“Since we’re pressed for time, do you want to listen to it before you take your quiz? You can speed the time up if you want. That way, we’ll have a good hour or more to spend on the essay.”
“That would work, but there’s no audio file for that story,” I say. That’s why I didn’t read it, but I keep that detail to myself.
Josie stands and rounds the table to take the seat next to me. She’s keeping her eyes on my laptop, like looking at me might turn her to stone. “Can I show you something?” she asks, daring to look in my direction.
“Sure,” I say, sliding my laptop over a few inches. She taps away and a few minutes later, she hands my computer back.
“I downloaded an extension. It’s an immersive reader. It will read you the text. It’s not perfect, by any stretch. Sometimes it can’t distinguish between titles and captions. It just depends on the original file. But a lot of students find it really helpful. It can be a huge time saver.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, grateful, once again. She’s a good tutor, no doubt, but I just wish she’d look at me for more than two seconds or let me say ten words that aren’t about my courses. But that’s not likely. Josie the Tutor is all about business. And this text reader will definitely help. There’s an app on my phone that reads everything to me—texts, reminders, even social media posts. I never knew I could use the same kind of thing for my classes.
I listen to the story and it’s actually not bad. I’m never sure why English profs only assign books and stories where everybody dies at the end, but this was all right. And two people lived, so…yay? I finish my quiz and then let the reader thing that Josie installed read another story. That’s the one I actually did read by myself, but I didn’t get it at all, which is probably why I bombed the test.
I make it to the part where the lady finds out her husband’s dead, and that’s when I really lock in. This is the part that confused me before. But just as I’m listening to an automated voice deliver the bad news, I hear a giggle.
And it’s one I know well. Or at least I used to, anyway.
I look up to see Josie staring at her phone, suppressing more laughter. When she sees me, her cheeks turn red, and her phone ends up face down on the table. We both get back to work, but a few minutes later, I hear a nearly silent notification and see a smile bloom on her face when she peeks at her phone.
I know that smile. I remember it well. It’s the smile that comes right before she cracks up. It’s the smile I got when I told her about a prank we pulled at an away game or something ridiculous that my teammates did.
It’s my smile.
And she’s giving it to him.
It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. It’s been three years, so it’s no wonder Josie’s moved on. And I know she deserves to be happy—nobody deserves that more than Josie Reynolds. But it fucking sucks that it’s with Kyle. Fucking Kyle…It’s like there’s an angel on one of my shoulders and a devil on the other. The angel is telling me to get the fuck over it (and yes, they have potty mouths. These angels play hockey.) because whoever’s warming Josie’s bed these days is none of my business. It hasn’t been for a damn long time. But the devil on my other shoulder? Oh, he’s a defenseman for sure. A total enforcer. And he thinks Kyle’s afucking douchecanoe who’s not fit to hold Josie’s library books, let alone hold her. Or make her ache with need. Make her—No. No, I am not doing this. Not now, and sure as hell not here. I need to focus. I have a story to figure out and a paper to write. It’s hard enough for my brain to unscramble the letters and make them stick even in the best of times. But with my dick so hard I could pound nails, it’s gonna be damn near impossible.
Shaking my head, I will my erection down. I’m rattling off stats from the Flyers’ 2009-2010 season. Just when I think I have a chance of chilling out and attempting to answer the rest of the questions, her phone buzzes again. She sneaks a glance and bites her lip to hold back a laugh.
And that’s when I know I’m fucked.
It’s bad enough I can’t make any sense of the words in front of me.
It’s bad enough that there are freaking fifth graders who can read better and faster than I can.
It’s bad enough that my inability in the classroom is about to keep me off the ice.
And it’s bad enough that the only person on campus who can get me through this semester is the girl whose heart I broke three years ago. The girl who haunts my fucking dreams and stars in my dirtiest fantasies.
But she’s sitting here, tutoring me, and texting that asshole?
Fuck that. If Josie wants to be all cool and professional and pretend like we’ve never met? Fine, I can too.
Josie catches me looking at her and slides her phone back into her bag. “Are you ready to work on the paper?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “But I can wait. You looked pretty busy there on your phone.”
She blushes, but meets my gaze. “I’m sorry about that. It’s unprofessional and it won’t happen again. It’s just that?—”
“I just want to write this paper, ok?” I say, cutting her off.
“Of course. I’m not sure what kind of outline you typically use, but I typed one up quickly and put it in our shared folder. That way, you can access it any time and you can drop documents there if you want my feedback.”
“Sounds good.”
She’s fiddling with one of the rings on her finger, twisting it around and around and I know she’s getting a little unsettled, but maybe she should tell her boyfriend she’s got a fucking job to do. “Okay, so let’s take a look at the prompt. You’re looking for all the ways that the main character was glad to be free of her husband.”
We both stare at our screens for a few minutes. I know Josie’s waiting on me, but I’m lost. That lady’s husband died. And she had a heart attack because she was so sad about it. So…how the hell am I going to write this paper?
