Page 30 of Molly's Mr. Wrong
“Excellent strategy,” Molly murmured. Finn got to his feet while Denny grabbed his backpack and brought his paper up.
“I went through everything three times,” he said just for the hell of it. Denny shot him an unsmiling look, then lifted a hand in a salute before heading out of class. He hadn’t extended his middle finger, but Finn got the feeling he would have liked to.
Once he was gone, Finn nodded at his paper. “I, uh, noticed that my paper was different than Debra’s.”
Molly blinked at him. She didn’t look as if she’d purposely manipulated things to make him feel dumb or inadequate, but that had been what had happened. “I told you I was differentiating.”
“Which is another way of saying dumbing down.”
Molly leaned back against her desk, gripping it on either side of the skirt that perfectly outlined her thighs. “You’ll have to lose that attitude if we’re going to make progress. All I’m doing is adjusting the assignment so that you achieve the objectives in the most efficient manner.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. Fancy talk didn’t change the truth.
“Trust me, Finn.”
“Trust you.” He glanced down at the floor for a moment. He’d trusted her when she told him to come back to class. “I don’t like feeling stupid, Molly.”
“Then don’t. Feel like someone who learns differently.”
“How do you grade someone who learns differently?”
Molly wet her lips. “Differently.”
“That sounds like a replay of high school.” And damned if he was going to have that happen twice in his lifetime. Some people may be fine with being passed along, but he had his pride. Maybe too much pride.
“It isn’t.” Molly moved around the desk to the box she used to carry her paperwork. She dug through a couple folders, then pulled out a card. “I’ve written down the addresses of websites with special exercises I want you to work on.”
Finn took the card and studied it for a moment. “This will help.”
“You’re going to have to work harder than everyone else, but yes, I think it will help.”
“I want to come out of this with pretty much the same result as everyone else.”
“You will. It’s the workload I’m modifying, not the result. The way this works is that the in-class assignments are shorter, but you have to do this other work outside of class to compensate.”
She tilted her head at him. “Are you game?”
His gaze dropped down to her lips and Molly went still. When he met her eyes again, she was wearing a seriously wary expression.
“Are you?” she repeated. “Because I’m not going to do this extra work if you aren’t going to take advantage of it.”
Finn felt a twinge of shame. Yeah, she was doing extra work for him. “I’m game.”
“Good.” She cleared her throat and continued more briskly, back to full instructor mode. “Would it be possible for you to print out the results from the first two exercises and drop them by my office tomorrow, so I can assess before the next class?”
“I’ll see if I can do it at work.”
“Work. Right. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No. That’s okay. I’ll try to get it done.” He had more free time than he should have once Chase showed up for his afternoon shifts. Why not dive into his studies? Well, maybe not dive, but rather wade in slowly and try hard not to get knocked down by waves.
“My office hours are four to five, but if I’m not there or in the classroom, just slide the paper under the door.”
“Right.” He tucked the card in the folder he carried and started for the door.
“Finn.” He looked back. “You do understand that I wasn’t trying to make you feel inadequate. That would be...counterproductive.”
His mouth tightened. “Counterproductive. No. We wouldn’t want that.” He turned and walked back toward her, getting a measure of satisfaction out of the way her eyes widened ever so slightly. “Maybe I’m not so much concerned about inadequacy as the power dynamic.”
