Page 1 of F*ckin' With Me
College Days
Daylen watched as Simonette graded his practice test. She had been his tutor since the middle of his junior year, when his grades dipped a little lower than his coaches would have liked. He was at risk of losing his full-ride scholarship and his place on a division-one team. The school couldn’t have that. They enlisted Simonette, who had a perfect grade point average. She was the top choice for all the coaches at Augusta University when it came to tutoring their players. She didn’t mind, because she made great work-study money from it.
She had worked hard with Daylen on multiple subjects, but math seemed to be one of his enemies. They spent extra timeon that subject, as they should have. His scores increased by the assignments and tests. Daylen couldn’t comprehend why he needed math credits when his major was communications.
With a final check of his work, Simonette’s head lifted to show her beautiful smile. She was a gorgeous girl, invisible on campus because of her frumpy and quiet demeanor. Last year, a person literally sat on her. The most embarrassing part was that the person apologized, then proceeded to ask her if she would move so he and his friends could sit together. Like the timid recluse that she was, she moved.
“Out of twenty-five problems, you only got three wrong,” she told him with a bright smile. She was proud of him. Two months before, it would have been the other way around. He would have only gotten three correct.
Daylen pushed his seat back. “Fuck yeah! A nigga’s on now.” Thank God they were in a private room in the study part of the library.
“I can show you where you messed up in your work. Your work for the problem started correctly, but one mistake took you down the wrong road.” She pushed the paper toward the center of the table and turned it at an angle he could see.
“Yeah, let’s do that. Professor Conners said I need at least an eighty-three to pass.” He sat down and looked at the score that Simonette placed on the top of the page. “That eighty-seven is a little too close for my liking.”
Math had been Simonette’s thing since she was a young child. It was also important in her major of forensic science. She was obsessed with crime documentaries and knew since she was a pre-teen that she wanted to be a forensic scientist. She started an internship in a forensic lab last semester. The skills that she learned mesmerized her.
For the next twenty minutes, she and Daylen reworked the problems together. He was appreciative of Simonette because heknew, without her, his ass would have probably failed. Daylen was far from dumb. What he was, though, was distracted. His father, Declan, wished that his son had chosen a university out of state. He wanted to get him from the streets that threatened to engulf him.
Declan’s mother, Larissa, died while giving birth to his little sister, Rissa. That was a painful loss for father and son. Declan was eighteen when he and Larissa had Daylen. Both worked hard to take care of their son. When Larissa died, Declan had a newborn and a five-year-old son that he was solely responsible for.
The older Daylen got, the more his father had to commit himself to more hours at the production plant he worked for, building golf and utility vehicles. That time away from home made room for Daylen to get into trouble. By ten years old, he was in bullshit that his father was determined to keep him away from. That was where sports came into play.
Daylen fell in love with all sports, but the one he excelled in was baseball. As a designated hitter, he’d brought his college team to two championship wins. There was no way the coaches wanted to lose him for something like grades. They already had hell, tempering his hot head that got him in trouble more than they would like. The streets were strong in him.
By the end of Daylen’s session, he understood where he messed up on the three problems, and Simonette gave him tips on how not to make the mistakes again. Both had confidence that he would pass his final test to secure his graduation with no problems. He was ready to get the hell out of school.
“Are you going to the party tonight? It’s gonna be lit.” Daylen knew she wasn’t the partying type, but he figured he’d throw the invite out there.
Simonette shook her head. “Oh, no, parties are not for me. Have fun though. I’m sure it will be amazing for a guy like you.”
His head recoiled before it tilted. “Hold up. What do you mean by a guy like me? I’m not sure if I should be offended.” He tittered.
She didn’t mean or want to offend him. Her thoughts shuffled what she would say. “I mean, you’re a popular athlete with beautiful brown skin that’s tatted. Plus, you’re like tall and muscular. Isn’t that what females like?”
“Let me find out that you be scoping me out, Simonette. I guess your lil’ ass isn’t so innocent like everyone thinks,” he teased. He knew he was what the female population on campus wanted, down to some of the professors that he’d also dicked down.
Simonette’s eyes almost fell out of their sockets. “No! No! I just know what most girls like. I’m not saying I like you or anything. I mean, I’m not saying you’re not attractive.”
Daylen laughed at her stumbling over her words. “Chill! I get what you’re saying. I think you should come out tonight. Nah, how about this? I want you to come out tonight. If I don’t see you by midnight, I’m going to pop up at your dorm room.”
Simonette froze. There was no way he would be that vested that she attended a graduation party. “Daylen, it’s a graduation party. I’m not graduating; you are.”
“I don’t want to hear that bullshit. Like I said, if I don’t see you, I’m coming to your room.” He doubled down. He grabbed his book bag and moved toward the door to leave. Before he opened it, he stopped next to her. “Don’t think that I don’t know where your dorm room is either. One of my throwbacks stays a few doors down from you.”
She listened to the door close behind him after he left.What the hell!She was behooved that he wanted her to come to this party, where most of the campus would be. She giggled at the fact that Daylen called the girls he messed withthrowbacks. She heard that he did, but that was the first time he said it in front ofher. Simonette overheard some guys talking about why he called them that. Apparently, it was because they were never scared to bust it wide open and bring it back.
She packed the rest of her things, then headed to her dorm room. Her eyes went to the clock on her wall when she got there. It was already almost nine at night, and her bedtime was ten unless she had her head in an interesting book or on a crime documentary. Simonette couldn’t wait until the day she would be a leader in her field and, hopefully, an expert on a crime documentary. She was a shy girl, but not too shy to do what she loved.
She had a private room with her own bathroom because of her academic achievements. It was a perk of maintaining a perfect grade point average since her freshman year. She enjoyed her privacy and isolation. After she took her shower, she settled in to watch a documentary that she hadn’t finished the previous night.
When her phone buzzed, she picked it up. Her mouth dropped when she saw the preview of a text from Daylen. She knew he had her number because their phone numbers were on the tutoring assignments. She opened the text to read the rest.
Daylen Smith:
Simonette it’s 11:15. You got 45 mins or I’m coming to drag you out of that room. Play with me.
She couldn’t believe he was serious about that party. The last thing Simonette wanted was Daylen Smith in her room. She begrudgingly got out of her bed and went to her closet to find something to wear. Her huff was loud and exaggerated. Nothing she owned was something that she could party in. There were three kinds of attire in her closet: business casual for herinternship, lounge for classes, and church dressy for church with her family on Sunday.
