SIX
Cassie
Five Months Ago
“Thanks, Marie,” Lincoln said to her, grabbing his new normal from her and immediately wolfing it down.
It had been a few weeks of these tutoring sessions; each one, our tension had eased somewhat, and we could actually get some work done.
“Did you go over the notecards?” That was my preferred way of studying. Writing every key point in a lecture by the professor and memorizing it. It was the key to acing tests.
“I mean, I read them. Not sure how much I retained,” he answered, only briefly coming up for air from his food.
Another thing I’ve learned in the time we’ve been studying together was Lincoln could eat. A lot. Especially if it was after a game—which we’d had two sessions after games, much to my surprise—and after practices.
“Let’s go over them,” I stated, holding out my hand for him to hand them over. He wiped his hands on a napkin and reached over to grab them.
“Honey!” I flinched, nearly knocking over my hot tea cup, and turned my head.
Shit munch. My mom was here.
“I didn’t know you were coming in tonight!” My mom was a tall woman with bright blonde hair that matched my own. It was always tied up in a bun on top of her head, and more often than not, you could find some sort of writing utensil in it.
She wore her Retro Bites T-shirt and jeans that made her hips she passed down to me look slender, and her face was done up in a light “I woke up like this” style of makeup.
To put it plainly, my mom was absolutely gorgeous.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, noting out of the corner of my eye that Lincoln’s head snapped over to me at my words.
I stood and hugged her tight. Even though I’d been purposefully coming here on the nights she wasn’t, I couldn’t help but love seeing her.
“Who’s your friend?” Her light-green eyes shone in excitement, and I knew exactly what she was asking long before she actually did.
“This is Lincoln,” I said, and like the apparently very polite boy he was, he stood and held out his hand, a charming and cute smile on his face.
Cute smile? Gross, Cassie.
I cleared my throat. “Lincoln, this is my mom and the owner of the diner.”
Surprise flashed in his eyes for a brief second before he responded. “Hello, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You have a great place here,” he said, laying on the charm and making my mother’s smile grow. Don’t fall for it, Mother.
“Thank you so much!” She fell for it. Hard. “My, you are so handsome. Cass! You never said your boyfriend was this handsome.”
I’m pretty sure at that moment, my brain exploded.
“Mom! He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Ah, she’s just being modest,” Lincoln replied, coming closer and flinging his arm around my shoulders. I poked him hard in the ribs, and he grabbed my finger. “She just doesn’t want everyone to know how in love with me she is.”
“Aww, Cassie-poo, don’t be shy, honey!” I glared at my mom, and that little twinkle in her eye told me that she knew exactly what she was doing.
“You two are ridiculous,” I announced and poked Lincoln as hard as I could. He let out a breath of air and jerked away.
“Hey, we just love you, Cassie-poo. We want you to be happy.”
Lincoln enjoyed hearing that nickname way too much, and smirked at me, telling me without telling me that he was going to use that for the foreseeable future.
“We’re just studying, Mom. He’s failing a class.” I gave him a smug grin, and his teasing ceased, embarrassment clear in his eyes, and I immediately felt bad.
How come I had to feel bad? He’s standing here teasing about dating me.
“Aw, nothing to worry about, son. I wouldn’t have made it through college at all with all those tough professors you guys have,” Mom said, trying to make Lincoln feel better.
This was an untrue statement; my mom was one of the smartest people I knew.
“Just not a writer like our Cassie here.”
Our Cassie… I hate that.
“She’s good, isn’t she?” Mom boasted, immediately feeling pride when my writing was brought up. “Have you gotten to read her novel?”
“Mom,” I interrupted.
“No,” Lincoln said before I could put this conversation to bed. “I haven’t had a chance, she’s private around me.”
“Oh, honey, you should show him! It’s amazing.”
I loved my mom. I loved her support for me and that she encouraged me, but I really did not want to discuss this matter in front of Lincoln.
“Mom, we have to get back to studying,” I said, cutting off any more unnecessary comments.
“Oh, all right, I’ll leave you two be. Lincoln, come by more often!” Like they’re old friends, Mom gave him a strong hug and he returned it, his charming smile still in place.
We settled back into our seats, and I could just tell that Lincoln was trying to bite his tongue.
“So, notecards?” I asked again, holding out my hand.
For some reason, he didn’t make any comments as he dug through his backpack, looking for the bright yellow note cards I’d carefully written out for him.
I didn’t tell him how much work I’d put into making them, how I’d gone through the curriculum myself and found key points, or how I’d gotten notes taken by another student in his class—because Lincoln’s notes were chaotic at best—and compiled all the information into bite-sized pieces for him so it wasn’t everything at once.
Finally, he handed them over, and as I grabbed them, he held on. “How come I haven’t read anything you’ve written before?”
I pulled harder on the notecards, and he finally released them. Since our first study session, which had been difficult and uncomfortable at best, we kept our conversations purely academic. We didn’t bring up personal things like family or friends, like how I hung out with his best friend often or how I was best friends with his sister.
It was better for me this way, because then I could pretend I wasn’t keeping a big ass secret from him.
Mick better be freaking grateful.
This school year couldn’t be over fast enough.
“That’s not what we’re here for.” I really only talked to one person about my work, and that was Crew. Not because my best friends weren’t interested, they really didn’t know much about what I wrote. But they didn’t have the same mindset Crew and I did about books, so it was more fun to talk with him about it.
“I know,” Lincoln said, his hands fiddling with the wrapper from his straw. “But you could, you know. I’d be happy to hear it.”
I eyed him dubiously over the notecards. “No, that’s okay. Let’s focus. You have a test this week.”
He had a test on Friday that was a big part of whether or not he would be benched.
Lincoln bit the inside of his cheek and sighed. “Fucking hell.” He rubbed his hand through his hair, and anyone could tell he was stressed.
“Hey, you got this. You just need to focus on only this.”
“I want to read what you write,” he said again, giving me a look I couldn’t decipher.
“Lincoln—”
“How come Crew gets to?”
I blinked in surprise. “What?”
“Crew. I’m sure you let him read what you write.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Lincoln flushed and shook his head. “I just don’t get it.”
Immediately, my hackles rose. “You don’t get what? That Crew might actually find me to be a nice human being?”
“What do you see in him?”
His question caught me completely off guard. What did I see in Crew?
Crew came over sometimes to discuss books, but more often than not, we found each other in the library or Brew House, the little coffee shop down the road.
We were nothing more than friends, and Crew knew that was the case, even though he had asked me out a couple of times.
He let it go now, and thankfully, he was a big enough person that he still wanted to be my friend, and I enjoyed his company a lot.
“Crew is really nice to me.”
“Is that what it is? He’s nice to you?” Lincoln stated, not really needing confirmation one way or another, that the reason he and I don’t get along is because he could be a world-class jerk to me.
“It helps,” I said innocently and proceeded to quiz him on the notecards. He wasn’t in bad shape when it came to what he knew, but I knew he got himself all flustered when he needed to just focus.
We end the session late, when the clock strikes ten. “I have an early class,” I announced and stood from the booth.
Lincoln grabbed his bag, and he followed me out of the diner, giving my mom a side hug after she gave me one. I eyed him, curious as to why he was so intent on my mom liking him and frowning when he winked at me.
Outside, he gets the door for me, and I smile at the squeaky hinges on the door. This was Mick’s car a few years ago, according to her, and it was kind of adorable that he kept using it even now.
The drive back to my place isn’t long, and the silence is filled with music, with us both relaxed into our seats. I didn’t know how to feel about it.
When we pulled up to my building, he told me to wait, and don’t ask me why, but I did. I found myself unfortunately liking that he opened the stupid car door for me.
“All right, well, I—”
“I need to see you tomorrow,” he interrupted, his face unreadable.
I licked my lips and glanced at my door before I looked back at him. “Okay? Why?”
“I need to study every day leading up to that test.”
“Yeah, you should, for sure, just to make sure you’ve got the material down,” I said, though I didn’t see why that involved me.
“So, I need to see you.” He cleared his throat. “Every day until the test.”
I frowned, letting my shoulders fall on a sigh. “Lincoln, that’s excessive.”
“I’ll pay you.”
Immediately, I wanted to refute that. Say he didn’t have to pay me, but what would that say about the guard I kept in place to keep him from getting too close? Again.
“Please, Cassie-poo.” Suddenly, his eyes widen, and his hands fold under his chin. He steps into me and bends, so we’re eye-to-eye. “Please.”
Oh god, why did he have to do that to me?
I ground my teeth. “Fine. Stop doing that,” I snapped. “And don’t call me Cassie-poo!”
Without warning, Lincoln stepped into me, his arms scooping me up and spinning me around. I let out a shriek, mad at the smile that automatically pulled at my lips, and hit his shoulder. “Put me down!”
He did, then he smirked at me like he just won the lottery. I frowned again.
“See you tomorrow, Cassie-poo.”
I growled at him, and then he was gone.