Chapter 5
Five
Mitch stood outside his creative writing TA’s open office door fifteen minutes before the end of office hours late Monday morning, assignment in hand.
There was a student already in there with John, so Mitch waited in the hallway and perused the piece of paper taped to the wall that listed the office hours for this particular postage stamp-sized office.
A small school meant there wasn’t enough room for the TAs, so many of them shared office space.
The next TA would be taking over John’s office five minutes after John was done.
A tiny part of Mitch hoped the student in there now took the rest of John’s scheduled time, leaving Mitch another few days to freak out over his impending expulsion from GH.
But then he’d have to face his TA’s disapproving frown during Thursday’s tutorial, and that wouldn’t be much fun.
Luck wasn’t with him today. The student came out of John’s office, leaving Mitch exactly twelve minutes to find out if John was going to fail him.
Mitch doubted it would take that long. He knocked on the doorjamb.
John looked up from his laptop. “Mitch.” He waved Mitch in. “Have a seat. I’m glad you came.”
Mitch perched on the edge of a folding chair and held up his assignment. “I noticed there’s no grade on this.” Maybe not the way he should’ve started this meeting, but if John was going to fail him, he might as well cut to the chase, right? “Is it because it’s worse than an F?”
John let out a gust of laughter. “No, not at all. The reason I didn’t grade it is because your short story didn’t follow the assignment guidelines.
Technically, yes, I should’ve failed you, especially since your assignment didn’t have any of the short story elements that we talked about in class, but…
” John tapped his pen against his desk, appeared to think something through, then said, “Mitch, why did you take this class?”
“My academic advisor recommended it. And I still need my general electives, so...”
“What’s your major?”
“Kinesiology with a specialty in sports science.”
“I thought you might be a science major,” John said. “Your story reads more like a lab report than fiction.”
Mitch winced.
“Listen.” John came around his desk and sat in the chair next to Mitch. “I really hate to fail my students, which is why I wanted to give you the chance to revise and resubmit.”
“I appreciate that,” Mitch said. “Really. But if it was a piece of crap the first time, I don’t think writing it a second time is going to make it any better.”
John took Mitch’s assignment out of his hand. “We’ll go through my comments, one by one. Hopefully that’ll help you see the areas you can improve on.”
“Which is everything, right?” Mitch slumped in his seat with a huff. “I know I’m no writer.”
“You don’t need to be. Seriously,” John added when Mitch threw him a skeptical glance. “I’m not looking for flowery prose, but what I do need to see is basic story structure along with short story elements. Do that within the given two thousand-word limit and you should be fine.”
“When you told me my last assignment had no substance, you meant that it lacked the elements of a short story?”
John grimaced. “I’m sorry I ever said that. It was completely unprofessional. But yes, that’s what I meant.”
Mitch’s writing had no substance. He himself had no substance. At least John was going to show him how to fix his writing. Mitch had no idea how to fix months of pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
Minutes later, after going through John’s notes on how to use these supposed “elements,” Mitch threw his arms up in defeat and swore. “I thought I was already doing that.”
John pursed his lips. “Have you considered getting a tutor?”
Mitch bristled. “I don’t need help.”
John pointed at the assignment in Mitch’s hands.
Fuck, a tutor? As if he wasn’t broke enough already?
And working something else into his already busy schedule?
He groaned and sagged in his chair. If it would help him get his GPA up so he could stay at GH, so be it.
“Is there one who can work around hockey practices and games and my part-time jobs?”
John tilted his head, regarding Mitch with renewed interest. “You’re a Mountaineer?”
“Uh-huh. I’m also a broke college student.”
“What if I could find a tutor who would do it for free?”
* * *
Alex had been finishing up a draft outline for his book when JP had called and offered him a potential interviewee.
“You remember the guy in my tutorial? The one I told you about, who’s almost failing?
” JP said, his voice hitting higher calibers in his excitement.
“Turns out he’s a Mountaineer who works two jobs.
I don’t know his story, but I thought you might want to talk to him for your book.
Oh, and I also need you to tutor him and basically hold his hand while he takes my course. ”
Sure, Alex could tutor in exchange for some fresh perspective for his book. Hell, at this stage, he’d take anything he could get.
And that was how he found himself strolling into the library on Monday afternoon.
He took the corridor to the right of the library entrance, the one that led to the study rooms, and found number eight, where he was meeting his student.
The person already sitting at the small table, impatiently tapping a pen against his thigh and swivelling his chair from side to side, was not at all who Alex was expecting.
He froze in the doorway, then double checked the number on the door...and looked at Mitch Greyson. “Are you JP’s—John’s—student?”
Mitch, wide-eyed and equally frozen in his chair, asked, “You’re my free tutor?”
Guess that answered that, then.
Setting his messenger bag on the floor, he took a seat across from Mitch and waited for the kid to decide how he was going to play this.
It took another few seconds, where they sat eyeballing each other in what was no doubt shock on both sides.
Mitch took a sip of his smoothie, his cheeks hollowing around the straw as he sucked, a blatant come-on if Alex’d ever seen one.
He swallowed and shot Alex a flirty smile. “Miss me that much?”
Disappointed, but not surprised, Alex held a hand out for Mitch’s assignment. Mitch’s smile dimmed and he hesitated. Alex understood—sharing your work with someone else was scary.
But then Mitch squared his shoulders and slid his assignment across the table before slumping in his chair, arms crossed.
Mitch’s story was titled The Hockey Player. Not exactly original, but he’d give Mitch the benefit of the doubt until he gave it a read.
Two paragraphs into a story that wasn’t as awful as he’d feared it would be, Alex could feel the weight of Mitch’s stare.
“What?” Alex asked.
“Just wondering what you’re doing here.”
“What do you mean?”
“For someone who claims not to like me, you agreed to tutor me awfully quick.”
“I didn’t know you were the one I’d be tutoring…” Alex broke off and stifled a wince when Mitch didn’t quite manage to keep the hurt off his face before replacing it with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Well, surprise!” Mitch said, throwing his arms out. Then he rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger and released a heartfelt sigh. Reaching across the table, he snatched his assignment from Alex’s hands and stuffed it in his backpack.
“Thanks anyway.” Mitch stood, eyes on the door at Alex’s back. “But I’ve got it from here.”
Alex, however, was faster. He was standing in front of the door by the time Mitch made it around the table.
Mitch fisted his hands on his hips. “Move.”
Alex said the first thing that popped into his head: “Make me.”
The regret was immediate when a challenging light entered Mitch’s eyes. Even so, Alex stood his ground, his body blocking the door. He was here to help and help he would, whether the kid liked it or not.
Mitch plastered what Alex was sure was meant to be a sexy smile on his face and sauntered up to Alex, resting a hand on Alex’s hip exactly the way he had at Mama Jean’s the other night. Lifting up onto his toes, Mitch brought his mouth to within an inch of Alex’s.
Mitch’s breath was warm against Alex’s lips and his eyes were brazen as they locked on Alex’s. It would’ve been hot, had Alex been the type to get turned on by people he barely knew.
“Going to let me kiss you, hot stuff?” Mitch murmured.
Alex leaned forward a touch. Mitch’s eyes flared with surprise. “You’re going to have to do better than that if you want me to move.”
Huffing, Mitch rolled his eyes and dropped onto his heels. “This is ridiculous. You don’t even want to help me.”
“Actually, I do.”
“Why? You don’t even like me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Mitch’s laugh was incredulous. “Really? Should I replay the conversation for you?”
No need. Alex remembered it clearly. “I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t like you. That’s not what I was trying to say.”
“Could’ve fooled me with your whole ‘you have no substance’ thing.” Mitch noisily sucked the last of his smoothie through his straw, then chucked the cup in the room’s garbage can.
Yeah, that had been a wrong choice of words.
Alex had known it as soon as they’d come out of his mouth, and he knew it now.
He’d been searching for the right thing to say and JP’s words about telling his student—this student, as it turned out—that his story had no substance had been front and center in Alex’s brain and he’d spoken without thinking.
“I don’t care anymore, anyway,” Mitch declared. “Move. I have shit to do and you’re in my way.”
Again, Alex refused to move, and again, he spoke without thinking. “What’s the magic word?”
Instead of rolling his eyes and huffing like an angry cat as Alex expected, Mitch cracked up. His laugh was unguarded and carefree and he was still chuckling when he retook his chair and dug his assignment out of his backpack.
“Fine, let’s do this thing if you want to help so bad,” he said. “Come tell me how much my story sucks.”