The List of Things (The Checklist Romance #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

CONTROL FREAK BY MADISENXOXO

The student center is dead quiet as I flip through my notes.

It’s late, no one else is in the room, let alone the building besides me and him.

The doors will be locked after me and my student leave.

I look across the table at Bellamy Archer and instantly feel weird calling him a student because he’s the same age as me, but that’s what he is considering how badly he needs the tutoring.

“You’re staring at it like you’ve never seen math in your entire life. What’s the confused face for?” I pull my notes back, double-checking that the instructions are in English, and not in a foreign language.

Nope, still in English like I wrote them.

“Because your handwriting kind of sucks, Hart,” Bellamy uses my last name.

Typical football player.

“I’m not on the football team, and I’m not actually your teacher so, once again stop calling me Hart,” I raise my eyebrows at him across the table.

He taps his pencil on the table, and smirks. I roll my eyes.

“Okay fine. Kamryn, your handwriting is very messy,” He corrects himself, and I nod with a fake smile on my lips.

“Better. If you can’t read my handwriting, I’ll read you the equation and watch you while you do it,” I stand up, and he raises his eyebrows.

“Watch me while I do it? Didn’t know you were into voyeurism Har… I mean Kamryn,” His golden retriever smile is unyielding.

I sigh deeply and walk over to him.

“Your jokes are a hazard to my health, and also infuriating. Write the equation so I can leave,” I cross my arms as I speak out the math problem to him.

I watch him copy my words and slowly work through the problem. I stand behind Bellamy, peering over his broad shoulders to see what he writes. He misses a step, and I clear my throat.

“Did I miss something?” He looks up at me, expecting me to help like he always does.

I lean over and take the pencil from his hands, slightly bending over the table. I tap on the paper, and circle it with my red pen, hoping he’ll look back and remind himself to do this step every time.

“You missed this step. You can’t forget it,” I remind him, and he nods, his eyes trailing from the paper to my face.

“What would I do without you Kamryn?” His voice is so sweet it’s dripping with honey, and I know it’s most likely sarcasm.

“You’d be absolutely fine, probably benched on the team for having shitty grades, but they’d survive without you, isn’t that right… Archer?” I use his last name just like he uses mine.

“If I sit on the bench will you wrap up all my appendages when you’re on the sidelines? I happen to need extreme care,” He senselessly flirts, and I ignore him.

As a sports medicine student, it would be a dream to be on the football field with the top college team in the nation, but I haven’t been asked to do that just yet, and Bellamy knows that.

“Finish the equation before I finish you,” I snap.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” His smirk is unmistakable.

I circle back around the edge of the table and sit back down, leaning in my chair. I go over my notes, waiting for Bellamy to finish. He slides his notebook over to me, and besides the small slip-up that he fixed, the answer is correct, and the equation is perfect.

“You are such a bright pupil, A-plus for you, are we done now? Our hour was up ten minutes ago,” I look at my phone which is currently being blown up by my best friend who is already on my couch with about ten rom coms lined up for our movie night.

“I just can’t help but want to spend my entire night with you Kamryn,” He closes his notebook, and there’s no sarcasm in his tone, or the look on his face.

He smiles, and I look away from him, packing my things up.

“You did good today, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you’d make a perfect score on our final next week,” I smile at him. He shrugs.

“I’ll do alright. I’ll just sit behind you, and sneak answers from your paper.”

My jaw drops, “Bellamy! I pegged you as many things, but not a cheater!” I know he’s joking, but still.

“Pegged?” He wiggles his eyebrows, and I swat at him with my notebook.

He stands next to me, towering over me as the two of us walk from the student center together. He opens the door for me, and I walk under his arm, scurrying outside into the warm night air. It’s dark outside, the only light coming from the street lamps that cast a yellowish glow around campus.

“I’ll see you in a few days. Keep studying okay? Text me with questions if you need me,” I start to walk toward my apartment complex, and Bellamy grabs my backpack, pulling me backward.

“You don’t think I’m going to let you walk home in the dark all alone do you?” He tilts his head.

We’re normally finished before the sun sets but today he had practice which meant we needed to push tutoring. We always seem to work around his football schedule. It’s what’s expected of me considering how sport-oriented Seattle Pike University is.

“Are you offering me a ride, or are you planning on kidnapping me?” I turn, and he lets go of my backpack.

“Just get in my car, and tell me where to go,” He shakes his head and lets out the lightest chuckle.

I walk to his car, seeing the reddish tint of the Jeep.

It’s far too dark to notice much else about it.

He gets in, and I do just as he asks, telling him directions over the soft hum of music that comes from the radio, it’s classic rock I don’t fully recognize.

Bellamy pulls up to the front of my complex, and I grab my things and hop from the tall Jeep.

“Thank you. I’ll see you,” I wave to him, and he nods.

“See you later Hart!” He calls after me.

“It’s Kamryn!” I yell back and escape into my apartment building.

When I finally make it up to my floor, and through my front door, there’s a pillow being hurled at my head.

“Hey! Throw pillows aren’t meant to be thrown Sienna, get it together,” I throw the pillow back at her and drop my backpack in the middle of the living room.

“You took too long,” Sienna grumbles, and I sigh.

“It’s Bellamy’s fault, not mine, and either way, you had a pre-summer game thingy or whatever it was. Your curls are still wet so you can’t lie and tell me you didn’t either,” I raise my eyebrows at her.

“The drills I called for the team ended hours ago. I just went to the gym, but you’re still late!” She pulls the blanket over her body, curling it on her body tighter.

Sienna is captain of the girl’s lacrosse team and probably the most active person I know. She and I have been friends since my freshman year, but we didn’t get as close as we are now until this year.

I start stripping in the middle of my apartment, leaving my clothes laying on the floor as I walk to the giant gray chair that is my designated laundry chair. By designated laundry chair I mean the chair that is piled with weeks of laundry so bad that it’s pouring over the sides and onto the floor.

I’ll do it soon. Swear.

“You have a key to my apartment for a reason because I’m never here on time to let you in,” I laugh while digging through the heap of clothes.

I change into something comfy, and out of my outfit from the day.

I look over to my curly-haired best friend and she’s in a lacrosse t-shirt, and shorts.

Perfect movie night attire. I get a running start, and Sienna shields herself as I take a giant leap onto the long gray couch.

There’s a floor-length lamp to the left of the couch that’s casting a glow over the room.

I look at the TV with my body pressed into the cushions.

Sienna has Love, Simon queued up and ready to play, and I’m so glad because I absolutely love this movie.

“What took you so long? Were you making out with the hot football player in the student center? Naughty tutor sleeps with her student?” Sienna wiggles her eyebrows.

“First of all, life isn’t a porno, and second of all you already know you’d be the first person I would tell if I slept with Bellamy or any other hot football player. I always tell you who I sleep with,” I settle into the couch, Sienna and I on opposite sides with our feet meeting in the middle.

I cuddle myself into my light pink throw pillow, and Sienna turns on the movie.

“All I’m saying is that Bellamy is a catch, no pun int-”

“Sienna, I want to work with football players, not fuck them.”

We both pause, and I recount the few football players I’ve already slept with. Sienna jokingly starts counting on her fingers, and we both burst into laughter.

“Shh. Watch the movie, no more sex talk,” I turn my attention in front of me and fall in love with this film all over again.

I sit up, getting giddy, and emotionally ready for my favorite scene of the entire film.

The reveal of who Blue is, and the infamous Ferris wheel kiss.

My heart melts every single time. I watch with eager eyes.

Sienna sits up too and reaches for my hand as we watch the cuteness overload ensue.

God, I love love. Well, I love love when it’s in media form.

“God I need something sweet, cute, and perfect,” Sienna gushes, and I shake my head.

“This stuff just doesn’t ever happen, not in real life,” I shake my head.

“Okay miss pessimistic Debbie Downer. Who shit in your love soup?” She nudges me, and I shrug.

“Nobody. You can’t tell me this stuff has ever happened to you,” I look to her for an answer, and she groans, throwing the pillow at me once again.

I dodge it and watch it bounce on the grayish wood floors below us.

“No, it hasn’t but that doesn’t mean it won’t one day. Romance is not dead. Chivalry is… kind of not dead,” She argues.

“Romance is fictional only,” I push myself off of the couch, and grab my backpack from the floor.

I drag it over to us and pick out a piece of paper from my notebook, ripping it out, and drawing a checklist. “I’m going to do my research, and make a list of the things in these movies that I've never in my life done, and I bet over the next week you won’t be able to check one off either.

I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist!” I argue, and write down *Ferris wheel kiss at the top of the list.

“Fine, but just because I haven’t done them doesn’t mean I won’t one day. It doesn’t mean you won't either, you heartless bitch,” She keeps watching the movie, and I shake my head.

I’m a hopeless romantic in some ways, but not in the expected way.

I love the romance, but hate how falsely it’s presented.

Where is the heartbreak, and the hurt, and all the crying, and cheating, and breaking up?

It’s hard to change my mind about stuff like this because it’s true, I’ve never experienced any of it, and it’s hard to imagine that I ever will.