So I did what I always did.
I shrugged. “It’s fine.”
His expression flickered. Not relief. Not really. More like he had been waiting for me to say it, but now that I had, it didn’t match whatever was going on in his head.
“It’s not fine,” he said.
I forced myself to stand because staying on my knee was making me feel small. Peanut whined a little at the loss of attention and circled my legs, then trotted toward Jason like a traitor and nudged his hand, as if asking him to fix this.
Jason scratched behind Peanut’s ears, distracted for a second. Then his eyes met mine again.
“I didn’t want you to think I was blowing you off,” he said. “I mean, I did. Technically. But not because I don’t take it seriously.”
“Jason,” I said, careful with his name because it still did something to me. “It’s a tutoring session. It’s not a marriage.”
His mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh, butthe humor didn’t stick. He looked down at his hands instead, flexing his fingers once.
“That’s the thing,” he said quietly. “You treat it like it’s nothing.”
I held my face neutral. I knew what he was doing. He was pushing at the surface to see if anything cracked. I didn’t crack easily. I had built an entire life around being uncrackable.
“It is nothing,” I said. “In the sense that it should not be a big emotional event. I’m here to help you pass Stats. You either show up or you don’t. If you don’t, that’s your problem.”
The words came out clean and cold. Too clean. Too cold.
Jason flinched like I had slapped him.
“Okay,” he said. “Great. That’s—great.”
He tried to smile, but the smile fell apart halfway. He looked away, jaw tight, then back at me with a kind of stubbornness that didn’t belong on someone who was usually all ease.
“But it’s not just Stats,” he said.
My throat tightened. I didn’t let it show. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
He laughed once, short and breathy. It wasn’t amusement. It was panic trying to disguise itself as charm. “Sure you don’t.”
I should’ve left. I should’ve turned around and walked out before I let this become anything more than a boundary correction.
But I stayed.
Because he had kissed me.
Because he had run from it.
Because I had spent the entire day pretending it was nothing and failing.
“I came because you didn’t show,” I said. “Because I don’t want you to fail. Is that clear enough for you?”
Jason’s gaze sharpened. “Why?”
“Because I’m not an asshole,” I said, then immediately regretted the tone because it gave him something to grab. “Because Coach Roberts is going to bench you if you keep tanking your grades. Because you live for football, and you don’t even have a backup plan that doesn’t involve you being able to count things. Pick one.”
He stared at me like he was trying to decide whether I was insulting him or saving him. “Wow,” he said. “That was a lot.”
“It was the truth,” I replied. “Which is usually a lot.”
That got a small sound out of him. Not a laugh, but the beginning of one. Then his face sobered again.