CHAPTER TWO DEAN
CHAPTER TWO
DEAN
Oh, he’s trying to intercept me. It’s written all over his terrible poker face.
That, or the lanky history major is checking me out.
I lock eyes with my teammate Joe, and his muscles tense, ready for me to pass. The history major—James, I think—lunges toward me, his face intense and determined, so I do what I was planning in the first place.
Pivoting, I call out to Marcus, tossing him the ball and getting it safely out of reach from the other team. James grumbles a quiet curse, and I smile, running off to where Marcus is about to do a layup.
And he scores. We crowd around, slapping his back and congratulating him before getting back to work. Not that the stakes are ever really high for intramural basketball, but winning is fun.
Winning by fifteen is even more fun. The economics intramural team is fucking stacked, and the supply of worthy opponents has been in a shortage for as long as I’ve been on this team, and probably for years beforehand, too.
Sheesh, I’m beat. I need a shower and a nice long night of uninterrupted sleep. The paper I have due tomorrow can wait. Sweat keeps beading at my hairline and trickling annoyingly down my forehead, so I grab a towel from my gym bag and plunge my face into it, wiping myself clean.
When I remove the towel and blink, I spot two unfamiliar guys heading my way. A look around me confirms that everyone else has left, so they’re definitely coming for me.
The shorter one of the pair squints at his clipboard, then at me, before nudging his co-worker and walking up.
“Hey, uh, are you Chinese?” the guy asks.
I…what?
I can’t contain my scoff, and I extend my right arm. “Hi, my name is Dean. We haven’t met before, so let me introduce myself,” I say, sarcasm dripping from every word.
“Oh. Sorry,” he mumbles, and his companion smacks his shoulder. “I’m Wyatt, and this is Chris. We’re student support assistants for the varsity baseball team.”
Okay, and? I nod instead, deciding to stay polite.
Chris rolls his eyes at Wyatt and speaks up. “I’ll make this quick. One of our players chose a Chinese elective, and he isn’t doing so well. The team wants us to find him a tutor ASAP and didn’t tell us where to look.”
“So you decided to stake out an intramural basketball game between Econ and History,” I deadpan.
Wyatt adopts a sheepish expression. “The Econ intramural basketball team’s roster has a ton of Chinese last names.”
“Most of the players are Korean,” I lie, deciding to fuck with him for the sake of it. “You got lucky because I’m the only Chinese person on the whole team.”
Chris grabs Wyatt’s clipboard and whacks him on the head.
I constrain my snicker. “So, anyway, I’m guessing you want me to tutor your guy?”
Wyatt nods, so I continue.
“Okay, like, I speak Mandarin, but I don’t know if I’m qualified to teach it.”
“Please,” Chris says. “It’s a desperate situation. Most of our players take French, but a certain someone decided to be special and slotted himself into Chinese 107.”
Man, I like the sound of him already.
“If you tutor him, we’ll pull some strings and get you in-state tuition as opposed to the international rate,” Wyatt adds.
My mouth falls open. “Give it to me in writing, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Chris smacks Wyatt with the clipboard again, and I wonder if Wyatt’s apparent lack of common sense, or a filter, is because of the constant blows to his skull.
“We can’t offer that, but we can pay you minimum wage in addition to the hours qualifying for your degree language credits,” Chris clarifies.
I raise an eyebrow. My plan was to take French next semester, and now I’ll have one less course to pay for. Besides, tutors here are usually volunteers who are lucky to get a ten-dollar gift card as payment for a whole semester, so this deal is shaping up to be pretty sweet.
“Alright,” I say, containing my excitement. “I’ll do it. Who’s the guy, anyway?”
“Nick Russell,” Chris replies.
Nick Russell? Damn, or more like hot damn. I don’t pay too much attention to varsity baseball, but you’d have to live under a rock to avoid hearing about him. That man’s a fucking stud, and I swear half the campus would jump at a chance to get with him.
Me included, even if I’ve only seen him on a varsity athletics poster in the gym a handful of times.
“You know him?” Wyatt asks.
“I know of him.” I offer a casual shrug. “Send me an agreement or whatever, and I can start when he needs me.”
“Awesome. Thank you so much,” Chris says. “And you said your name is…Dean?” He squints at the clipboard.
“Yeah, but it’s Dailin officially.” I take his clipboard and unhook the pen from the side. “I’ll write my email down just in case.”
Wyatt grimaces, shifting awkwardly between his feet. He’s half a head shorter than me, and when I tilt my neck to take him in, there’s something familiar about his wavy brown hair, as well as his strained smile that’d look a lot cuter if it was relaxed—
Oh. I think I might have hooked up with him in my freshman year. Maybe that’s why he’s acting so strangely.
“Sounds good,” Wyatt says, his voice quiet. “We’ll…uh, let you get on with your night.”
“Cool. See you—” Nope. “Take care.”
Then they’re off, leaving me behind to gather up my things and run to the shower before the gym closes for the night. The locker room is as equally deserted as the rest of the building, and as the warm water washes over me, I’m alone with my thoughts.
Nick Russell.
I agreed to tutor Nick Russell. Again, I don’t know the first thing about him, other than that he’s a varsity baseball player, he’s hot as hell, and that he’s in apparent need of a Chinese tutor.
That’ll change when I meet him. I know better than to hope he’s anything other than straight, but if he’s like any of the other athletes I’ve met here, he’ll be chill.
As agreed, I’m in the Central Library a week later, settling into a pre-booked group study room.
Nick isn’t here, not as agreed. It’s already five minutes past when we were supposed to meet, and I’ve caught no fewer than three groups of roving students giving me the stink-eye for being alone in a group room.
I’m not self-conscious enough to give too many shits, especially since I’ve spread out my stuff to make it look like it isn’t just me here, but Nick is kind of leaving me hanging.
Well, not kind of. Actually leaving me hanging.
Maybe he got lost. I don’t have his number yet; I can’t ask him for an update, and I shouldn’t be that annoyed.
Then again, he’s the one who chose the location and booked the room, at least according to the email his team sent me.
I can’t do anything but wait, so I pull my phone out and scroll through social media to kill some time. After a few more minutes, the door swings open, sending a blast of stale paper-scented air into my face, and I jerk my head up to find Nick walking in.
He isn’t out of breath, and he isn’t saying anything. He only sends me an upward nod before sitting down across from me.
“Dean, right?” he asks.
“Yup,” I confirm. “You must be Nick.”
“That’s me. Thanks for agreeing to tutor me, man. I’m not doing so great.”
He isn’t doing so great at making a first impression, that’s for sure. Annoyance pricks at my stomach as I try to keep my face from molding itself into something contemptuous, because between the two of us, I’d like to think I can have some kind of decency, even when it isn’t returned.
I take him in a little more, watching as he unpacks his bag and making sure my expression stays expectant, rather than appreciative.
Like, sure. He’s nice to look at. Really, really nice, with short brown hair that’s neat on the sides and a coordinated mess on top, but I’m not the kind of person who lets something like attractiveness make up for him not apologizing, especially when he didn’t even acknowledge how he’s wasting my time.
“Right, so…you’re ten minutes late,” I prompt.
Nick widens his eyes ever so slightly. They’re pretty like the rest of him—grayish blue, and dark like how my mood is right now. “Oh, damn. Thanks for waiting.”
That’s it? Not even a scrap of shame?
I don’t know the guy, but if he’s used to everyone else bending to whatever he wants to do just because, I don’t know, he’s popular or hot or an athlete, he hasn’t met me or the majority of the world who don’t care about that.
I grit my teeth, my filter disintegrating faster than I can keep up with.
“Look,” I say, crossing my arms. “I’m gonna give it to you straight: I don’t need the cash, and I’m doing you a favor by tutoring you.
The least you can do is show up on time, and maybe act like you give a fuck if you aren’t. ”
He freezes, and seeing the dejected look on his face makes my resolve soften a tiny bit.
“Shoot,” he starts, before pausing to scratch the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I—fuck, uh, I don’t have an excuse or anything. Shit, I’m just…really sorry, man.”
Finally.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Keeping my expression as neutral as possible, I open my own laptop as he continues settling in. “Just don’t do it again, and we’ll be fine.”
While he’s rifling around in his backpack, I sneak a peek over at the contents, and my god, he sure is a ball of chaos.
I didn’t think anyone still gave out physical resources in college, but his bag is packed full of loose, wadded-up sheets of paper.
Who knows how long those have been in there, and from the sheer volume, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he keeps his birth certificate.
Still, he retrieves a relatively pristine textbook and a tablet without any cracks on the screen—he came prepared.
“Okay, I’m ready now,” he says, flipping his textbook open. “Again, I’m so sorry about being late. That was a total dick move.”
“It’s fine.” My eyes catch on the margins, and they’re full of annotations. Even though I can’t read what they are since I’m on the other side of the table, they’re too neat to be random scribbles.
Huh. Nick might have bombed a test about numbers and family members, and he might have needed a little prompting to be polite, but he’s trying. Maybe he isn’t expecting me to single-handedly save his grade.
And now I’ve seen the tiniest scrap of accountability on his end, I’m seeing—and appreciating—more about the guy.
Especially a dimpled, tentative smile jumping right out at me, making my chest do a little twinge. How predictable.