Chapter 7 An Unexpected Ally #2
“Something like that,” I mutter, trying to adjust myself without blatantly grabbing my crotch.
Her pupils widen against bands of carob and branches of cinnamon, and even the unimpressed tug of her lips makes my neurons misfire like a sparking fuse box.
I’ve never been self-conscious about my body before, but with Staten crucifying me under a single gaze, I’d suddenly do anything for her approval.
She lingers on my toned stomach, upholding the world’s best poker face. “I didn’t know it was even possible for someone to have an eight-pack.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s an observation.”
I tense my traps as residual liquid carves a valley down the curve of my back.
I’m still dripping onto the ground, adding to the water damage already softening the structural integrity beneath my bare feet.
The shortening distance between us is a test I’m not prepared to conquer—a test that has the barely contained fire under my skin buoying to the equally molten surface.
Curiosity clings to the underside of my tongue. “Uh-huh. What are you doing here, Staten?”
She hesitates for a moment, letting the stagnant air marinate between us, kicking the toe of her sneaker against the ground with fragile uncertainty. Marzipan-soft. I’ve never seen her so torn before. Unluckily for me, the divot whittled between her brows is nothing short of adorable.
No better than an engine stuck in idle, whatever internal tug-of-war she’s trying—and failing—to deal with comes to an abrupt stop. A rather histrionic sigh rolls out of her lips, lowering her tightly held shoulders in the process.
“I wanted to take you up…on your proposition,” she finally confesses, the words practically hell-bent on fusing to her throat.
She does? Am I dreaming right now? Staten Renault, self-sufficient English prodigy, is asking for my help?
I cross my arms over the bulk of my chest. “You want me to be your sex teacher?”
Staten’s face contorts in repulsion, and she even goes a little green around the gills. “What? Ew, gross! No. God, no. I’m talking about the tutoring thing. I could really use the money.”
It was worth a shot, alright?
Shunning my bruised and battered ego, I embrace the relief that follows—the kind that evicts the overstayed and under-welcomed anxiety residing in my belly. “I could really use the help,” I admit with a small smile.
Staten, already keeping up the professional side of things, sticks her hand out for a handshake. This time, her resolve is unwavering—a newly constructed embankment that prohibits fickle floodwaters. “Then I guess we have a deal.”
I feel like the Devil herself has just thrust a fountain pen into my hands, and my unwritten name is waiting on a dotted line.
Surely this can’t be worse than selling my soul, right?
A part of me worries that I’ll regret this, especially since my emotions never like to play fair.
The other part of me, however (the touch-starved part), can’t wait to finally hold her hand in a non-emergency way.
Always the one to half-ass critical thinking, I ball up some saliva in my mouth, huck it straight into the target of my palm, and then protrude my hand outwards.
Staten grimaces, taking her index finger and thumb and forceping the skin on my wrist in a pseudo-handshake.
Got it. Not a fan of bodily fluids. Or maybe just not my bodily fluids.
She then clears her throat as if she’s preparing for a make-it-or-break-it presentation. “We need to go over the logistics,” she announces.
I glance down at the flimsy barrier still barnacled to my hips, and I rub my spit-filled hand down the side of my towel, not missing the way Staten briefly succumbs to her own desire.
An unmistakable bite of her lower lip—a frenzy in fever-bright eyes like she’s a bobcat catching a scent in tall grass.
It’s a miracle that my pocket rocket isn’t in full takeoff mode. “Right now? I don’t have any clothes on. And I’ve been told I’m very distracting without clothes.”
“Presumptuous much?”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” I drawl, holding my hands up in surrender.
“This is a business transaction—nothing more. We’re here to talk about rates, not for you to trick me into rating your below-average body.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Below-average?”
Listen, I’m used to the majority of the population calling me a conceited man whore or an arrogant, talentless cum dumpster who couldn’t sink a puck with his eyes open, but I draw the line at anyone degrading my clearly superior physique.
“I’ve seen better,” she scoffs, finally severing her trance and coming to her senses.
I take an unwise step closer, immediately getting drunk off the smell of her lavender perfume.
Sweet, almost virginal. A signature scent that emanates off her like a second skin—that taunts my insatiable hunger in the same way a meek doe surrenders the stretch of its white-dappled neck to a slavering maw.
“Like hell you have.”
“Are you done showing off?”
“Do you ever unlodge the stick up your ass?”
Fuck, is it wrong that I’m getting turned on right now? That’s not a normal response to conflict.
You’re truly a piece of work, Knox.
I’ve only known Staten for a few weeks, and yet she’s already cracked the code on how to dance around (apparently) taboo topics. Which is impressive, considering I have the perseverance of a three-year-old and the patience of an eighty-year-old.
“How much for each one-hour session?” she inquires, shuffling back a little to provide some breathing distance between us.
I grieve the loss of heat from her body—the high that broils whenever we’re one inch away from compromising our acquaintanceship. She might’ve well just gutted me down the middle and thrown my bloody entrails to the vultures.
I haven’t thought this far ahead. Honestly, I didn’t even think I’d make it pass the initial turnstile. How much does she want? Money obviously isn’t an issue for me—I’m ready to make it rain. Hell, if she asked me to donate a lung, I probably wouldn’t refuse her.
“How much is the school paying you?” I ask, completely unprepared for the truth bomb that detonates in the silence of the abandoned hallway, rebounding off the gypsum walls.
“Twenty an hour.”
I rake my hand through the front of my waterlogged hair, indignation by proxy setting up camp inside me. “Only twenty? Jesus fuck. That won’t last you through the week.”
“Yep, well aware of that, thank you,” she grumbles.
I didn’t realize her financial situation was so bleak.
Also, what kind of rich-ass school stiffs its student employees?
MU has the funds to install one of those goddamn Avalon drinking fountains on every floor of the science building.
And it’s seven stories tall. The school would collapse without the backbone of its tutors.
I know firsthand that some of these professors can’t teach for shit.
I’m surprised the drop-out rate isn’t higher.
Okay, Knox. Don’t seem too excited. Offer a reasonable price.
“I’ll pay you five hundred an hour. For one month. Or until I can get my grade in Lit up to a B.”
Staten splutters. “Five hundred?!”
What? Five hundred dollars is pocket money. My voice-controlled bidet cost more. And yes, I own a bidet. Sue me for practicing clean hygiene.
“Is that too little? Damn, you drive a hard bargain.”
“No, it’s—it’s fine. That’s just…a lot of money,” she squeaks, revisiting a spot of dirt on the ground with wide, glassy eyes, her voice shaking worse than a surgeon’s hand after one too many procedures.
“You need it more than I do,” I urge as sympathy breaks over me.
I lose her for a solid minute, watching her awareness vanish into a swathe of mental fog, and I’m stuck outside a dirt-carved delineation with no jurisdiction to chase after her.
Maybe she’s weighing the pros and cons. Maybe she’s questioning the legitimacy of this arrangement.
Whatever it is, when she comes to again, her reluctance is nowhere to be found.
It too must have run into the impending mist.
Her spine goes ramrod straight, determination blustering over her hard-set features. “Alright, let’s set something else straight: ground rules. Rules that are going to be imperative for me not ripping your head off for the next month.”
“Why the hell do we need rules?” I exclaim, leaning my back against the wall, the hem of my towel slipping a centimeter lower on the cradle of my hipbones.
She doesn’t need to gesture to my waiting wardrobe malfunction to get her point across. “So troublemakers like you don’t get any bright ideas.”
All I’m hearing is that she thinks I’m smart.
I cluck my tongue, trying to suppress the flattery that wants to ruddy my cheeks. “Ye of so little faith. But fine, state your ‘rules.’” I emphasize the air quotes with my fingers. I didn’t realize she was running such a tight ship. This is tutoring, for fuck’s sake. Not the military.
Staten, self-satisfied, turns her nose up, relishing in the fact that I’m the equivalent of a mutt waiting for its owner’s next command.
A once-fearful predator made of scars and skepticism roaming the turbulent streets—only to be domesticated by the first girl who waves a piece of meat in its face.
And a hungry belly doesn’t compare to a loveless heart.
“One: no flirting of any kind. Not with me, and definitely not in the form of advice,” she declares, putting a metaphorical foot down.
No flirting? That’s like my entire personality. What, does she want me to go mute during sessions too? And she knows damn well she needs flirting help. But hey, if she wants to embarrass herself in front of Cheekbones McGee, then she can be my guest.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’re failing Intro to Literature. We’re far past fun.”
She’s got you there.
I deadpan, “Your next rule?”
“Two: this transaction is to be strictly professional. I’m not here to get to know you, and you’re not here to get to know me. There’s one goal, and that’s raising your overall grade. Capiche?”
Not getting to know her? Does she even want this job? Does she even have any human emotions? And yes, I realize that’s saying a lot coming from the king of commitment phobia. This is gearing up to be one of the most depressing negotiations I’ve ever made.
“That’s a little sad, don’t you think?”
“Are you going to have an opinion on every one of my rules?” she huffs, rolling her eyes like I’m the one being difficult here.
For the first time in a long time, my heart aches—a strange phenomenon that didn’t even occur when I lost three of the girls off my roster in the span of a week.
It’s as if it belongs to someone else, and my chest is merely an incubator to keep it beating.
My body is nothing but a shell, floating in a sensory deprivation tank, only cognizant of the boundless purgatory holding my consciousness hostage.
“Only the ones that suck,” I parry with growly disquietude.
Why can’t she just let loose and have fun for once?
Staten ignores my snippy side comment, serving the final deathblow without any grace period whatsoever. “Three: once your grades are to your liking, this arrangement is over. We go back to being strangers.”
How can we go back to being strangers if we never stopped?
Now, the hurt is waxing, spreading, infiltrating parts of me that I thought were impenetrable. Maybe I didn’t expect us to be the best of friends, but I didn’t expect us to stay enemies.
My breathing hitches, the heat from my shower spinning my vision like a bad case of vertigo. My knees want to buckle despite the wall that’s holding me upright. “I think that’s the worst rule of them all.”
Her tone assumes a lightheartedness, but it doesn’t placate me in the slightest. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
Stop making this a big deal, Knox. You’re paying for her services. That’s all. She has every right to set boundaries with you. Why are you so caught up on this girl? You have your pick of the whole school. Plus, your dad isn’t covering your tuition so you can paint him a fool.
I squeeze my eyes shut, then force them open, the warning signs of an incoming headache weakening my fight. “And you’re stubborn. Haven’t you heard that business and pleasure always mix?”
“I’m pretty sure the saying is ‘business and pleasure don’t mix.’”
“I guess I’m just the exception.”
“Annnd you’ve already broken rule one. That’s a new record considering we haven’t even started yet.”
Fed up and teetering on the brink of madness, I stride toward her and fling my arm out to bracket the side of her head, my voice dragging over her in a low-frequency rumble.
My half-naked body is nearly flush against her hoodie-clad one.
“Keep a tally. I’m going to prove to you that these ‘rules’ of yours won’t last one week. ”
“You’re right. You have absolutely no self-control,” she retaliates, her chest expanding with a timid breath, everything south of the border shifting to either outmaneuver me or pummel the self-inflicted distance between us.
I curl a rebellious strand of her hair around my finger before tucking it behind her ear. “Oh, it’s not me that I’m worried about.”