SAWYER
Chapter Five
Holy fuck, my tutor was secretly a hottie.
This thought followed me the entire day on Monday, all the way through lectures and practice in the evening. On the ice, I was an unstoppable force of nature. There was a single puck I let slide in the instant my attention wavered and I thought of Noah’s towel incident.
Not smart. I needed to drop him from my mind much like he’d dropped the towel off his peachy ass. Not that I was thinking about it that much. It just popped into my head. And it popped into my head again and again.
And when that puck went right by my stick, I wanted to curse myself and Noah together. I rolled my eyes and played on, slamming my stick against the ice only once.
After practice, I took a hurried shower and raced back to the house to go over my notes the way that guy Feynman would have done.
The buzz of hormones that were still coursing through my veins after the battle on the ice made me squirm and lose my attention quicker than I liked.
I drummed my desk trying to go over my source materials to better understand the forces that kept an atom whole.
In the textbook Noah forced me to take, just a page after the dry and boring explanations that wouldn’t sink into my memory, there was a note.
I lifted and examined it, then realized my facial muscles were stretching my lips wide and I shook my head. “Such a nerd.”
Avery barged in and I tucked the note back inside the textbook like it was porn, then shot him a look over my shoulder. “What’s up?”
He tossed his duffel at the bottom of the bed and nodded at me. “Great work today.”
“Yeah, you too,” I said.
He circled around the room, went to the closet, then began changing into his nicer clothes.
“Leaving?” I asked.
“Yep. Got a date. Sort of.” He was walking in and out of the bathroom for the next few minutes, each time looking more like the fuckboy he was.
I understood the urge better than most people. Hockey was a mean and physical sport. When the game was over, your body was still in battle mode. Testosterone ran high long after you took your skates off. And, frankly, sex was never better than after a long, hard game.
I envied Avery for having a date lined up. He got to vent these needs just fine. And me? I had a tutor I wanted to impress tomorrow after practice, so I needed to put the work in.
I spun in my chair, watching Avery do final checks before leaving. “Think of me,” I singsonged.
“I will definitely not be thinking of you,” Avery said and winked, then went out.
I was tempted to go down and play a round of table soccer with Tyler or Sebastian. Or to go to the gym and run until my energy was spent. The bloodlust and, well, lust in general burned in my chest as I pressed my thighs together and gripped the edge of my desk, staring at my notebook.
Lines of text I had written there were blurring before my eyes and from the mist a shaggy, honey-brown head of hair was slowly emerging.
The pissed-off expression and the secretly amused green-eyed look behind those black-framed glasses remained before my eyes even when I closed them and leaned back in my chair.
Fun was a strong word to use. But the guy had made physics bearable.
And, all in all, I was glad I had an appointment tomorrow night.
Which was really fucking weird considering that his job was to talk nonsense at me and we had nothing in common outside our mutual tutoring agreement.
I’d invited him to the game I would play against the Breakers next week, but he had looked at me like I was speaking in tongues.
And he’d told me about a book that had nothing to do with my tests just because he thought four hundred pages about the entire life of a star would be a fun way to relax.
So yeah, I definitely didn’t know which part tugged on the corners of my lips when I thought of tomorrow’s session, but one of these forces from the note was pulling me to his room.
I climbed the stairs of the big dormitory and marched down the hallway to Noah’s room after Tuesday’s practice. As I neared it, I checked the time. Seven minutes early. I’d always figured it was better to be early than late, but after the towel incident, I wasn’t so sure.
The thing was, as I neared his door, I couldn’t get it out of my head.
Two days had passed since his perky, round butt had made itself comfortable inside of my mind.
And his cut torso. And the blotches of red heat on his cheeks after he dressed.
And the way he held his breath when I unbuttoned his shirt to make him look more casual.
What would have happened if I’d tried to show him a quarter-tuck? Poor guy would have fainted.
Or I was just imagining things.
I paced the hallway for a hot minute, then knocked on the door anyway. If he was naked, so be it. I would live with the memory. And if he wasn’t, better yet, because I wouldn’t have to think of what these things meant.
Noah’s footsteps were soft on the other side as he approached and opened the door. “Early as ever.”
“Fully dressed,” I said in a way of greeting.
He snorted and shut the door after me. “I anticipated your lack of punctuality, so I adjusted.”
“You don’t have to adjust for me. I’m not butt-shy.” I dropped my duffel, cursing myself internally for talking about his butt to his face. He was immediately scratching his head and looking around like there was a way to escape my comment and I was, yet again, butt-dreaming. Dammit.
Playing it cool, I plopped into his chair just to annoy him and examined his attire while he moved to the bed and sat on the edge.
He had prepared himself for scrutiny, that was evident.
The pastel green flower-pattern on his white shirt went well with the color of his eyes and hair.
The black pants, not so much, but you couldn’t argue with a classic.
Truly, his appearance was not what was stopping him from storming all the bars.
“Do you have more clothes like that?” I asked.
“That shirt is like a really fancy candy wrapper.”
“Is…is that…good or bad?” He stiffened all over.
“It’s delicious is what I’m trying to say.” I tilted my head and looked at him from another angle.
“Oh.” His ears perked a little. “It’s…the only one I have.”
“We should go to the mall one day. You want more shirts like that.” I put a pin in that, then leaned back and slid down his chair.
The incredulous look that briefly crossed his face was probably a comment on the way I sat, but I didn’t care.
I was comfortable. “What kind of music do you listen to?” I asked.
It looked like he was thinking about this a lot already because he took a deep breath and opened his palms in the air in front of him, really trying to grab my attention.
“Okay, so, there’s this guy doing various punk arrangements of those epic classical pieces.
Like Vivaldi’s Winter but cyberpunk. Or Tchaikovsky in dieselpunk. It’s really cool. You should tota…”
“Nope.” I waved my hand to stop him right there. “I trust it’s fun, but you look like a Tom Odell fan. If you tell people anything else, they won’t understand who you are.”
Noah licked his lips, annoyance flaring on his face.
“Hold on.” He hopped up and crossed the room, reached to the top of the shelf for a wireless speaker, then pulled his phone out of his pocket.
Now that he was standing still, I got a good look at his pants.
We could improve the color, but this was definitely his fit.
His butt was adorably packed and his waist was narrow, but his legs weren’t too thin and…
holy-fucking-shit this guy was not a Ken doll.
His crotch, when he turned all engrossed in his playlist, came into full view and I wheezed, swallowed, and nearly choked on saliva.
“You good?” Noah asked without looking at me.
He moved on before I survived the shock of seeing his sizable bulge.
“Here it is.” He tapped his screen and set the speaker on the desk, then returned to the bed.
When he sat down, he leaned forward, slouching, making himself appear both lanky and smaller.
I listened because it was a great excuse to be quiet and let my body cool down. The fact I had come here straight from practice, my blood still boiling and the hormones still swirling, wasn’t helping.
The tune of a harpsichord and various wooden percussion were joined by strings and finally an accordion.
Even though these aesthetics had nothing to do with any of my interests, I wasn’t immune to the vivid images of airships over smog-clouded cities, cog-based gadgets, clockworks, steam-powered robots, and gaslit streets. Steampunk to the music of…
“Beethoven,” Noah said, as if he read my mind. “His Seventh Symphony.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. That’s pretty cool. But don’t tell that to people. Not everyone’s as open minded as this guy.” I said as I shot my thumbs back in my own direction. “I’m a hard rock and metal fan, but if I played my favorites your eyelashes would melt.”
“I could have guessed that,” Noah said and gave me a casual scan.
“Rude.” I pursed my lips for a moment. “But true.” I wore mostly black and my body was a canvas for line-art tats. I was aggressive on the ice and a handful off of it. Deducing my music tastes didn’t take a lot of brain power even if Noah had so much to spare.
He sniffed and smiled. “So, what else?”
“Hmm. If you start talking about astrology, you might as well go home. Unless you’re meeting a chaotic twink who starts that conversation first.” I thought about it a little more.
“Actually, the less you talk, the more mysterious you seem. Let him ask the questions and keep your answers short. Act like you have no interests whatsoever. It’ll look like your interests are too interesting. You know?”
“Got it.” His song ended and another started, but this one was a lot heavier on synths and electronic music.
“What’s that?” I asked.