2. Josh

2

JOSH

I was a confident guy. Keyword: was . I was popular, I was a good lacrosse player, I didn’t suffer in the dating department. But, as I stood just inside the U’s Academic Assistance office under Logan’s unwavering, slightly confused stare, heat crawled up the back of my neck toward my cheeks, threatening to become a full-on blush. What the hell?

I cleared my throat, steeled the cowardly lions I suddenly had for balls, and held up a sheet of paper my coach had given me. “I guess I need help in physics. Coach sent me. I think I can get by on my own, but he insisted.” I couldn’t. Physics fucking mystified me. I had gut instinct and fast reflexes for objects flying through the air, so what the hell did knowing the precise velocity and arrival time matter as long as I caught the ball? “So, here I am.”

“You’re in the right place!” the woman next to Logan chirped. “I’m Alicia. This is Logan. And you are…?” Just a glance at her dangly earrings, big smile, and the red hair piled loosely on top of her head suggested a cheerful type. I liked cheerful types. Plus, her eyes weren’t trying to drill holes in my forehead the way Logan’s were.

“Joshua Pickett.” I tried to match her level of enthusiasm with a winsome smile. “So how does this work?”

“All right, Joshua?—”

“Just Josh is fine.”

“Okay, Just Josh.” She chuckled at her own joke while Logan smirked.

Then she explained the process of matching me with a tutor and coming up with a schedule, before turning aside to Logan. “Since you’re here…”

“No. Nope.” Logan shook his head vehemently. “I’ve got too many already, and Mara is better at physics than I am, anyway.”

Alicia blinked rapidly at him while I continued to stand there like an unwanted side of beef. “Two of yours discontinued tutoring last week, and you’re a physics minor. Mara’s not. This makes more sense.”

“Actually, my teammate Kevin recommended you specifically,” I chimed in reluctantly. Logan clearly didn’t want anything to do with me, which shouldn’t have unsettled me as much as it did.

I should’ve just kept my mouth shut the way his expression flatlined as he glanced at me again.

“I really think—” he started, just as I tried to let him off the hook by saying, “Mara sounds great.”

Alicia shook her head. “Mara’s got enough for the next month. Logan has plenty of room for you.”

With a beleaguered sigh, Logan stood and led me to a couch on the far side of the office. He sat and gestured for me to do the same, then pulled out his phone, flicking the screen.

“I can tell you’re seriously dedicated to helping other struggling students.” I smirked. “The joy is practically roasting me alive.”

Logan glanced over at me as I plopped down beside him, brows quirking as if I’d surprised him somehow. Then his expression smoothed. He tilted his head. “Should I just plan now to do your homework for you, or will you actually be showing up for our tutoring sessions, Joshua ?”

Him being such an outright jerk should’ve annoyed me, but instead his prickliness was amusing. Maybe even a little adorable. “Right, okay, so this about the project that I bailed on, yeah?” I continued before he could open his mouth again and scorch me with more sarcasm. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t have a good excuse. I let the group down. I was really caught up in freshman year and lacrosse and, okay, partying too much. I fucked up, flat out. But I’m trying to do better on the academic stuff, I promise, and physics is killing me. Or vaporizing me. Or some physic-y term I don’t know. That’s how bad I am at it.”

Before Logan ducked his head away to stare down at his phone again, I could’ve sworn I saw the beginnings of a begrudging smile.

“If you miss more than two sessions, I’m going to force Mara to take you. My schedule really is tight. I’ve got Tuesday evenings, and Wednesday at noon.”

I was pretty sure it was supposed to go the other way and we were supposed to work around my schedule since I was an athlete, but I didn’t argue with him. “I think I can make either of those work. Can we just decide which one on an as-needed basis?”

“Sure, yeah, I guess that would be okay.” He made a note on his phone, then tucked it away.

“Would this Tuesday work? Say around eight?” I stretched my arms behind my head, a tendril of heat unfurling in my gut when I noticed his gaze dipping from my eyes down the length of my torso. Logan was studiously cute, seriously sexy, with his floppy dark hair and silvery-hazel eyes behind some stylish navy plastic frames. He had a sharp nose and a masculine jawline offset by kinda delicate looking lips that I kept sneaking glances at. He wasn’t outright nerdy-looking, but maybe more like one of those super-smart tech CEOs. I’d thought he was cute last year, too, in a passive way. But I’d pretty much forgotten about him after Western Civ until that day in the caf when I’d talked to Nate while Logan’s vendetta gaze bored into me. While I considered myself bi, my bi card remained sadly unpunched, because the guys I was attracted to were few and far between. In fact, I’d sometimes questioned whether I was truly bi at all or just curious.

Until Logan.

Even right then, under the gun of his unimpressed stare, my pulse sped as I wondered what it might be like to kiss him.

Logan cleared his throat and swooped back his dark hair as he rose. “Eight works fine. Third floor of the library where the big tables are,” he said, and started to walk off.

“Hey, you didn’t accept my apology,” I called after him, just to be a nuisance.

He turned around. Again, I got the impression that he’d just fended off a smile, and damn if that didn’t make me want to grin, too. The way his brows suddenly pinched together kept it checked, though.

“It took me eight hours to finish that project. I was pissed.”

“You always hold grudges this long?”

“I like sleep. You can work it off, though, maybe,” he said consideringly. “I’ll see you Tuesday, Joshua. Eight sharp.”

“Sharp as your tongue,” I tossed back, as he ignored me and continued out the door.

My mouth watered as I sat at one of the large mahogany tables in the library waiting on Logan on Tuesday as promised. The scent of burgers and fries wafted from the bag next to me on the table. I hadn’t eaten since before practice and was starving. I opened the bag as quietly as I could and snuck a fry, glancing up in time to spy Logan crossing the room from the stairwell in jeans and a long-sleeved Porter & Graves band tee. I stared, still trying in vain to suss out why I was suddenly so attracted to him. Or maybe it wasn’t sudden, but more like a slow simmer that’d gone full boil in the tutoring office when he’d gotten all flushed and ornery about tutoring me.

I’d since spent more time than could possibly be healthy imagining various dirty scenarios involving Logan, me, and every surface or wall that popped into my head, and then taking those fantasies mercilessly out on my cock.

There was a steely-grey tinge to his eyes as he approached, more noticeable because he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“No glasses tonight?” I asked conversationally. He looked good both ways, and I couldn’t decide which I’d preferred. I also had a strong suspicion he wouldn’t give a shit what my preference was.

Logan appeared caught off-guard, then shrugged. “Sometimes I wear contacts. Ready to get to work?”

“Okay,” I drew the word out. So much for trying to make polite conversation.

Logan had the condescending gaze thing down pat. It became stronger as he sat next to me, dropping his backpack on the floor. “You know we’re not supposed to eat in here.”

“I once saw a guy lay out the equivalent of a Thanksgiving spread. He legit had a whole turkey leg. No one said poodly-doo, so I think it’ll be okay. All sorts of crazy non-studying shit goes on here, trust me. There are only what, ten people up here right now, and three of them are eating too,” I pointed out. “Besides, I brought you one.” I thumped the bag.

Logan shook his head, ducking aside to pull his laptop out of his backpack. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? Cheeseburger with the works, including hot sauce but no mayo.”

He jerked his head in my direction. “How do you know that’s what I always get?”

“That group project. We were in Saitha’s dorm one night and we ordered food, remember?”

“Good memory,” he muttered, with seemingly reluctant interest, then waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not hungry. Let’s get started.”

I reached into the bag and pulled out both burgers, holding his up and raising my voice. “Anyone want a Goldberg Burger, hot?—”

“Shhh!” Logan snatched the burger out of my hand before I could finish. “ Fine . I’ll take it.”

I grinned. “You’re welcome.” God, I didn’t know what it was about him that made it so fun to rile him up. Well, I sort of did, and it made me feel a little like a playground bully trying to pick on him, but none of it was mean-spirited. At least, I didn’t think it was, and I guess he was okay with it, too, because seconds later, he was savaging that burger like he hadn’t eaten in a week, while I tried to ignore what the gloss of burger grease on his lips was doing to my cock.

He touched a knuckle to the corner of his mouth, erasing the dollop of ketchup there before pointing at the textbook I’d set out, opened up on the set of problems that, frankly, felt impossible.

“Okay, projectile motion problems,” he started, around another bite of burger. “This should be your territory because lacrosse, right?”

When I squinted at him in confusion, he mimicked throwing a ball. “A ball is a projectile.”

“Oh yeah, yeah. Sorry. I thought you meant something else.” I wished there were some sort of willpower-driven dam against blood flow to the cheeks, because mine immediately warmed. I was an idiot.

Logan studied me for a long moment, then set his burger down, dusting his hands free of crumbs. “First thing, don’t get intimated by fancy lingo. These are still equations like anything else. You’re solving for variables. How’d you do in calculus or pre-calc?”

“Pretty good. Not amazing, but I could keep up.”

“Then you can do this, too, once you get your mind wrapped around the concepts. Let’s break this first one down using lacrosse. Forget what it says here about,”—he glanced down—“a cannon and musket ball.” He snorted, the first legit dorky thing he’d done, yet somehow it set me on fire.

I swear I listened to him as he reframed the problem, but I kept getting stuck on the tiny line that appeared between his brows, and the way his hands moved as he drew an arc through the air, how focused he was, and how intently he glanced up at me every now again to see if I was following as he transitioned into tutor mode. Had he been this sexy freshman year in Western Civ and I just hadn’t noticed, or had he undergone a recent glowup?

But aside from his studiousness getting me hot, the way he reframed the problem actually fucking made sense.

I leaned forward, pushing my burger wrapper aside. “So, to figure out the maximum height of the ball, I need to figure out the velocity at h and the time it takes to get there?” I hesitated until Logan grinned, actually grinned, at me like he didn’t hate me.

“Exactly. And how do we find that?”

“Shit. Okay, ummmm.” I picked up my pencil and sketched out the ball on the field quickly to try to visualize it. “We need the initial vertical velocity and…”

“What’s the vertical component? Basically, what’s h ? Remember that’s the point at which the projectile… errr, ball , stops upward motion and begins to fall back to the ground.”

“Zero?”

“Is that a question?” He arched a brow.

“No, it’s zero,” I decided.

“Right, so let’s get that initial vertical velocity and then we can tackle the acceleration.”

We worked painstakingly through the problem and then I sank back in my chair. “Fuck, they need nap pods in this library or something because I swear this stuff saps my will to live.”

Logan chuckled lightly, unselfconsciously, both the sound of it warming my gut and the fact that I’d caused it. “It’s not that bad. You’re already picking up on it. But you’d better fuel up with those fries, because we’ve still got ten to go.”

“I wish I had natural talent for this shit.”

“I wish I could sling a ball across a field into a tiny net.” When I glanced at him sidelong, he smirked. “Kidding. I do not regret my lack of sports ability except that it might have made junior high a little easier.”

“What happened in junior high?”

He shrugged. “The usual nerdy, scrawny kid type stuff. I was short forever then seemingly overnight sophomore year, I shot up to a ‘respectable’ six feet.”

I eyed the logo on his shirt, a band I’d listened to a lot in recent years. “What kind of music did you like back then?”

“That’s a weird question.” When I didn’t deny it, he scratched his jaw and continued. “Eh, anything from alternative to classic rock.”

“I used to get made fun of because I liked Enya.”

Logan frowned. “What’s wrong with Enya?”

“Fucking nothing, if you ask me. It’s soothing as hell and she’s got an incredible voice. My mom always played it at dinnertime. I got hooked, I guess.”

He quirked a smile. “Do you still listen to it?”

“Yup. Especially if I can’t go to sleep. You?”

“ Dark Sky Island . Mostly when studying.” When our eyes locked, Logan inhaled deeply through his nostrils, and for once he didn’t look immediately away. Just for a second, an electric sizzle ran through me at the connection. He had gorgeous eyes, glasses or not. Then he cleared his throat, and the connection poofed. “Anyway, none of that’s gonna be on your test, so maybe we should get back to work.”

I started to interrupt him and tell him I wanted to hear more about junior high Logan, but he was already flipping to the next page in my physics book, the serious tutor expression back, forcing me to tamp down thoughts of what it might be like to see that expression unravel in pleasure.

An hour and a half later, we’d completed all the problems, gone through the practice test, and I felt reasonably confident that after our next session, I could manage a C on the test.

As I packed up my things, I became aware of Logan’s gaze on me. “What?”

“ Poodly-doo ?” Logan’s lips quirked with an amused half-smile.

“Huh? Oh! Ha, yeah. Family saying, I guess. It slips out sometimes.” I gave him the bird. He wasn’t the first to call me out on that expression. He wouldn’t be the last. I’d take his teases over his glowers any day, though.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say that before. It’s… weird.” But he said it as if it amused him.

“There’s probably more where that came from. Feel free to call me out on any of them.” I hitched my backpack on my shoulder as I stood, and Logan did the same.

“That’s if you show up for our next session.”

“Hey, I was early for this one. My track record is already good.”

“Your track record is an n of 1.”

“We’re studying physics, not statistics, smarty-pants, so lay off.”

Logan burst into a laugh, and damn it really felt good to make him laugh. “I forgive you, by the way. For freshman year,” he said, sobering. “I think I was just having a bad week or something, and back then it felt like, I dunno, one of those ‘I’m a superior athlete, so I’ll just let the dorky guy handle everything’ moments.”

I grimaced. “I guess it was, sort of. Not intentionally!” I hastily tacked on when he frowned. “Not because you’re dorky. I was just being selfish and not paying attention. I appreciate the forgiveness, and all your help tonight. For real.”

Logan seemed poised to say something else, but changed his mind, instead offering me a small smile. “All right, see you next week.”

“Poodly-doo,” I heard him say again softly as I left him behind, and though I didn’t look back to check, I thought I heard a quiet chuckle follow.