Chapter 5 — Tutoring, Nothing Else （Nora）
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Wet wool and radiator dust hit me first, then the faint cinnamon off my empty cup, and rain ticked the tall windows while the radiator clanked under the sill like it was clearing its throat.
I hung my dripping jacket on the hook by the door and slid into my chair, the one facing the door, my damp sleeves cold on my wrists, and I pressed my palms flat on the warm table edge to steal some heat.
His constellation doodle already curled across his page, little stars joined by clean lines, and one rain track slid down the gray glass beside it, wobbling all the way down.
His pencil tapped once against the oak and then stopped, and the overheads buzzed early against the flat gray light, and the quiet stretched a beat longer than it should have.
“Hey,” I said, shaking rain out of my ponytail. “You started without me. That's initiative. I'm puttin' it on your report.”
“You were late,” Beck said, and his mouth did that almost-thing. “Two minutes. Rain.”
“Rain,” I agreed. “The Whitmore steps are a slip-and-slide. Somebody's gonna eat it on those wet leaves.”
“You didn't,” Beck said. “Good.”
Warmth ran up my neck at how plain he said it, like me not wiping out on the steps was the best part of his 4 p.m., and my stomach did a slow flip I refused to name.
“Careful, Hale,” I said. “Keep talkin' like that and I'll think you missed me.”
“I did,” Beck said, simple as a fact. “Thursday to now is a long time.”
My breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat, and I ducked my head and dug my flashcards out of my bag fast, because there was nowhere safe to put that sentence.
“Okay,” I said, slapping the cards on the oak. “Sports Psych. Terms. You and me. Go.”
“Go,” Beck said, and nudged his already-squared pen one more tiny push to the right.
We drilled arousal first, then imagery, then self-talk, trading cards back and forth while the rain kept ticking the glass and the radiator hummed underneath it all.
“Okay, attribution,” I said, flipping a card. “You miss the kick. Go.”
“Wind,” Beck said. “Angle. Next kick. Not because I'm bad.”
“Look at you,” I said. “Textbook. Psych major approved.”
“You're the psych major,” Beck said. “I'm just the example.”
“You're my favorite example,” I said, and then heard myself, and pointed at him fast. “Don't let that go to your head. Arousal. And get your mind out of the gutter. Definition.”
“Body's alarm level,” Beck said. “Too low, you're flat. Too high, you're shaky. Pictures beat words.”
“Show-off,” I said. “Imagery.”
“Seeing it before it happens,” Beck said. “Running the route in your head till your feet know it.”
“So before a game you're what, exactly?” I asked. “Medium? Spicy? Unbothered?”
“Green is medium,” Beck said. “Yellow is loud. Red is stop. Today the lights are yellow.”
“Same,” I said. “Mondays are yellow. Rainy Mondays are extra yellow.”
“Yellow Mondays,” Beck repeated, like he was filing it somewhere, and the corner of his mouth tucked up again.
“Red means?” I asked.
“Stop,” Beck said. “Full stop. No questions asked.”
“And green?” I asked, softer. “Remind me.”
“Go,” Beck said, eyes on mine. “Go, please. Green means go, Nora.”
“Green,” I said. “Got it. I'll remember that part most.”
“Next card,” I said. “Goal-setting. Make it good.”
“Small steps,” Beck said. “One thing. Then the next thing. Not the whole game at once.”
“Wow,” I said. “Did you just therapize me? I'm supposed to be the tutor here.”
“You're welcome,” Beck said, solemn, and I laughed so hard I nearly dropped the cards.
“Attribution again,” I said. “You drop a pass. Go.”
“My hands,” Beck said. “Not my worth. Next play.”
He said it looking straight at me, steady gray-green eyes that didn't blink enough, and something hot and nervous fluttered under my ribs, so I grabbed a pencil and flipped my notebook to a blank page.
“Draw it like last time, Picasso. Only worse. I've forgotten everything.”
His grin broke wide open, quick and real, the exact grin I'd been fishing for, and I sketched the play from memory and made it messier on purpose, my lines slanting all over his neat little stars.
“That,” Beck said, leaning in to look, “is terrible.”
“It's called style,” I said. “Critics love it.”
“You've got it backwards. Don't — here. He breaks there.”
His hand hovered over mine to fix the route, close enough that I felt the heat off his skin without a single point of contact, and my breath caught and held in my chest.
Our sleeves brushed once, just cotton on cotton, and every nerve in my arm stood up and waved, and I forgot what a slant route even was.
“If you keep hovering like that, I'm gonna forget how to — spell anything.”
“I'm not — I won't touch. Just — look. There. See?” Beck said, and his pencil tip tapped the page where my receiver was running the wrong way.
“I see it. I see — too much. Slow down, okay?” I said, and my voice came out thinner than I wanted it to.
“Yellow works both ways. Say it and I'll stop,” Beck said, quiet, and he pulled his hand back half a foot and set the pencil down square with the others.
I leaned back in my chair and made myself take a full breath, putting air and oak table between us, because the rule was the rule even when my whole body voted against it.
“This is tutoring. Nothing else. Say it with me, Quinn.”
It sounded rehearsed even to me, like a line I'd practiced on the walk over, and I hated that, so I laughed too loud and shoved the flashcards at him.
“Self-talk,” I said. “Yours is elite. Mine needs work. Go.”
“Self-talk is what you say to you,” Beck said. “Mine is pictures. Yours is bossy.”
“I'm not bossy,” I said. “I'm directionally encouraging.”
He snorted, a tiny caught sound, and went back to fixing my drawing, turning my mess into routes that looked like constellations again, and my chest ached watching his whole face go calm and sure.
“Show me the X again,” I said. “The one who waits. I keep losing him.”
“He's here,” Beck said, tapping the paper once, light. “He waits for the noise to drop. Then he goes. Patience is a route.”
“Patience is a route,” I echoed. “God, that's good. Can I steal that for my psych final?”
“It's yours,” Beck said, and shrugged like he'd just handed me spare change instead of something I wanted to keep forever.
Then he looked up and caught me staring, and I held it a half second too long before I dropped my eyes, and the radiator clanked loud in the quiet.
“You watch my hands when I draw,” Beck said. “Why?”
It landed like a hand on my cheek, that direct, and heat flooded my face so fast my ears burned, and my fingers twisted in the hem of my damp sleeve.
“Why're you looking at me like — no. Don't answer that.”
And then it happened, the awful laugh-snort I hated most in the world, loud and unstoppable, and I clapped my hand over my mouth a full second too late.
“Sorry,” I said through my fingers. “That was — ignore that. That never happened.”
“It happened,” Beck said, and the corner of his mouth tucked up. “Keep it.”
Something in my chest turned soft and panicked in one tangled rush, and I stared at our half-fixed diagram so he wouldn't see my whole face change colors.
“I brought you nothing today,” I blurted. “Usually I — last time I had the good pens. Today I have rain. Sorry. Excellent tutoring. Very professional.”
“You brought slow,” Beck said. “Slow is better than pens.”
“Keep talkin' like that, Hale,” I said. “I'm gonna start chargin' extra for compliments.”
“How much?” Beck asked, serious. “I'll pay it. I've got — I've got quarters.”
“Quarters,” I repeated, delighted. “You're gonna pay me in quarters.”
“Big ones,” Beck said, and his ears went pink, and I laughed until my ribs hurt.
My chest squeezed at that, sudden and stupid, and I nodded like an idiot and shuffled the flashcards just to have something to do with my hands.
Down the hall a door banged and voices spilled past, and the overhead light seemed to buzz louder, and Beck's shoulders crept up half an inch.
His fingers found his left wrist and tapped twice, quick, and his eyes cut to the window and the door and back to the table like he was checking exits.
“Hey,” I said softly. “Color check. Where're you at?”
“Yellow. Slow — please. Lights're loud today.” Beck's jaw worked once.
“Got it. We'll go slow. I've got nowhere else to — nowhere. Slow.”
I set the flashcards down and slid them aside, and I slowed my voice way down, low and easy, and his shoulders dropped a fraction, and it surprised me how well it worked, like I'd found the volume knob for the whole room.
“Better?” I asked. “We can just do pictures for a bit. No cards.”
“Pictures,” Beck said. “Pictures are good. You're good at slow.”
Warmth spread through my stomach at that, slow and honeyed, and I bent over the diagram so my hair hid my face, and my pencil wobbled a stupid little star.
“Do another one,” Beck said. “Messy. I'll fix it.”
“You just like correcting me,” I said, but I drew another wobbly route, worse on purpose, my star lopsided and drunk.
“I like watching you try,” Beck said, so quiet I almost missed it under the rain.
My pencil stopped moving. “Beck.”
“Just — the routes,” Beck said quickly, ears going pink. “Trying the routes.”
“Your stars are crooked,” Beck said a minute later, closer than before, and I could feel him there, all that tall warm stillness at my shoulder.
“They're artisanal,” I said. “Tell me about this one. The tight end. Where's he going?”
“There,” Beck said, and his finger traced the air just above the paper, never landing. “He waits. Then he breaks. Like waiting for the noise to drop.”
“Like yellow,” I said quietly.
“Like yellow,” Beck agreed, and something passed between us, warm and unspoken, and I forgot to breathe for a second.
“Nora.” My name in his mouth sounded careful, like something breakable. “You're staring again.”
“I'm supervising,” I said. “Very closely. It's called tutoring.”
A shadow moved in the hall beyond the open door, and steps stopped, and a voice drawled from the film-room doorway across the corridor, smooth and amused and wrong.