Page 3 of Tutoring the Bad Boy
“Great,” she says as she leans over her desk, scribbling something on one of her sticky notes before handing it to me. “That’s the name of the student. I told him I’d have someone get in touch with him as soon as I could.”
A few students trickle in, and I fold the note. “Great. I’ll get it set up as soon as possible.” I smile.
The glint in Mrs. Yate’s eyes turns devilish. “I can’t wait to hear how it goes.”
I walk to my seat as more students come in. When Mrs. Yates is distracted by two guys rough-housing, I take the note and open it.
Oh. Crud.
Kaleb Quinn.
I’m so dead.
Chapter Two
Kaleb
I snatchthe keys off the counter. “Yeah, Dad, I’ll be back before ten.” Way before ten, but I like to make him sweat just a little.
My dad turns on his heels and faces me. “I mean it, Kaleb. I bailed you out, but you have a curfew now. It’s Thursday and a school night. One minute after nine, and you’re looking at military school. You’re lucky you aren’t in jail this time, and lucky the judge owed me a favor.”
More like my dad wants to make sure I’ll be able to follow in his footsteps. “I was there, Dad. I think I remember.”
After talking to that college recruiter two days ago, I need to shape up despite the intense desire to stick it to my dad. I turned eighteen four weeks ago, and that magical number changes things. Arrests, warrants, jail time—all those things add up now. If I really want to be an architectural engineer, I need to keep my nose clean and my eyes on the prize.
At no point in my life did I want to be a lawyer. The only reason I’ve made it my mission to get into trouble is to make it impossible for me to get my license. Maybe that way my dad will get off my back. It’s a fine line that I balance. Keeping myself out of enough trouble to really hold me back and getting into enough that my dad’s law-school dreams are crushed.
“Kaleb, I’m not the bad guy here. I know law isn’t your favorite thing, but I thought…I thought you’d keep an open mind. That was what we agreed to. I’d keep an open mind about architectural engineering, and you’d keep an open mind about law school.”
“Only, you didn’t keep an open mind. You slammed a fist down and decided for me. I don’t want to go to law school. I’ve never been interested, and as much as you want me to do it, I can’t.”
My dad swears under his breath. “We come from a long line—”
“And it dies with me,” I say as I snatch the back door open and slam it behind me. Not that I’m trying to be dramatic, but I’ve got a tutoring session in Groves, twenty-minutes north of Port Crest, with Ginny Gray.
Color me shocked.
I laugh as I get in the car and start it up, catching the ocean waves in the rearview mirror as I back out of the driveway. Before my mom left, I loved the beach. Now it’s only a reminder that just because things look nice doesn’t mean they are.
It’s taken a week for Ginny’s schedule to open enough to tutor me. Ginny Gray tutoring me? The words scroll through my brain, and I still can’t believe it. And I’m meeting her at the library the next town over? What sort of lie has she sold her mom? It has to be a lie, because there is no way her mom would be cool with Ginny being anywhere near my gravity. Which is fine by me. The only thing my parents’ divorce taught me was that relationships aren’t worth my time.
They started fighting just as I reached seventh grade. By the time I reached eighth, even hiding in my closet, I could still hear them screaming at each other. That was around the time things began changing for me too. I didn’t want everyone to know my life was falling apart and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Most of the friendships I had dried up. Looking back, I can’t blame them. The tension between my parents was rubbing off on me, and I did my fair share of yelling too. Even when I had no reason to.
I’m surprised Mrs. Yates pulled this off, but knowing the tension between her and the principal, most likely my Shakespeare Studies teacher saw it as a way to stick it to Ginny’s mom.
The last screaming match they got into carried through the whole school, and those who couldn’t hear it heard about it from those who were eyewitnesses. From what I understood, tickets could’ve been sold and the new football stadium would’ve been paid in full twice over.
My thoughts wander from there to the college recruiter, my dad, my future, and the fact that I’m tired of feeling like wanting a life of my own is a bad thing. By the time I’m parking my car, I’m agitated and in no mood to be tutored. Except, that’s the reason I’m here, so I need to push through it and just deal.
Only, with every footstep, I’m even more frustrated. Why should Ginny need to hide the fact that she’s tutoring me? Wouldn’t that be a plus for me? Wouldn’t her mom, a principal, be thrilled that a student was taking interest in their future and trying to do better? Wouldn’t turning a problem child into a star pupil be great for her resume? I mean, I’ve gone from barely passing to acing all my classes but this one.
When I reach the door, I’m furious. This chick has me pegged, does she? Well, let’s just see how well Ginny handles the bad boy. If that’s what I am, then that’s what I’ll be. I’m a degenerate, right? I’m going to make the volleyball queen bee shake in her shoes.
The door swishes closed behind me, and the smell of stale books makes me sneeze. I may as well have been in a Kit-Kat commercial. Every person in the vicinity turns to stare at me.
And then I lock eyes with Ginny standing across the room, and my fury fades. She was one of those eighth-grade friendships that I blew up, but with the way her mom is now, we probably wouldn’t be friends anyway.
Up to this point, I’ve steered clear of her. There are girls who are off-limits, and then there are girls like Ginny. She’s not just off-limits, she’s got landmines, grenades, live ammo, and barbed wire with steel girded bunkers—or whatever military thing they call it—positioned all around her.
