Penley wrapped up her lesson and then directed the students to their tutors. I stayed where I was, leaning my elbows on the table and forcing a relaxed smile as one boy and three girls came to sit down.
“Hi, I’m K.C.,” I greeted.
The guy held up his pointer finger but didn’t make eye contact. “Jake.” And then he buried his face in his hands and let out a loud yawn.
Jake might be on drugs.
I looked across the table to the three girls. I knew one of them. The younger sister of a somewhat friend from high school whom I no longer kept in touch with. The other two were strangers, but all three of them looked at me as if I were the hair in their soup.
That was one thing that didn’t make me nervous. I had no trouble standing up to women in my own generation.
I kept staring at them, eyebrows raised in expectation.
The dark-haired girl finally spoke up. “I’m Ana. This is Christa and Sydney.”
Sydney I knew. Her sister was sweet. She looked like a little shit, though.
She had long auburn hair, parted on the side and hanging in big, voluminous curls down her back and over her chest. Her stunning brown eyes brought out the red tint in her hair, and her makeup and nails were perfect.
Ana’s beautiful Asian complexion glowed alabaster and her long, shiny black hair and dark eyes were flawless.
Christa had short blond hair cut in a bob with a severe angle. Although the wallflower out of the group, I knew from knowing Tate that those were usually the ones to show their awesomeness later.
All of the girls were dressed the same. Shorts and tank tops.
I smiled calmly. “Nice to meet all of you.” I took out their diagnostic assessments—compositions they wrote at the end of the school year, including their outlines and rough drafts—and handed them their own papers. “So we’re supposed to each share a sample paragraph and discuss what improvements we could make. Who would like to go first?”
No one budged. Jake sat next to me, looking as though he was ready to fall asleep. Ana looked away while Christa and Sydney smirked, challenging me.
“Anyone?” I asked, a grin tickling my face. I remembered my classes when no one would volunteer. Now I knew what being a teacher felt like.
I held up my hands. “I’ll read it if someone wants to give me their paper. This time.”
Jake shoved his paper in my face, still not making eye contact.
“Thank you, Jake.” Relief flooded me.
I cleared my throat, reading out loud. “What do you do when you’re hungry? You might go through a drive-through or hit the store. For eight hundred and forty-two million people in the world, they can’t get food that easy.”
I cleared my throat again, hearing the girls across from me snicker.
“That was a good opening paragraph.” I nodded, keeping my voice light and looking at Jake even though he wasn’t looking at me. “Asking a question right off the bat is a solid way to grab the reader. And I like your voice.”
“He’s barely talked since we sat down,” Sydney joked. “How can you like his voice?”
“I meant the tone that comes through in his writing,” I explained as if she didn’t already know. “Expressions like ‘hit the store’ when most people would say ‘go to the store’ or ‘drive to the store.’ That’s his personal voice. It makes the writing sound natural.”
I caught Jake out of the corner of my eye, looking at me. I turned to him, wanting to be as kind as possible. The truth was, he needed a lot of work. His word choice was boring, he used adjectives when he should’ve used adverbs, and the sentences flowed like mud.
But I wasn’t going to lay all that on him today.
“Two suggestions, though: The statistic you wrote wasn’t cited. Readers won’t know where you got that information and they won’t trust it if you don’t tell them the Web site, article, or text to which you’re referring.”
“ ‘To which you’re referring,’ ” Sydney mimicked, and the paper crinkled in my hand.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, calling her out.
She rolled her eyes and whispered something to Christa.
“Another thing,” I continued, trying to ignore her, “is that there is some passive language h-here,” I stuttered, noticing Christa laughing into her hand and Sydney stealing glances at me. “You might want to spice it up,” I tried to continue to Jake, “by saying—” And when all three of the girls laughed together, I stopped.
“What’s going on?” I tried to keep my voice down.
The girls brought their hands down and folded their lips between their teeth to stifle smiles. Christa sighed sympathetically. “I’m just not sure why we’re being tutored by someone that got arrested.”
Son of a …
I narrowed my eyes and sat up straight. How the hell did everyone know? My mother definitely didn’t tell anyone. And Principal Masters most certainly didn’t tell anyone. What the hell?
“Everything okay here?” Penley stopped at our table as she circulated.
My chest fell with a hard sigh. “You might want to say ‘For eight hundred and forty-two million people in the world,’ ” I continued to Jake, “ ‘the solution to hunger proves more difficult.’ Using words like ‘is,’ ‘was,’ and ‘am’ is weak, so we try to use other verbs to make it sound better. Do you understand?”
Penley moved on to the next table, and I glared across the table to see that all the girls were concentrated on something out the window.
Jake shrugged. “I guess. So I have to go back and rewrite the whole thing?”
I shook my head, smiling. “Not today.”
“Oh, my God!” Christa bounced off her chair and leaned across the counter underneath the window, peering out. “He’s got his shirt off!” she whisper-yelled to her friends.
They scrambled out of their seats, Ana nearly falling in the process as they raced over to the window, giggling.
I shook my head, slightly amused, to be honest. I kind of missed being boy-crazy.
Sydney turned to her friends. “My sister says he’s even better without his pants on.”
One of them bounced up and down, while the other whimpered.
I wondered who they were talking about, and then I remembered Principal Masters saying something about the lacrosse team practicing every day.
Walking to the windows, I stood next to the girls and looked outside.
My shoulders sank, and I groaned. Fuuuuuuck. My heart suddenly felt as if it were too big for my rib cage as I watched a half-naked Jaxon Trent running around and rolling on the field as everyone horsed around with the water bottles.
“Damn, he’s hot,” Ana whispered, smoothing her hair as if Jax could actually see her. I felt like yanking her by her collar and sitting her ass down. He wasn’t a piece of meat.
But I swallowed that urge. Gazing out the window, I watched Jax and the rest of the team grab their Gatorades and collapse on the grassy field, the sweat on their chests shiny from the sun’s angry glare. His hair was wet, and he worked those long black shorts like a pro. I clamped my mouth shut before I whimpered.
He sat there, smiling and talking to a teammate, and I loved how even from here I could see his heart-stopping blue eyes.
He seemed oblivious that three teenage girls were gawking at him before he fell backward onto his back, resting.
“Girls,” I choked out, my mouth as dry as jerky. “We’ve got work to do. You’re here for a reason. And I’m here to help.” I held out my arm, gesturing for them to come back to the table.
But Sydney didn’t budge. “No, you’re here because you’re a fuckup, too,” she shot back. “We’re going to the bathroom.”
And I watched as all three of them grabbed their purses and left. Scowling up at the clock, I gritted my teeth, noticing that I still had three whole hours left.
Luckily session two passed more smoothly. After Jake and the girls left, I got a group of three male students, and I relaxed right away, noticing that boys were a hell of a lot easier. Men simply wanted to do whatever you wanted them to do so you’d shut up. There was no arguing, no cattiness, and no chitchat. Other than some minor flirting, the only problem was disinterest.
It was going to be a long-ass summer.
At noon, all the students filtered out of the room to enjoy the rest of their summer day, and I finally reached into my bag to check my phone.
Four texts. No, five.
Tate: Jax not happy! You blew out his speakers? LOL!