2 #2
A faint blush moved beneath her makeup, though she didn’t look away this time. She lowered the cup and glanced over the books again while I opened the folder in front of me.
“Show me the syllabus.”
Charm pulled a neat packet from her bag along with a notebook, three pens, two highlighters, and enough sticky tabs to survive the semester.
I lifted one brow. “You brought your own department.”
“I came prepared.”
“You came armed.”
“My father believes preparedness is the difference between success and humiliation.”
The humor remained in her voice, but her hand flattened the corner of the syllabus twice before she caught herself and stopped.
I took the packet from her. “Your father wants you in Klein’s class.”
“He thinks she’s one of the strongest professors in the humanities department.”
“You aren’t in the humanities department.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re a fashion and design major.”
“I’m also aware of that.”
“Then why spend your final year taking a class that has nothing to do with your career when you don’t even sound like you want it?”
She leaned back and crossed one leg beneath herself. “Because I need an upper-level elective, Klein has an excellent reputation, and my father believes literature teaches discipline, perspective, and intellectual depth.”
“That answer came with a brochure.”
Charm sighed. “He wants me in the class.”
“That’s what I asked.”
“He thinks it’ll make me more well-rounded.”
“You’re already well-rounded.”
Her brows rose.
I let my gaze move down her body slowly enough that there was no confusion before bringing it back to her face.
Heat climbed into her cheeks, but instead of retreating, she placed one elbow on the table and rested her chin against her hand.
“That was shameless.”
“That was appreciation.”
“You’re supposed to be tutoring me.”
“I can multitask.”
“You’re very confident for a man surrounded by dead women and philosophers.”
“Half these dead women would’ve liked me.”
“Emily Bronte would’ve thrown you into a storm.”
“She wrote Heathcliff. She liked dangerous men.”
“She wrote him as a warning.”
“She understood him.”
“That is exactly the kind of interpretation Klein would make you defend for twenty pages.”
“I already did.”
I pulled an old essay from the folder and slid it across the table.
Charm looked at the title before lifting her eyes to mine. “You wrote twenty-two pages about Heathcliff as a product of class violence and abandonment.”
“Twenty-four with citations.”
Her lips parted slightly. “You’re deeply confusing.”
“You thought I only knew how to hit a puck?”
“I knew you read, but not like this.” Her fingers moved carefully over the first page. “This feels passionate.”
“That’s generous.”
“I’m serious.” She glanced at the stacks around us. “I didn’t know you were the kind of person who kept annotated essays from old classes.”
“I keep most of my academic work.”
“Why?”
The answer sitting behind my teeth was heavier than the question deserved.
Because I remembered being a kid who owned almost nothing.
Because classrooms and libraries had been some of the only places where nobody could decide I didn’t belong based on which foster home had signed the permission slip that month.
Because earning something with my own brain had always felt permanent in a way most of my childhood hadn’t.
I gave her the simpler version.
“I’ve loved reading since I was little. I knew if hockey got me into college, books were the other thing I wanted.”
Her expression changed slightly. “You already knew that?”
“Yeah.”
“How little?”
I looked at her over the edge of my coffee. “You’re getting nosy.”
“You brought me twenty-four pages of your opinions. Privacy has already had a difficult morning.”
A laugh moved through my chest. “Read the essay.”
“That was suspiciously evasive.”
“It was deliberately evasive.”
Charm watched me for another second before looking down.
She turned the first page carefully, and I saw her expression change as she skimmed the opening paragraph.
“This is good.”
“It got an A.”
“Professor Klein gave you an A?”
“She wrote ‘reluctantly persuasive’ at the end.”
“That sounds romantic coming from her.”
“It was basically a marriage proposal.”
Charm laughed, bright enough that something loosened beneath my ribs.
She read farther, slowing near the second page.
“You really hated the way people talked about him.”
“Who?”
“Heathcliff.”
I leaned back slightly.
“My argument was that everybody wanted to reduce him to either a monster or some tortured romantic hero without spending enough time on what happened before he became either one.”
Charm’s gaze remained on the page. “He was abandoned.”
“He was an abandoned kid dragged into a wealthy house where everybody made damn sure he understood he didn’t belong.”
Her eyes lifted.
I knew what she was about to ask before she did.
“Is that why you chose him?”
Too close.
I reached for my coffee. “I chose him because everybody else in the class was wrong.”
Charm’s smile returned slowly. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Answering around me.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I’m starting to think you enjoy being mysterious.”
“I enjoy watching you try to figure shit out.”
“That sounds exhausting for both of us.”
“You’re still reading.”
She looked back at the essay, but the small smile remained.
I let her get through another paragraph before reaching across the table and tapping the syllabus.
“That’s what you’re doing wrong.”
Her smile faded into suspicion. “Reading?”
“Trying to write Klein’s argument before you’ve figured out yours.”
“I don’t know what mine is.”
“You do. You just don’t trust it until somebody with authority agrees.”
Her gaze dropped to the essay.
“This summer course is supposed to teach interpretation. It can’t do that if you keep hunting for whatever answer your father would approve.
Klein will smell safe thinking all over you before the first week is over, and once she decides you’re writing to please her instead of challenge her, she’ll make the semester miserable. ”
“That sounds like personal commentary.”
“It is.”
“I asked for tutoring.”
“You’re getting premium service.”
“I didn’t pay for premium.”
“You confuse payment with what I’m giving you.”
Her eyes lifted.
The shift between us was immediate and quiet. Cups clinked behind the counter, the espresso machine hissed, and somebody dragged a chair across the floor near the front windows, yet the space around our table suddenly felt smaller.
Charm’s fingers tightened around the edge of the paper.
“You say things like that deliberately.”
“Yeah.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I usually am.”
“Usually?”
“I lie when the truth is nobody’s business.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It keeps life simple.”
She studied me with the same thoughtful concentration she usually gave clothing, as though she could read construction through seams nobody else noticed.
“What are we starting with?”
I pulled the anthology closer and opened it to a marked page. “Mary Wollstonecraft.”
“Romantic.”
“You wanted philosophy and literature.”
“I wanted help passing the class. You’re the one who made this feel like a date.”
I looked at her. “You think this is a date?”
Her mouth curved. “You ordered my coffee, brought a library to impress me, and stared at my body before noon.”
“I can do all that while tutoring.”
“So efficient.”
“You keep talking and we’ll never reach the part where I impress you with dead feminists.”
“I’m already impressed by your confidence.”
“Is that why you keep staring at me?”
Her eyes narrowed, though she was smiling. “You’re insufferable.”
“You’re still here.”
“I need the grade.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
She kicked my shin lightly beneath the table.
I laughed and turned the anthology toward her. “Read the passage.”
Charm looked down and began, her voice soft enough that I had to lean closer to hear every word. She read cleanly, using the same controlled rhythm she fell into when she spoke around people she didn’t completely trust. Every sentence landed perfectly. Every pause came where it belonged.
It sounded like somebody had rehearsed her.
“Stop.”
She looked up. “I read three sentences.”
“You read them like you’re trying not to offend the author.”
“She’s dead.”
“That doesn’t make it better.” I tapped the page. “Read it like you believe her.”
“How would you know if I believe her?”
“I don’t. Make me believe you do.”
Charm looked back at the passage, lips pressing together as she reread it silently.
“She’s arguing that women are trained into weakness, then blamed for being weak.”
“Good.”
“She believes education would expose how artificial that weakness is.”
“Keep going.”
Her finger followed one line of text. “She’s also angry that women are rewarded for being beautiful, obedient, and pleasing, then dismissed for lacking substance when society never allowed them to develop any.”
Something changed in her voice.
The polish loosened.
I watched her hand move slowly over the edge of the page.
“What?” she asked.
“You found yourself.”
“I found the argument.”
“Same thing.”
Her expression tightened. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make everything about my father.”
“I didn’t mention him.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I leaned back and folded my arms. “Why does it bother you?”
“Because my parents love me, and I don’t want people deciding they’re terrible because they’re more involved than most parents.”
“I’ve never said they don’t love you.”
“They gave me everything.”
“That isn’t the same as letting you decide who you are.”
Charm’s eyes flashed. “You don’t know them well enough to judge them.”
“I know you.”
“You know part of me.”
“Then show me the rest.”
Her breath caught.
The sentence landed somewhere deeper than I intended, and the playful ease between us thinned beneath something I couldn’t take back.
I held her gaze.
Charm looked away first and tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “You’re intense for a tutor.”
“You’re defensive for somebody who asked me for help.”
“I came because I don’t want to fail.”
“You aren’t going to fail.”
“You can’t know that.”