Page 4 of Tutor With Benefits

Tori never does anything to draw attention to herself, so she’s easy to miss.

At least, I’m assuming she’s easy to miss. In all honesty, I have no idea if she’s even around most of the time. The more I think about her, the more I realize the only place I have seen her with any real consistency is chemistry class.

Either in the hall going to class, leaving class, or in class itself.

She never goes to parties. She’s rarely in the cafeteria. I have seen her in the rec hall once, but I got the impression from the way she was looking around that she was either there to meet someone, or she was just plain lost.

I didn’t care at the time, and I didn’t stop to ask.

“I don’t care if I have to start going from dorm to dorm knocking on doors until I find her,” Zach announces. “I’m not getting benched for the rest of the season, that’s for fucking sure.”

“Y0u coming?” I ask Taylor.

Zach just tossed the garbage from his lunch in the trash, and he’s now standing with me waiting for Taylor to make a decision.

“It’s not like we have many options here, is it?” He sighs. “Fine. But this better not become a thing. If my dad finds out I’m being tutored by some girl to get my grades up so I can stay on the team, he’s going to be pissed.”

“Just tell him you’re using the tutoring as a cover to get in her pants,” Zach says. “I’m sure he’d be proud of you for that. Probably did the same thing a time or two himself back in the day.”

“Is she hot enough for that?” Taylor replies.

I can’t answer that. Zach evidently can’t, either.

In all honesty, we don’t know how hot she is. I’ve never paid enough attention to her to figure that out. There’s always been another girl around who steals the show in the hot department, and she’s the one who gets my attention.

“Not like you have to show your dad who you’re fucking, right?” I ask. “And I think you’re putting too much thought into this anyway. Don’t you just tell your old man your grades are doing fine and leave it at that? That’s all I do.”

“Your parents don’t give a shit about you the way mine do about me,” Taylor says.

“Ouch,” I reply as Zach laughs.

“He’s not wrong,” Zach says. “Didn’t your parents like totally forget you in Paris once?”

“First of all, it was my mom and her boyfriend, so not my parents, and second of all, that was a different situation! I was like seven and wandered off from the boat we were supposed to get on,” I retort.

Both my friends laugh.

“Oh yeah, which boyfriend was that again? Not the guy she’s with right now, and who the fuck leaves a seven-year-old unsupervised when they’re about to get on some boat? Especially in a foreign country!”

“I don’t think you’ve got any room to talk here,” I tell Zach. “At least I know who my dad is!”

“Oh, burn!” Taylor chimes in. “I mean, sure, your dad ran off with a kid who was barely eighteen shortly after you were born, but at least you do have his first and last name, right?”

“Technically my mom had my last name changed to hers,” I snap.

“Who cares who my dad is?” Zach asks. “It’s not like I’m looking for him to teach me chemistry, am I? I just need to find someone to get my grades up, and I’ll be golden.”

The three of us walk outside and look around, scanning the faces of students who are walking nearby. There’s no sign of Tori anywhere.

“Okay, so let’s go with plan B,” Zach announces.

“I didn’t even realize we were working plan A,” I tell him.

“Shut up,” he tells me. “Maybe we don’t know shit about her or where she hangs out, but who are her friends? If we can track down someone who’s in her social group, we can make some progress, right? Track them down, figure out where she is or at least where she usually is, and go from there.”

It sounds like a good idea, but as he looks from me to Taylor and back, it’s clear none of us know who her friends are, either.

“Damn, is this chick even real?” Taylor asks. “How the fuck does she go to class, then just vanish? I don’t know who she hangs out with. I don’t know if she’s got a boyfriend. I don’t fucking know shit about her!”

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