“Perfection.” The word amused him. “Perfection is an illusion. We only see it in imperfections, which makes imperfections far more interesting than the plain, boring perfection.”
“Wow. Slavoj Zizek?” I asked.
He laughed. “Correct.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Professor. Rowan’s insistence on giving his elf a British accent does put the whole perfection thing under question,” I said. “But you didn’t ask me here to talk about Dungeons & Dragons.”
He glanced at me from the assignment, then handed it over. “What do you think?”
I glanced at the paper. Statistics, but only introductory. I cringed.
“Right,” Professor Colby said, taking the paper back. He leaned in, elbows planted on the desk, and sighed. “Your volunteering hours have fallen behind this semester,” he continued. “But you know that already. So, I took the liberty of arranging a meeting with this student. He has a promising career ahead of him, but he can’t drop out of Stats.”
I swallowed a painful whimper, but I couldn’t stop myself from slouching.
“Now, don’t get discouraged, Bennet,” Professor Colby said. “His scholarship depends on passing Stats. And he’s running out of time. He needs someone to walk him through the basics. Someone who has all this in their little finger.”
Yeah, he could butter me up all he liked, but it wasn’t going to make this any less awkward.
“And you need to put in the hours,” he said simply. “It’s a good fit.”
“It’s a jock, isn’t it?” I asked.
Professor Colby smoothed out the sudden smile before it took over his face. He raised an eyebrow. “Let’s not fall victim to prejudice.”
I nodded apologetically, but I wasn’t sorry. Some prejudice was simply based on reality, and the reality was that we Thinkers didn’t get along with any of the campus jocks.
“I’ll set up a little introductory session when it suits you both, and you can arrange future classeshowever you like,” Professor Colby said, like it was a done deal. Well, it was. I didn’t have a choice. He knew what was best for me, and I had to trust him. Some things weren’t as nice as others. I preferred it when he sent me advanced literature to read in my spare time and had me here in the late afternoons to discuss it with him. Tutoring some wannabe athlete wasn’t my idea of a good time.
“Cheer up,” Professor Colby said. “What would a level seven Paladin do?”
I snort-chuckled. The things he remembered never failed to surprise me. “Right.”
“This isn’t a punishment, Bennet,” he said in a warmer voice. “Who knows? Maybe there’s something you’ll learn from him.”
“How to drink from a keg upside down,” I mumbled, forcing a laugh from Professor Colby. He cut it off quickly, embarrassed that he let himself laugh at all.
He cocked his head. “You plan on teaching someday,” he said. “And teaching young men and women like that is a big part of the job. Most students aren’t the best fit for every mandatory course they have to take. It’s natural not to have an affinity for certain things. Getting a passing grade out of them is going to be your responsibility.”
I’d heard this from Professor Colby before. Students failing his classes reflected on his bad performance, or so he believed. He wasn’t interesting enough. He didn’t break it down properly. And so on.
I swallowed and nodded. “Right. That’s true, I guess.”
After I had agreed, we compared schedules, and Professor Colby took note of my free time. In a futile effort, I asked if raking leaves on campus would count toward my volunteering hours, but he only shot me a steely look that was answer enough.
So I found myself sitting in the library three days later with textbooks I’d last looked at in my spare time in high school set up on the desk in front of me. The guy was late, as I had expected. Just as I sighed with relief, seconds before the academic fifteen minutes of grace had passed, he showed up, confused, out of place, towering above me, and making my pulse tick like mad.
Fuck, I thought, meeting his big, brown eyes.At least he’s finally wearing a shirt.
CHAPTER THREE
jason
They really didn’t saveon the heating in the library. I wished I hadn’t put on a hoodie over a T-shirt. The wash of heat made me flushed by the time I reached the large table with a lonely figure that couldn’t be mistaken for anyone other than a Stats tutor.
A slim guy with sharp features, all angles and lines, reading glasses perched high on his nose, and light brown hair in an adorably disheveled state. He sat behind a pile of books, a laptop screen lighting up his face. He wore an oversized brown sweater and an expression on his face that didn’t inspire confidence.
He lifted his gaze and met me squarely, life leaving him a little. Not really the impression I often left on people, but I wasn’t around nerds that often. Not my fault. They were all hermits, hiding behind the walls of their house just down the street from mine.