Page 29 of The Captain

“How did you get that?”

She blinked at me. “I asked.”

“Yeah, but I asked Ma—”

“Mary? Yeah, no, I asked the professor directly. Asking your slam piece is not only unappealing but not going to get you very far.”

I clenched my teeth. “She’s not my slam piece. I don’t talk about women that way.”

This put a little prick in Cassie’s side, and I could tell she felt bad for referring to another girl like that. “Sorry. I meant I wasn’t about to ask your girlfriend for a favor when professors don’t mind talking to tutors. They want to give their students the best shot they can. Well, most of them do anyway,” she said with a frown as she thought about that.

I cleared my throat, gathering her attention. “First of all, this is awesome. Thank you for getting that.” I nodded at the paper and didn’t tease her for the tinge of red on her cheeks. “Second, Mary was a one-time thing. We both agreed to that, she caught feelings, and I let her down as easy as I could.”

“How generous of you.”

I could feel my back teeth grinding. “Sunshine, how am I supposed to go about that when she caught feelings I never could catch?”

“How do you know you could never catch them? You didn’t try.”

I could tell the moment the words left her mouth she regretted it, but I didn’t pull at that string.

“I know because I know myself. I’m not catching feelings for anyone right now.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

Obviously, she didn’t believe me, but that was okay.

“I—”

“Let’s get to work, okay? We don’t need to talk about your…extra activities.”

I gripped the pencil in my hand and sat back, gesturing to her to go ahead, and for the next forty-five minutes, we worked through what she thought my next assignment would be. A whole lot of writing that would drive me insane.

“I hate writing,” I said, rubbing a hand over my head.

“Yes, I know. But you have to.”

“Can’t I just give you the words and you write it for me?” I knew I shouldn’t have said that, but it was worth the shot.

Cassie glared at me. “No. I have enough on my plate.”

Guilt ate at me. Here she was, giving me her time—getting paid, but still—and I was trying to make her life harder. I didn’t want to do that.

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” I said, even as the thought of writing this whole fucking paper made my anxiety swirl in my gut.

Cassie’s mom was getting overwhelmed, so she popped up to bus some tables and get people their late-night coffees. It was five minutes, then ten, then twenty, before I decided to get up and help.

I started clearing tables, setting the busing bins on the counter for the people in back. Marie smiled at me and thanked me for helping, and I nodded my head at her, my eyes straying back to Cassie.

I wasn’t doing this to impress her. I wasn’t even sure she noticed I got up, but I realized as I was cleaning and refilling coffees that I did want to impress her. That’s a feeling I never thought I’d have again.

She was standing at a table of guys our age, laughing carelessly with them while she took their order, and I ground my teeth at the thought of her flirting with them. Before I knew what I was doing, I marched up behind her and growled in her ear, “We’re supposed to be studying.” Somehow, my hand ended up on her hip, and Cassie turned to me in surprise.

The guys at the table looked on in amusement, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anyone but her, and the look she gave me could have killed me on the spot.

I didn’t care about that either.

“Lincoln, I’m taking their order,” she ground out under her breath, those cheeks of hers flushed with a gorgeous pink.

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