Page 4 of The Study Session

CHAPTER THREE

The café on campus is busier than I would like, but I force the useless din out of my head as I stab my fork into my salad. The prongs pierce a cherry tomato and juice oozes from the small holes as I violently bring it to my mouth and bite into it.

“We're going to have to call a crime scene analyst to deal with your salad by the looks of it,” Rowen says, staring at me with one eyebrow raised. Her arms are folded across each other on the table as she watches me curiously.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, dropping my fork in the salad bowl.

She takes a sip of her chai latte and shrugs. “The way you're violently eating tells me something has to be bothering you. What is it?”

I take a deep breath and tap my fingers nervously on my knee, not knowing how to explain this to her. All of it seems a little silly looking at it objectively. I don't know Jax from Adam, and he thinks he has some say in who I spend my time with. It's preposterous. So much so it's borderline comical to me.

But something about his protectiveness stirs in my chest, and I find myself intrigued. Replaying what happened on the field yesterday only makes it more confusing. He attacked Gerard outof nowhere. I don't know a lot of the other guys on the team aside from Sawyer and Talon, but Gerard has never been anything but kind. He's huge and terrifying, but he's a gentle giant. I can't imagine a world where he did something to provoke Jax the way he did.

That's not even mentioning Jax's friends coming to support him. Something about the way his friend looked at me, piecing together Jax's feelings about me, sent shivers down my spine. It scared me. Jax scared me.

“I'm not so sure I want to help Jax catch up on his English assignments anymore,” I finally say, shaking my head slowly as my blond hair rustles against my back. “I think he's bad news. With what happened yesterday at practice and seeing his friends pull him away the way they did... I just don't feel comfortable being around him.”

“Has he said anything to you specifically to make you uncomfortable?” Rowen asks, narrowing her eyes protectively as she leans forward to hang on my words without thinking.

I hesitate to respond for a moment, not sure how she will take what I say. Rowen used to be my roommate before she moved out to live with Sawyer, but I still consider her my best friend. If she thought Jax was going to do something to upset me, she would tell Sawyer in an instant, and she would sic him on Jax.

“He saw me talking to Ben at practice, and that set him off. He told me not to talk to him anymore,” I admit, wrinkling my eyes at how ridiculous it sounds.

Rowen's mouth hangs open for a second, and she leans back, shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh, so he's into you then?”

Hearing her say it, having another person confess to having the same thought as I do, is weirdly validating. I will admit that a part of me is turned on by the idea of Jax being as protective as he is. There's something attractive about that. But even if avery minuscule part of myself is attracted to that, I know he's bad news. I spend a lot of time studying, dedicating myself to my extracurriculars, and really trying to prepare myself for a life outside of college. Jax does none of that. He has football, and that's all he cares about. He and I are opposites, and I'm not interested in the problems that will bring me.

“I don't know if that's the case,” I say, immediately rejecting the idea and sipping my iced green tea just to keep myself busy so she can't read my face.

“Come on, what are those oversized glasses for?” Rowen asks, laughing under her breath as she points at my thick frames. Instinctively, I push them up and roll my eyes at her. “You've seen how hot he is. All of us have. You can't tell me there isn't a little part of you excited by the idea of tutoring the bad boy.”

“Trust me, there isn't.” It's an obvious lie, but Rowen doesn't point that out. “For my own safety, if there's anything else you've heard about him, I would appreciate it if you told me. It's probably best if your best friend doesn't get killed by a Glendale lunatic.”

“You’ve probably learned more about him than any of us at this point.” Rowen shrugs, sitting back and eyeing me curiously. “All Sawyer knows about him is that he is a little bit aggressive, which isn't a surprise to any of us. Apparently, he's friends with a pretty bad crowd in Glendale. Coach Emerson saw him play and knew he needed Jax on our team, so he convinced the dean to offer him a pretty lucrative scholarship to transfer here.”

I can't help but roll my eyes. Yet another reason to dislike Jax. I had to work so hard in high school to get any scholarships. My family did not have any means to pay for my college education, so I will be in considerable debt for the foreseeable future to be here. The fact that someone like Jax, who doesn't even care about academics, is offered a scholarship to come here just because of football is infuriating.

But at the same time, knowing that scholarship is the main reason he came here, that might force him to be on his best behavior from here on out. I may not have as much to worry about in our study sessions as I thought.

The alarm on my phone vibrates, and I quickly turn it off, reading study Jax on the alarm name. “Duty calls,” I say, standing and hugging Rowen goodbye before grabbing my drink and lunch to go.

Of course, Jax isn't in the study room when I get there, but he arrives only a few minutes after me. I can't help but raise my eyebrows in surprise.

“You're only two minutes late this time,” I say, smiling at him.

“What can I say, I couldn't wait to see you,” Jax replies, sitting down across from me and smiling. He pulls out his notebooks from his bag and sets them down on the table. He grabs a pen, prepared to work.

This side of Jax is new to me. I'm surprised he even owns a pencil.

“Did you bring your textbook?” I ask, seeing him set his backpack on the floor beside him. He shakes his head, and I'm not surprised. “Okay, I'll share.”

I nod to the empty seat beside me, and he walks around the table to join me. He sits down and spreads his legs wide, bumping into my knee slightly. There's no doubt in my mind that it's intentional. Even if he is here to study now, he still wants to see me flustered.

We begin our lesson, going over the first chapter of the textbook. There are a few short stories printed within it. We’re supposed to look for common themes and tropes to discuss. I explain the difference between those two things for Jax as he reads over the stories, and I search through my notebook for my own homework responses.

“I'm not sure what this question is asking,” Jax says, pointing at something in the question and answer section of the textbook.

I set my notebook aside and lean toward him to read over what it says. When I get close enough, he moves the textbook aside slightly, forcing me to look up, and I fully intend to roll my eyes. Instead, his hand reaches for the side of my face as he cups it, pulling me closer to him.

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