Page 106 of Spearcrest Knight

“I don’t know, help me! Be my wingman or whatever.”

“How so?”

I throw my hands up in a helpless gesture. “Fuck, I don’t know! Just try to explain to her she made a mistake, that I do care about my tutoring and that—and that—”

“Let me make one thing clear: my priority in those sessions is the actual tutoring. Your pitiful love dealings are very much secondary to my goals.”

“You don’t even need tutoring!” I glare at him. “I swear you’re one of the best students in the class.”

“I’m notthebest, though,” Zachary says, looking away with a sniff.

My eyes narrow as I draw closer, peering at him. “Is this about Theodora?”

Zachary clears his throat and flushes ever so slightly. On a normal person, it would be barely noticeable, but since Zachary is about as emotionless and unshakeable as a robot made from titanium, it becomes immediately obvious this subject matter is of great embarrassment to him.

“Oh God—so because of your weird obsession with Theodora you get to keep Sophie to yourself and not even help me get her back?”

“Evan,” Zachary says, completely deadpan, “she’s tutoring me in English, not getting married to me.”

“I know.” I drop my head into my hands. “But at least it’s an excuse to see her. I don’t even have that anymore, and we’re more than halfway through the year! I’m running out of fucking time.”

Zachary hesitates then relents. “Why don’t you drop me off at the next session before you go to yours?”

I raise my head. “And then what?”

“And then… I don’t know. Just say something nice to her, and then leave. Like this, you get to see her, and she still gets the space she clearly needs from you.”

I tap my chin, thinking about his proposal. “It’s actually not a bad idea. Maybe I do need to give her space. She did tell me to stay out of her life.”

“Oh, she did?”

I groan. “Ugh, she did. And I told her I liked her.”

Zachary’s eyebrows shoot up. “You did?”

“Yeah.”

“She told you to get out of her life and so you decided to tell her you like her?”

“No, the opposite.”

“You said you like her and then she told you to get out of her life?” Zachary pulls a face. “That’s cold, even for her.”

“Well, no. I said I like her, and then I said I could have any girl. Then she said: good, have every girl you want and stay out of my life.”

Zachary rubs his face with a long-suffering sigh. “Why are you like this?”

“If you were there, you’d understand! It was so fucking stressful. I basically completely opened myself up to her and put my cards on the table and then she looked down at my cards and tossed them right off the table! She told me she despises me. She didn’t even address the fact I like her, as if my feelings don’t count because I’m me. What was I going to do, beg?”

“Beg is certainly what you’ll end up having to do if you keep fucking things up this spectacularly.”

“I’m not going to beg,” I snap, glaring at Zachary.

He smirks. “You weren’t going to apologise either, remember?”

“Apologising and begging are two completely different things.”

“Right. Well, time will tell, won’t it?”

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