9. ARAN

CHAPTER 9

ARAN

F or the first ten minutes after the session finally starts, I can't concentrate on what Strawberry's saying at all.

My normal scale of emotions is a spectrum that ranges from mild annoyance to virulent, volcanic rage. I've only felt the latter once in my life, the night Luz got hurt. But I normally oscillate between levels near the lower end because even though good things happen every day, I can't help feeling the bad ones more strongly. I'm like a caveman primed for danger and misfortune all the time. So a bird shitting on my car will leave me sour for the entire day, but acing a quiz will only tip me out of my bad mood scale until the next annoying thing happens.

But three times now, Strawberry has yanked me out of my bad mood and forced me to hold back laughter.

That's… rare.

"Aran Rodriguez, I need you to focus on the lesson." She pokes the table with the tip of her index finger in what I assume is meant to be an irritated gesture. She's been trying really hard to be cool, calm, and collected. Except her face is as red as that fruit she's obsessed with.

I point at her yellow earrings. "What happened to your strawberries?"

"I assure you I like other things," she mumbles, trying to push the pencil case decorated with a very predictable motif from my view.

I snort. "I don't believe you. Even your hand soap smells like strawberries. I bet your shampoo's the same."

A little gasp. "Did you look into the shower?"

"I didn't have to."

"Do you seriously want to spend the rest of your session talking about my toiletries?"

"Does it get me out of writing this stinking essay?"

"No. Stop stalling." She points at my computer. "I hope you wrote down everything I said."

"You know I didn't." I've been sitting here, staring at her and trying not to laugh. One of my hands was busy pressed against my mouth. The other one was resting on the table.

"Okay, write it down now."

I comply. She repeats her entire thought process about structuring writing. She must've read the case study I sent her in advance, which surprises me. I thought reading it would be part of the work she was supposed to do in-session.

"Wait, you're speaking too fast for me," I say with a frown at my laptop screen. My notes are full of typos because I can't type as fast as she speaks.

"Oh, sorry. Where did you lose track?"

"The part about presenting the thesis."

She blinks. "You're a slow typist."

"Yeah, I am. My hands are fast at other things," I say in a droll.

"I bet."

She stiffens, as if shocked that those two words came out of her mouth.

I tilt my head. "Is that a veiled insult?"

"What? No!" She shakes her hands in the air. "It's a compliment! You're a goalkeeper. You catch super-fast pucks, that's all."

"Goalie."

"What?"

"The position I play is called goalie."

"Oh. Right. I knew that." She clears her throat. "Anyway, keep typing."

"Yes, ma'am."

That gets a spark of amusement from her, just the tiniest arch of her lips that possibly means she's finally relaxing.

I try to focus on writing down the sequence of ideas, but I stumble again. My fingers know the lay of my keyboard to a T, but in the numerical section. I can keep my eyes locked on an Excel workbook without once glancing down to ensure my fingers are typing the correct numbers, but it's not the same case with the letters. At this, I'm fully incompetent.

My previous good mood has gone up in smoke, and when I have to ask her to backtrack for the fourth time, I start fantasizing about flinging my laptop out the window.

"Let me see your notes," Strawberry says at the end.

I grumble something incoherent and turn my computer around so she can read it. Bracing herself with her arms, she leans over the wide table and squints to read.

"You could just grab the laptop, you know? Or you could sit next to me."

She grimaces, and for a second, I think she's going to shut that suggestion down, but she straightens and starts packing away. "Actually, good idea. It looks like a beast I'd rather not have to lift. What if I drop it?"

"It would break the table," I mumble as I watch her stuff her laptop, the same journal from yesterday, the pencil case, and a water bottle into a knit bag. As she walks around the table with her coat hanging from her arm, I wonder if she'll sit close enough that I'll catch the strawberry scent in her hair so I can tease her about it.

I hold my breath as she sits to my right and have to tell myself, don't forget Step One, you bonehead .

"Okay, let me see."

I push my laptop to her, glad she's sitting at a good distance. The light from my laptop screen illuminates freckles on her cheeks and across her nose. She's just a strawberry herself, huh?

"You're missing a few things. May I?" She lets her fingers hover over my keyboard, as if it was a living, breathing thing she needed consent to touch.

I rub the top of my head. "Go ahead."

At the speed of light, she types up a sentence here, another there. Her fingers move faster than any fingers have a right to.

"Are you sure you're not a goalie?" I ask.

Strawberry tears her eyes away from the screen. "Huh?"

"Because your hands are really damn fast."

That gets me a full-blown smile. "Wow, that's the best compliment I've ever gotten."

I could give her more, but they'd make her blush to the roots of her hair again. I need to take a page from her book and be professional here.

Instead, I say, "Any chance I could pay you to type up my essays for me?"

"Absolutely freaking not." If anything, she beams even more. "Good try, though."

"Bummer."

"It's all yours now." Her nose wrinkles as she picks up my laptop to hand it over. "Geez, is this made of lead?"

"I don't like small things."

"Makes sense. You're so big."

I watch as color rises up her throat in real time. My bad mood level plummets until I'm firmly in the rarely used good mood category.

"I didn't mean to make it sound weird. It's just my awkward turtle talent, that's all." She focuses on unpacking her stuff again.

I bite my lip. There are nineteen minutes left in the session. All I need to do is focus on the coursework, no matter how viscerally I hate it, and not on making my tutor blush again, even though it's so easy. And amusing.

Wait a damn moment. Have I been flirting with my tutor?

I put my elbow on the table and rest my forehead on my hand for a moment. If I could roundhouse kick myself, I would.

"It's not that bad," she says all of a sudden. "Just type the first sentence and call it a day if you want. That one's usually the hardest."

I grunt. If only that were the struggle.

Okay. Let's focus. I can pretend this essay is a Bulldog forward, and it's not going to defeat me. Strawberry has basically given me a map to write this miserable thing. And it will be over sooner if I start it.

How do I start it?

Shit, why can't I just say the CEO of this case study's company was a tool who made every bad decision possible? Should I ask for help already? Am I going to look even more incompetent than the CEO if I do?

But my tutor's busy. Her cell phone sits on the table between us, the calculator app open. In her journal, she has a table with categories and numbers she's adding up and subtracting. She pauses to count something in her mind with her fingers, frowns, and then strikes through the total at the bottom of the table.

"Need help with math?"

She jerks her head up. "Oh, no. It's okay. The math isn't the problem."

"You sure? You look like you're in pain."

"It's not as painful as when you're thinking about what to write."

"Touché."

Strawberry leans back against her chair with a sigh. "No offense, but math sucks. Especially when it's about money."

"Full offense taken."

"In accounting classes, do they teach you how to pull money out of thin air? Asking for a me."

I snort.

"So that's a no, then? Shame."

I type a couple of words. Delete them. I have bone-deep regret over having let Luz and Olivia get in my head with the whole robot thing. I should've never taken this class. So I grab the distraction being presented on a silver platter.

"What do you need to multiply money for?"

"So I can move," she mutters, jotting another line at the bottom of her list. Sell old clothes , it says. Then she writes 100?

"Is this because of Lori Schmitt?"

"How did you—Oh, right. You met her last night."

"Very charming girl," I add, my voice flat.

Her eyebrows go up. "You didn't like her?"

"Hell no."

"Oh, maybe we can be friends, Aran Rodriguez, even if you're a meat-eater." She leans closer to inspect my laptop screen. "But first, don't forget I'm your tutor. Why haven't you written anything?"

"Because it's a nightmare I want to wake up from."

"Do your work, Aran." Her face twitches like she wants to smile but is fighting it.

I try. I really try. But all I manage is to type a paragraph that basically summarizes the abstract of the case study, and then her alarm goes off, signaling the end of the session. I'm only too glad to slam my laptop shut.

We both stand up from our chairs at the same time. I put my laptop in my backpack while she stretches, and her gray dress snags on the page of her open journal. It stays open to that list she's been working on, which includes what she makes per student, her itemized expenses, and a bunch of things she's apparently willing to sell. At the bottom, she has underlined the words it's not enough, ugh .

Before I think too hard about it, I say, "I can help you with that."

"Oops." She snaps the journal shut. "No, it's okay. I don't need an accountant. I also couldn't pay you for your time, as you clearly just saw." An awkward laugh follows after that.

"Not with that. With moving."

She releases the handle of her bag, and it flops back onto the table. "What do you mean?"

"My friend Ryan's looking for a roommate," I say as I wind my black scarf around my neck.

"Oh. I, um. I'd prefer to room with a girl."

"She'd be amused to hear this." I shrug into my coat.

"Oh, wow. Please don't tell her I put my foot in my mouth before I even met her."

"You do that a lot," I say, mimicking her from when she pointed out my grunting.

She winces with that tiny smile of hers. "Yep, that's me. Never a dull moment. Anyway, I don't know if I could afford it, but I'd love to talk to Ryan."

"Then meet me after practice outside the arena."

"What, today?"

With my chin, I gesture to the journal still on the table. "I read the letters ASAP, and I know my eyes didn't deceive me."

"What time does your practice end?"

"Six thirty."

"Got it. See you there."

I shrug on my backpack, and with a nod, I turn away. And bury my face in my scarf so no one can see how hard I'm freaking smiling.