Page 3 of Tutor With Benefits

“She probably sucked his dick to get him to agree to it,” Cory says.

“With those teeth? I’d be scared she’d bite the thing off if I was him,” I say.

Now that I’m pissed off with the situation, I’m going to find everything I can to knock her down. Not to her face, of course, but who needs to do that when you’ve got friends like mine?

We put our conversation on hold for the moment as we make our way through the line at the cafeteria. It’s faster to get through when we’re not talking, and I don’t really want to spread the rumor that we’re flunking off the team anyway. This can wait until we’re seated at a table.

“Bottom line is we’ve got to figure out something, or the entire team’s fucked,” I continue once all three of us have settled in with our food. “You know we’re the ones championing the whole team to the playoffs, and if the three of us aren’t allowed to play, we might as well kiss that trophy goodbye.”

“Fuck, man.” Taylor shakes his head. “I’d say let’s just fucking suck it up and do it, but I’m at a loss. How the fuck are we going to drag our grades up, and in just three weeks, too? It’s not like she didn’t know this was coming and could have given us a bit more time first.”

“And it’s not like this is new, either,” Cory agrees. “I don’t know about you two, but my grades have sucked ass in this fucking class since the first of the year. Chemistry was never my thing, which is why I flunked my way through it in high school.”

“I thought I was done with worrying about grades the day I graduated that hellhole,” I said. “I figured we’d be rocking it out on the ice, so fuck what we got in the classroom. There’s so many schools out there that pass their star players just for the sake of how good they are for the team. Since when did they change that policy for the bullshit way of doing things now?”

“I don’t know that it did change,” Taylor says. “I think we were just duped into coming to the school that has one of the stricter way of doing things.”

“Fuck that and fuck this place!” Cory announces.

The three of us fall silent as we continue with lunch, though our minds are all on the same thing. We have to figure out a way to get our grades up, and fast. Three weeks isn’t that much time, and to me it feels as though my entire hockey career is on the line right now.

“She did say we could get someone to tutor us,” Taylor says.

“Yeah, but who’s going to do that?” Cory asks. “I don’t know about you, but it’s not like we’re very good friends with any of the losers who are in that class.”

He’s not wrong. The kids who are doing well in that class are the kids that we tend to either make fun of or ignore altogether. The nerds who just seem to know what that fucking book is talking about and how shit works together to either give the right answers in class, or to pass the tests.

“Too bad there isn’t a chick in there who’s like, wicked smart,” Taylor says. “I don’t mind going to a girl for help as much as I would going to one of those dweeby guys who sits in the front of the class.”

As soon as he says the words, it’s as though a lightbulb goes off in all our heads.

We all exchange a look at the same time, and I know my two friends are thinking the same thing I am. There is, actually, a girl in class who has been doing a great job all year. She’s always got the right answer, but she’s easy to forget about since she doesn’t do a thing to stand out from the rest of the crowd.

I haven’t seen her at a single party all year, and I really don’t remember seeing her in the halls after class, either.

“Tori’s doing well,” I say. “Really well, from what I recall.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Taylor says, and Cory agrees.

“But where the fuck is she?” I ask, looking around the cafeteria. “Was she even in class today?”

Perhaps thinking of her as forgettable is an understatement. I don’t even know if she went to class today because I was too busy checking out Lindsey’s side boob and silently praying I wouldn’t get called on by the professor.

Tori strikes me as one of those good girls, though, so it’s pretty likely she was in class. She just didn’t draw attention to herself, as always, and who the fuck knows where she’s run off to now.

Both my friends shake their heads. They don’t know if she was there, either.

But we are all in agreement over one thing:

Tori’s our ticket out of this mess.

TWO

CORY

“Come on, guys, think,” I tell my two friends as I pick up my tray and head for the garbage. “Where the fuck have you seen her outside of chemistry class?”

Their expressions are just as blank as my mind.

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