Page 7 of Tutor With Benefits

We leave the library and head straight to the address Haley gave us, knocking on the door with more enthusiasm than is needed. But, by now we are eager to get to talk to Tori, and hopefully figure out a time when she might be able to help us.

To our relief, Tori opens the door. But she immediately assumes we’re here for Anna.

“Anna’s not home right now,” she says. “She went to the mall with some friends. I don’t know when she’s going to be back.”

“That’s fine,” I tell her. “We’re here to see you.”

“Why?” Tori asks, immediately suspicious.

“Well, to make a long story short, you’re really good in chemistry, and we were hoping you might be able to help us out with our grades,” I say with a smile.

“You mean you want me to tutor you?” she asks, looking from one of us to the other. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, no, no,” we all say.

“It’s just that you’re really smart, and we figured if there’s anyone who might be able to give us a hand, it would be you,” Taylor tries.

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” she says.

Before any of us have the chance to ask her why not, she closes the door in our faces.

“And that was a bust,” Taylor says.

“Fuck!” Zach smacks his hand against the side of the building. “We’re fucked!”

“Calm down,” I tell him. “This isn’t over. We’ll figure out something.”

“Like what?” he snaps.

But I don’t have an answer. I’m trying to come up with some way to get Tori to change her mind, but I don’t know why she said no in the first place. Deep down, I have to agree with Zach.

We are fucked.

THREE

TORI

“Hold on, let me get this straight. You’re telling me Zach, Cory, and Taylor, the three hottest guys on the hockey team, showed up on our doorstep earlier to ask you to tutor them in chemistry?” Anna asks, repeating what I’ve just spent the past five minutes explaining to her. “You’re shitting me.”

I’m on the phone with Anna, my roommate, walking toward one of the most popular diners on campus. I don’t really want to leave the dorm tonight, but I don’t have the extra money to blow on having food delivered, and I don’t want to waste time going to the store to grab something to make myself.

Besides, the burger and fry deal they have every night is a steal, really making it justifiable for me to take the time to walk over and grab the food.

I’m already planning on doing what I usually do when I show up at the diner.

I’ll grab my order, duck through the crowd to find one of the two-tops closer to the exit, and spend the entire time staring at my phone.

“Nope,” I say. “I thought they were there for you when I first opened the door, but they jumped right into what they wanted, saying they were there because they wanted to ask me to tutor them in chemistry because they’ve noticed I’m doing better in the class than they are or something.”

“Why would they want me?” Anna asks. “Also do you know what happened to the fry sauce we had in the fridge?”

She arrived home shortly after I left, which was why she called me in the first place. I figured she was going to eat while at the mall, so I didn’t wait for her to get back before leaving to get something at the diner myself.

“That one that was expired?” I ask. “I tossed it last week. It had green stuff growing on the bottom.”

“Guess I shoulda figured that with you being so good at chemistry,” she laughs.

I chuckle, then address her first question. “I just figured they were wanting to see you since you’re the one who’s social. I barely even look up from my books when I’m in class, so I didn’t even consider they’d want to see me.”

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