Page 19 of Study Buddies

So yeah, maybe I should look at it. To show him that he can’t treat people this way.

Not because I wanted to see it.

Really.

I felt his gaze on me when I slid my hand forward. Heat filled my face as I dragged the phone over and picked it up. Turned it over. And swiped it open.

The messages between us popped up, and a half-second later, a picture. I stared at it for a long moment and then started laughing. I couldn’t stop, not even when the others at the table glared at me.

“This is the quiet room. Behave yourself.” Kyle’s loud whisper floated across the table and I without even looking, I knew it was accompanied by a smirk.

Kyle had sent me a dick pic all right—a picture of Dick Van Dyke fromMary Poppins. I met his eye and couldn’t help grinning.

Good one, Kyle.

Twenty minutes later,we were outside on the patio area so that we could talk. I scanned Kyle’s notebook, seeing what he’d done while we were inside “This part is okay. These first three bullet points. That’s a good plan to start with.” I frowned, my eyes sliding further down the page. “But this appears to be part of a grocery list. And that… what is that?” The rough sketch was of a very pretty woman.

He scooted closer, leaning over my shoulder. “Oh, that. She’s a character in a video game.”

I frowned. “She, um… what’s the point of having armor if it covers that little of her?”

Kyle shrugged. “Ask the game designers.”

“Whom I’m guessing are male?”

Kyle grinned and looked at his sketch again. “I think that’s a pretty safe bet.”

I sighed. “This isn’t working.”

He didn’t have to ask what I meant. “Agreed.”

“You’re not taking this seriously.”

“Also agreed.”

“But you should!”

“There’s where we’ll have to agree to disagree.” God, he was smug. And hot, with those gorgeous blue eyes that always seemed to be taunting me. But mostlysmugseemed to be his default setting.

“I’m serious. If you don’t turn in this paper, you’ll flunk the class for sure.”

“So?”

I wanted to shake him. “So then I’ll flunk, too!” I stood up and grabbed my phone off the table. “Stay here for a minute.”

“You’re so bossy.” He had the audacity to look amused. “Should I just sit here and think about what I’ve done?”

“Or what you haven’t done,” I practically growled. “You’ve got to get a laptop. You can’t write a paper without one.”

I stormed off before he could answer. Twenty yards away, I stopped, pacing under a huge oak tree next to the sidewalk. I had exactly one idea left to try to get Kyle to take his schoolwork seriously. My idea of taking him to study with others inside the union hadn’t been a bad one, but what I really wanted was to bring him to a study group like the one I attended on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Surely seeing how Lucas, Jayden,Roger, and Amanda buckled down and got to work might inspire him to do the same? But we’d never invited anyone new to the group. We’d only stuck with the members who were assigned to our cohort a year ago. Some people had dropped out since then, but no one new had joined.

I shouldn’t ask the others. It wasn’t fair to subject them to someone who might be completely disruptive. And I already owed Lucas and Jayden so much for letting me stay with them. But… I couldn’t think of anything else.

Wish a twinge of apprehension, I sent a message to the group chat asking if I could bring the guy I was tutoring to our meeting tonight.

I leaned against a railing, my eyes scanning the beautiful grounds of the quad while I waited. I let my gaze go in every direction except Kyle’s. Finally, my phone vibrated. Lucas and Roger had said that was okay with them. Amanda asked if he was cute. And Jayden hadn’t answered yet, but he seemed the least likely to mind.

Pocketing my phone, I looked back to where Kyle was seated. At least he hadn’t wandered off. That was something. He looked up when I neared and held out his notebook. Fearing there might be another sketch of a woman with even larger breasts, I was a bit apprehensive at first. But no, he’d added two more bullet points to his outline.

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