Page 1 of Tutoring the Bad Boy
Chapter One
Ginny
Kaleb Quinn.
Even with a mouthful of braces, he’s downright mouthwatering. Eighteen, tall, sandy-blond hair, and eyes so blue they make the Port Crest, Texas, sky jealous. At one point, when my mom and I first moved here, I crushed on him. Honestly, there wasn’t a girl who didn’t. At the time, he had a reputation for being a superhero, like rescuing kids from bullies and sitting with the kid who had no friends.
He was the catch of the century until our sophomore year when his mom left his dad for the football coach. In the last two years, while he’s become even more attractive, he’s also been put on the do-not-date list. Granted, all boys fall into that category, but him especially.
Not that I’d even think about anything with Kaleb. I wouldn’t dare. At least not anymore. My mom—the principal—would k-i-double-l kill me. My life is mapped out. The path marked like it’s MapQuested and the coordinates set in stone so solid it’s got rebar in it.
Two days ago, I turned seventeen. As a senior and the captain of the volleyball team, recruiters are on my horizon this year. I’m no prodigy or anything, but I’m a beast on the volleyball court.
So my foreseeable future is set, and to tell the truth, I’m not even mad about it. I just wish my mom wasn’t so militant about it.
“Stop, Ginny,” my best friend and cheerleader co-captain, Veronica Mars, says as we’re eating lunch in the courtyard. Yeah, her parents totally knew what they were doing when they named her that. They aren’t even coy about it. She was a cool character, and with a last name like Mars, there was no other choice, and Ronnie rocks the name.
After skipping a grade, she’s now a senior but still a year younger than me. Her parents have her future planned too. Well, her mom does. They’ve made a deal. She gets to be a normal teenager until next summer, and then she’s heading to California to become an actress.
I glance at her, squinting as the midday Wednesday sun hits me in the eyes. It’s breezy today, and I’m grateful; otherwise, I’d be melting in the September heat.
“Stop what?” I ask as Kaleb leaves the courtyard.
Ronnie pierces me with a knowing look, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. Kaleb and I were friends before we hit eighth grade, but just a few weeks into school that year, he changed. At the time, I was more than crushing on him a little. He’d saved me from a bully on my first day of school when I was a new kid in fifth grade, which fueled that feeling. The crush died when I caught him kissing a girl at the water fountain two days into our eighth-grade year. We went from talking during lunch to him hardly giving me eye contact.
Dixie Jones, a junior and one of the cheer squad flyers, shoots me a look. “She asks like it’s not obvious.”
I’ve known Dixie about as long as I’ve known Ronnie, but she doesn’t spend the night as often. She has two brothers. One’s a freshman and the other is a senior Ronnie crushed on for a while, but he met Mandy French a year ago when she moved to Port Crest and hasn’t given another girl a second glance since.
Ronnie gives me alike-you-don’t-knowlook, her eyebrows lifting as she blinks. “That rabbit hole you like to fall down. Look, he’s cute…and he has a chest that could make David cry, which means he’s probably got other areas that would have the statue in tears as well…”
My cheeks burn.
Dixie gives Ronnie a playful pop on the arm and then fans her face with her hands. “Oh my word, stop that. Ladies don’t say things like that.”
Out of everyone I know, she’s as prim and proper as they come. Etiquette lessons, junior debutant ball, and cotillions. I’ve missed the last few events her parents have hosted. She’s been begging me to ask my mom if I can come to the next one her parents are throwing.
A chuckle pops out of Ronnie. “Please. Don’t even tell me your minds haven’t wandered that path.”
“It hasn’t. I keep my mind and my path above the waist,” Dixie says.
I level my eyes at Ronnie. “Exactly. Plus, he’s off-limits. I heard he got in trouble again this weekend. If his dad wasn’t a lawyer, his butt would be in jail by now. Besides, guys like him don’t date girls like me.” Or more like, can’t date.
Ronnie takes a quick glance over her shoulder and turns back to me, popping a grape in her mouth before saying, “Agreed. Do you guys know what he got picked up on?”
Shrugging, Dixie pulls a nail file out of her purse and goes to work on one of her nails. “Nope.”
Shaking my head, I take the last bite of my sandwich and shrug. Holding my hand over my mouth, I say, “Just rumors that may or may not be true. All I know is, if he doesn’t stop, he’s going to be stuck in Port Crest for the rest of his life. No one wants that.”
“Tell that to the tourists.”
Dixie crosses her legs, holding her hand out and spreading her fingers to check her nail. “I’m certainly not staying here.”
I nod in agreement. “If I was a tourist, I’d know I wasn’t stuck here.” I laugh. “Really, it’s not that bad. I just hate to see someone so cute end up as prison bait.”
“Plus, let’s face it, a bad boy hits all the right notes.” Ronnie gives a dramatic sigh her mom would be proud of.
I duck my head as I smile. Ronnie does have a point. I don’t watchGreasejust because Danny wears a leather coat. “Okay, I need to get to class. If I’m late, Mrs. Yates will try to hold me after school, and my mom will not be happy. I don’t know if I can handle another yelling match between the two of them.”
