Danika balances the textbook on her lap. “Think of it this way, median is the middle. And amediatoris someone who’s in the middle of other people’s problems.”
Our study session had moved to the couch because Danika was tired of sitting on the hard chairs and wanted to wrap a blanket around herself. No complaints here, because it meant I could touch her as much as I wanted to.
“And what’s mode again?”
“The number that shows up the most. Like…you. You’re always showing up for me.” Danika nudges my shoulder playfully.
“Are you calling me the mode?”
“As long as you don’t call me the mean.”
“What are we even talking about?”
“I’m not sure,” Danika laughs, closing the textbook. “I have an idea. Let’s think of a data set to help you remember.” She pulls her notebook from her bag and opens to a blank page. “Give me a list of something.”
“A list of what?”
“Anything! Just whatever ratio data you have.”
“Ratio is equal and zero that is true,” Under my breath, I recall the rhyme we had made a few sessions ago to help me remember. Danika smiles as she holds her pen over the paper expectantly.
I think of an idea, pulling my phone out and opening to our text thread. “Okay, write this down.” I scroll up our thread, counting. “Four, five, one…” I keep scrolling “Four, two, two, three.” I close my phone, looking back at her.
“What are those numbers?”
“The number of times you didn’t text me back each day last week.”
Her jaw drops. “That’s not fair, you know I barely know where my phone is half the time.”
I only shrug, a smirk on my face as I point toward her notebook. She pushes it onto my lap, letting out a massive yawn in the process.
“Here, you do the work. Find the mean, median and mode of that sad set of data. But don’t get all M.A.D. about it.” Glancing over at her, I narrow my eyebrows in confusion. “Mean absolute deviation? Not yet? Okay, nevermind.”
I set to my calculations, trying my best to ignore the way her knee touches my outer thigh. Even with the thick blanket, I can still feel her warmth against me.
Remembering what she said about the median and mode, I work through the problems, taking time to make sure I’m getting everything correct.
“And…done.” I hear her gentle snores before I see that she’s totally passed out. She must be exhausted from all this work she’s doing.
So much for boning.I think briefly but I would never hold that against her. I’m lucky to get anything that I’ve gotten from her today. It feels like I’m in a dream and I’m hoping the bubble doesn’t burst tomorrow when she wakes up and comes to her senses.
I should bring her to her bed but I don’t want to risk waking her up. Instead, I pull the blanket up to her neck and plug her phone into the charger by the couch, not wanting her to miss any alarms for the morning.
I can’t resist placing a soft kiss on her forehead before I head into my own room for the night. Softly closing my door, I collapse onto my bed, a jumble of thoughts in my head. No time to parse through them now. Turns out, I’m just as exhausted as she is.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Danika
“Comeon,brat.”
Arden’s voice whispers in my ear and immediately I feel it all the way down my body. I’m either in the best dream of my life or Arden’s waking me up with one of my fantasies. I moan, ready to let him follow through on his plan.
Peeking my eyes open, I’m immediately met with a pillow to the face. “Get up, you’re going to be late for class.”
My eyes bolt open. “Huh? What time is it?” I clock my surroundings. “Why am I on the couch?”
From the kitchen, Arden tells me it’s almost eight am, and I jump off the couch as if it were suddenly on fire. I run into my room and grab whatever shirt is on top of my dresser then pull on the nearest clean pair of pants.