Page 40 of Undeniable
“Hello.”
“Is this Mazzie Meyers?” the man asked.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“Good, I’m Professor Gantt from the history department. I understand from the tutoring center that you’re proficient in research methodologies and analytical skills.”
I’d only had one student assigned to me so far, but I’d only started at the tutoring center yesterday.
“That’s correct. As a premed student, those two skills are mandatory.”
“Good. I needed to make sure I found the right person before I sent my student to the tutoring center.”
“What’s the assignment?” I asked.
“A paper on the medical paradigm shifts that transpired in the early eighteen hundreds, which include statistical analysis.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. I would ask that you set up a time with the center since they have the hours I can work.”
“Thank you. I’ll text you his info shortly and pass along your name to him.”
I was paid by the hour, which meant more students, more money.
I slipped on my heels and gathered my purse then wound my way through the manicured grounds to the parking lot, thinking of Lucas and our conversation.
What would it hurt to at least try with him? I couldn’t give up on all relationships. I couldn’t be alone all my life. He wasn’t like those men my mom dated. He was sweet, caring, and protective.
My phone beeped with a text, disintegrating my thoughts.
Mr. Gantt
My student’s name is Lucas Allen.
Then he proceeded to give me Lucas’s number.
My eyes popped out of my head. No freaking way! Then Lucas’s haunting words came back to me—You’re not the only one struggling.
I felt sick to my stomach. He was so right. I wasn’t the girl he thought I was. Regardless, how was I supposed to tutor Lucas without my heart getting in the way?
14
Lucas
The drone of voices buzzed with excitement in the locker room about the midnight pep rally that was about to go down in an hour. I should be as pumped up as they were. Since freshman year, I lived for the Wolf Howl—a tradition dating back many years that maintained that kissing a girl on the field would bring luck to the player and the team. We certainly needed all the luck we could get considering our depressing record.
Tonight, though, I wasn’t into the pep rally as much as I would like to be. Frankly, I didn’t want to kiss any girl except Mazzie Meyers. She was driving me mad, like the way I got in the last ten seconds of a tie game—adrenaline, dread, and wild hope, all mashed together.
I’d never been so frustratingly devastated over a girl before like I was with Mazzie. I wanted to shake some sense into her. Show her that I was also scared out of my mind. I didn’t want a repeat of a Natalia situation, but I couldn’t stop my heart from feeling the way it did. I also couldn’t keep hearing rejection after rejection from Mazzie. But for fuck’s sake, her body was waving all the right flags at me even if her brain had a warrior’s shield around it.
I braced my arms on my knees while I sat on the bench in the locker room, reading the text exchange between Mazzie and me for the thousandth time. I’d read them since she texted me not long after I left her at the gazebo.
Mazzie
It looks like I’m going to be your tutor. Are you okay with that?
Not in the least. I didn’t want to be close to her, smell her fragrance, see that beautiful dick-squeezing look in her eyes. How the hell was I supposed to concentrate on my history assignment?
I need to pass Historiography. I can’t screw up my scholarship.
