Chapter 161 Chapter One Hundred And Sixty One
LENA'S POV
“This is impossible.”
I stared down at Jace's notebook in complete disbelief, flipping through page after page of incorrect equations.
Every single one of them was wrong, and not just slightly off either but so far off the right answer that it had to be intentional.
"They're all wrong," I said flatly.
"Fuck!" Jace slammed his pen down on the desk hard enough to make me jump. "Alright, I can't do this anymore. I give up."
"No, no, no need to be frustrated." I reached for the giant bowl of chips he'd brought up from the kitchen earlier, after we’d gotten maybe three hours into the session, “I kind of expected this judging by how little you came to class last semester. It’s not the end of the world."
I crunched into a chip while he took a long pull from the soda we'd been sharing, his lips wrapping around the same straw I'd just been using.
Don’t think about his mouth. Do not think about his mouth. I thought frantically.
He’d told me there was only one can of Diet Coke left in the fridge downstairs, and so we would have to split it, but somehow I didn’t believe him.
"What happened, Jace? Did you not get it right the first few times I explained it to you?" I grabbed the straw from him and took my own sip, trying to focus.
I shook my head, feeling frustrated with myself for failing him, "Maybe I didn't simplify it well enough? Or maybe I should've used more examples..."
Jace's jaw was clenched tight, his hands balled into fists on the desk. He wouldn't look at me; instead, he just stared at the pages of wrong answers as though they'd personally betrayed him.
His shoulders were hunched and defensive, and I could see the muscle ticking in his jaw.
"Hey." I touched his arm gently. "Let me help you, okay? I have faith in you, and there's absolutely no way I'm letting you leave here today without getting at least one thing correct."
He made a frustrated sound low in his throat.
I looked at him solemnly, trying to get as much conviction into my voice as possible. "You'll be good at this, I promise you that. Otherwise, I'll give up my tutor license."
"There's no such thing as a tutor license," Jace muttered, but some of the tension left his shoulders.
"Yeah, but still—"
"What's the fucking point?" He pushed away from the desk abruptly, standing and pacing to his bed. "Seriously, Lena. Put those books down and come to bed with me."
Heat flooded my face and I shrank back away from him. "No. There's no way we're doing that again, and I've told you, so stop asking."
He grabbed a football from beside his bed and started spinning it on his index finger around and around in a perfectly balanced circle.
I blinked. There used to be a time when I understood basically nothing about football, but even then I still had to admit there was something strangely attractive about him being so... Athletic.
I mean, it was either that or I was losing my mind.
Focus. Math. Tutoring. Not on his hands, and definitely not how good he looks doing that.
"Then can we at least move to a different subject?" He gestured at the pile of textbooks with his free hand while keeping the ball spinning. "Anything at all has to be better than this."
"Take this seriously," I said firmly.
"What do you mean take this seriously? Do you see me laughing here?" He stopped spinning the ball to look at me, and his expression was genuinely frustrated, maybe even a little hurt. “I'm trying, Lena. I'm actually fucking trying, but I still can't get it right. Not everyone has to be good at math, okay?”
I softened slightly. "Hm. No, I guess not. But you still have to know enough about it to get a decent grade."
"I bet you would suck too if today was your first day learning to play football." He started spinning the ball again, faster this time.
What a showoff, I thought to myself, rolling my eyes but unable to stop the heat rising on my cheeks.
God, why is that hot? Why is everything he does hot?
I blinked hard, forcing myself back to reality. "But it's not your first time doing math."
"You know what I mean." He caught the ball and held it against his hip. "It's my first time actually giving a shit, and only because of you."
I felt a warm affectionate feeling bloom softly in my chest, so dangerous and yet so sweet.
"How come Martin does really well at math?" I mused under my breath, more to myself than to him.
"I tried to pick the easy ones for you, just as, you know, practice. Maybe I should try a different math textbook. Or I think there are fun math games you can play if you need to..." I pulled out my phone, already searching for educational apps. "Oh, let me check—"
Jace groaned and reached over to snatch the phone from my hand.
"Hey!" I yelled.
He tossed it onto his bed, well out of my reach. "I hate being compared to other people, Lena. Even my own brother. So stop that."
His voice was tight. "And seriously, we have plenty of time to go over this some other time. It doesn’t all have to be today."
"No, we can't procrastinate this." I stood, facing him. "It's a bad habit to have, and before you know it, one day leads to another and time's up. Finals will be here before we know it."
I shook my head. "No. There has to be another way to get you to learn this."
There had to be, I prided myself on being the best tutor I knew, it was my job to get him to understand this just like all my other students.
I'd done it for his brother, and now I had to do it for him too.
Whatever it takes, Lena, I thought to myself.
We both reached for the chip bowl at the same time, me to stress eat, him probably just to annoy me.
Our fingers brushed, creating a spark of contact that sent electricity shooting up my arm.
"Unless..." A brilliant, possibly completely insane idea was forming in my head.
"Unless what?" Jace's eyes were fixed on where our hands had touched.
I grinned slowly, my mind racing. "I get the feeling that you actually understand this perfectly, and all of this is just some big plot to get me to give up so we can do what you want.”
I continued, glaring at him with suspicion, “I think you're getting the math problems wrong on purpose because you're bored and you hate math.”
His expression went carefully blank. "I'm not admitting to anything without my lawyer present."
"But I know how I can get you to concentrate." I crossed my arms, my grin widening. "All good tutors know the best way to get a student to learn something is to incentivize them."
He raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing at his lips. "This will be fun to hear. Good luck convincing me to do anything I don't want to do."
"I don't need luck," I said confidently, even though my heart was starting to race. "Because I have the perfect proposal."
"Which is?" He turned and gave me his full attention, so intense it made my heart flutter and my knees go weak.
I took a breath, now committing to the idea before I could second-guess myself and chicken out of it.
"For every math problem you get correct," I said slowly, "you get one kiss."
The football fell out of Jace's hands and hit the floor with a dull thud.
He stared at me, his body completely frozen, his expression going from shock, to disbelief, "Are you serious right now?"
"Yes."
"You know you can't take that back, right?" He came even closer to me, and the air between us felt charged with electricity. "Once you make that deal, it's binding."
Oh God. What have I done?
Only then did I realize what sort of trap I'd laid for myself. My brilliant plan suddenly seemed less brilliant and more like I'd just handed him exactly what he wanted on a silver platter.
"But… but you have a time limit!" I added quickly, scrambling to add conditions. "One hour on the clock for the entirety of chapter seven. And you can't fail more than half, or no deal." I pointed at him. "Also, you can't use your phone to look up answers either."
Jace looked at me, really looked at me, his eyes going dark with determination and a sharp frightening look. That wicked grin spread across his face slowly, "Prepare to lose, princess."
He walked to his desk with purpose, cracked his knuckles, grabbed his pen, and pulled the textbook toward him and I realized I had never seen him apply that kind of concentration to schoolwork before.
What have I done? What have I just done?
"Timer starts now, right?" he asked, already scanning the first problem. “Say when.”
My hands shook slightly as I pulled out my phone, the one he'd tossed on the bed, and set a thirty-minute timer.
"Ready?" I asked, my heart going a mile a minute.
"Born ready." He didn't even look up once.
I hit start.
And watched in growing horror and fascination as Jace Dawson; chronic underachiever, the guy who'd failed half his classes last semester transformed into someone I barely recognized.
His pen moved across the page with confidence, his brow furrowed in concentration, and he worked through the first problem methodically, only stopping to check his work before moving right on to the second.
Oh no.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
He was actually doing it.
And if he succeeded...
I was in so much trouble.