. Later, California.”
“It’s Cal—” I started, but he was already gone.