11. Tori
11
TORI
Kyle strode toward the table looking both tall and confident. I wished there were a few more people here for his first session… it might have made our arrival less of a big deal. Instead, Jayden and Lucas were staring up at him as if he were from Mars.
“This is Kyle. Kyle, this is Lucas and Jayden.” It was just an introduction—why was I nervous?
Maybe because of the really uncomfortable silence.
Finally, Jayden spoke up. “Hey, man.”
“Hey,” Kyle said back. Lucas just gave a curt nod.
Jeez, did men even know how to talk? Couldn’t one of them have said it’s nice to meet you? And then it hit me, the way they were staring at each other. Or glaring at each other, at least in the case of Lucas. This wasn’t their first meeting.
I paused as I reached for the back of a chair. “Wait, you guys know each other?”
Looks flew around the room, ones I couldn’t interpret. Finally, Jayden answered. “We went to the same high school.”
Oh! I opened my mouth, about to ask if they’d been friends, but then I snapped it shut because it was rapidly becoming obvious that they hadn’t been friends. Not with the tension in the air. It wasn’t hard to guess at a possible reason why. Kyle was a good-looking athlete, probably a really popular guy. Lucas had been the super smart kid. It was probably safe to assume that they hadn’t gotten along—and that perhaps Kyle had even bullied him. But I didn’t know that for sure, and maybe I wasn’t being fair to Kyle.
I looked up at him, wondering if he was going to leave, given the chilly lack of welcome, but he gave me an easy grin, as if it didn’t matter. He pulled out the chair in front of me, gesturing for me to sit.
Unsure what else to do, I did just that, grabbing onto the table when he pushed the chair in in one swift move. Then he settled on the other side of me.
Lucas’s gaze flicked between Kyle and me, and I wished I knew how to ease this tension. “What are you working on?” I asked him.
I got back a one-word answer.
And two from Jayden when I asked him.
So… small talk wasn’t going to be on the agenda tonight.
I turned to Kyle. After all, he was the one I was supposed to be helping. “Why don’t you work on the?—”
“Got it,” Kyle said, and he opened his notebook.
God, this was going to be a long night.
It was hard to study when Lucas kept glaring at me. Except I eventually realized that the daggers from his eyes weren’t aimed at me but at Kyle. Kyle was sitting so damn close to me, it was a bit hard to tell.
Normally, it wouldn’t have been a hardship to have a gorgeous baseball player practically looming over me. But I wasn’t naive. Star athletes didn’t go for women like me. No, this was some kind of power play.
I froze as he rested his hand on the back of my chair, his fingers grazing my hair. His body was angled toward me as he read from the textbook that both our classes used. Or pretended to read. But what he was really doing was laying claim to me.
Not because he wanted me—but because he wanted to piss off Lucas.
And, from the glower on my usually mild-mannered friend’s face, it was working.
Something had to be done, and it was my job to do it. Kyle was my responsibility—I’d been tasked with making him learn the material, and he clearly wasn’t getting much done tonight. And Lucas and Jayden were my friends, yet I’d forced them to be in the company of a man they clearly didn’t like.
Crap.
After another minute of thought, I raised my arms, stretching. As I casually swung them around, I ‘accidentally’ almost elbowed Kyle in the face, and he was forced to back off. Jayden and Lucas were staring at me, but I kept pretending that I was just innocently stretching. But I probably wasn’t fooling anyone, because when I snuck a quick peek at Kyle out of the corner of my eye, he looked amused as hell.
Damn.
But at least he wasn’t glued to my side anymore.
With a little more room to breathe, I slid my phone out of my bag and positioned it next to my laptop, trying to keep it hidden. Then I sent a text to the one man at the table who wasn’t acting abnormally. Is it just me or are things really tense?
Jayden answered right away. It’s not just you.
I took a quick glance at him and met his eyes. He shrugged slightly, and I returned to my phone. Should we call for a study break?
God no , he replied instantly. Let’s just work for another 10-15 and call it a night. There’s no way Kyle will come back here, so things’ll be back to normal next time.
So, you know him too? I asked. He’d already told me that they went to the same high school, but it seemed like the problematic history—whatever it was—was between Lucas and Kyle.
Kyle abruptly closed the textbook, slid it back to me, and pushed back from the table. “Well, this has been fun.”
Guilt washed over me. I was supposed to help him and all I’d done tonight was push him into an uncomfortable situation. “Are you leaving? We should really?—"
He shrugged. “You’re texting. If you’re not studying, why should I?
Lucas responded before I could even think of what to say. “She doesn’t need to study. She’s your tutor.”
Kyle stood up, and I gawked up at him. He looked taller than usual, somehow.
Lucas stood, too. Uh-oh.
Jayden looked between the two of them and then tilted his head up at Kyle. “Don’t start.”
“I didn’t,” Kyle pointed out. Then he ran his hand along the top of my head, squeezing my ponytail and giving it a possessive little tug. “See you later, Tori.”
Crap. I’d let him down. And Lucas and Jayden. And basically the English and Athletic Departments, too.
I got to my feet and shoved my book and laptop into my bag. Kyle paused, looking back before he disappeared into the gloom of the library basement.
“You’re leaving?” Lucas asked.
“I’m sorry, I have to go talk to him. This is my job.”
The expression on Lucas’s face killed me as I walked past him.
But then his voice reached me just as I caught up with Kyle. “I’ll see you at home, Tori.”
Kyle’s jaw dropped. “You live with that guy?”
“Yeah,” I stammered. “I needed a place to stay, and he’s got a little house…”
“Does he, now?” Kyle’s flat tone was unreadable.
“Yeah.”
We walked to the elevator, and my nerves got the best of me. I rambled on, telling Kyle everything about the paper he was supposed to be writing—things I hadn’t been able to get through to him earlier. He nodded throughout, but I suspected he wasn’t listening. I couldn’t really blame him.
We halted by the circulation desk. I had no reason to follow him out of the building—Jayden was my ride, and he was still downstairs.
“Uh, about whatever happened just now…” Nothing more came out. Why the hell had I started a sentence I had no clue how to finish?
But he just smiled. “Catch you later, Victoria.” Then he strode out of the building.
Embarrassed by the whole evening, I remained on the first floor, sitting at a table by the door until Lucas and Jayden joined me.
No one said much on the ride home.
Later, due to my lack of focus during the study group, I had to stay up late to finish my homework. But after I climbed into bed, recent events played through my head on a loop.
Lucas and Kyle hated each other. That much was clear. Jayden—well, I wasn’t sure how he felt about Kyle. It had definitely seemed like he and I had been stuck in the middle tonight.
Then the memory of Kyle sitting so close to me surfaced. Under other circumstances, I probably would’ve enjoyed it. He was really good looking—there was no doubt about that. I closed my eyes, and I could almost smell the cologne he’d been wearing. Something with spice and a hint of outdoorsy freshness.
I was still thinking about him when I drifted off to sleep.
A loud bang startled me out of deep slumber, and I sat straight up in bed, my heart pounding. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was. Then, in the morning light, the worn furniture and posters on the walls came into view.
Another loud knock on the door made me clutch the blanket to my chest. What on earth was going on? “W-who is it?” My heart hammered in my chest.
The door flew open, and I shrieked as a large figure filled the doorframe. A tall man stormed into the room, tossing a large bag on the foot of the bed. I drew my knees up, still trying to figure out what was going on.
“Morning, Victoria,” said a familiar voice. With my sleepy mind still struggling to catch up, I focused on the face of the man towering over me. “I thought it was going to take more work to get you into my bed.”
Kyle.