Page 2

Chapter two

Mandatory Mentoring

T here are exactly three times in my life when I've seriously considered selling my dental tool collection: once when a museum in Boston offered me enough money to pay for grad school, once when my neighbor's kid used my 1856 tooth key as a sandbox toy, and now, staring at the email from Dean Williams that would surely end my academic career.

"Dear Ms. Chen," the email began, with all the warmth of a Victorian-era bone saw. "Due to your exemplary academic record and demonstrated leadership abilities, you have been selected to participate in our Student Academic Mentorship Program."

So far, not terrible. I'd mentored before. Usually quiet, studious types who wanted to learn about Victorian literature or needed help with museum cataloging. The following line, however, made me wish I'd kept that Boston museum's number.

"Your assigned mentee is John 'Jack' Morrison (Student ID: 847562), who requires academic support to maintain athletic eligibility."

I stared at my laptop screen for so long that my eyes started to burn. Of all the students at Preston University, they had to assign me the one who'd starred in my most confusing dreams since our motorcycle incident last week. Not that I'd been dreaming about him. Much.

This is fine, I told myself, even as my heart did a completely unauthorized backflip. Just because he has unfairly perfect cheekbones and probably smells like that cedar cologne doesn't mean—

"ABSOLUTELY NOT," came a loud voice from the administration building, interrupting my spiral. The shout was loud enough to be heard across the quad, where I sat on a bench. I looked up to see Jack Morrison storming out of the building, his leather jacket somehow managing to look angry. Behind him, Dean Williams stood in the doorway, arms crossed.

"This is not a request, Mr. Morrison," she called after him. "Either you accept Ms. Chen as your mentor, or you'll be ineligible for the playoff games."

Jack spun around, and even from a distance, I could see the tension in his shoulders. The movement made his t-shirt pull across his chest in a way that was entirely unnecessary for academic purposes.

"She hates hockey players," he protested loudly. "She probably has a voodoo doll of me made from old dental floss."

I seriously considered checking my bag to make sure he hadn't seen my collection of Victorian-era dental floss samples.

"I don't care if she has an entire museum of anti-hockey propaganda," Dean Williams replied. "She's the only tutor with both the academic excellence and scheduling flexibility to accommodate your practice schedule."

I was already typing out my reply email, listing every reason why this was a terrible idea. "Dear Dean Williams, While I appreciate the opportunity, I must decline due to:

1) Potential conflict of interest due to previous editorial stance on athletic funding,

2) Possible violent tendencies, as evidenced by a recent dental tool incident,

3) Inability to maintain a professional distance from subjects with literary tattoos and excessive charm..."

I deleted that last point.

"Got a draft of your rejection email already?"

I jumped, nearly knocking my laptop off my lap. Jack had materialized next to my bench, looking like a Greek statue that had decided to become a delinquent. His hair was artfully messed up in a way that probably took more time than my entire morning routine, and he smelled like that cedar cologne that had been haunting my dreams. Not that I'd noticed.

"I'm being thorough," I said, tilting my screen away from him. "Something you might want to try in your essays, according to your academic record."

"You looked up my record?" He dropped onto the bench beside me, way too close for someone who'd recently been hit with historical medical equipment. The leather of his jacket creaked as he leaned back, a sound that definitely shouldn't have been as attractive as it was.

"The dean attached it to the email." I hadn't meant to read it all, but like a train wreck in slow motion, I couldn't look away. "Nice work on that essay comparing hockey strategy to military tactics in War and Peace. Shame about all the missed assignments after it."

Wait, he's read War and Peace? And understood it well enough to write a comparative analysis? This does not help my 'he's just a pretty face' narrative.

"Careful, Sophie." My name in his mouth should not sound like that – all low and warm and dangerous. "Almost sounds like you're impressed."

"The only thing I'm impressed by is your ability to maintain that deliberately disheveled look while spending zero time on academics." A lie. I was impressed by lots of things – like how his eyes caught the sunlight, or how his hands... No. Bad Sophie. We do not notice his hands.

"You think about my looks often?" The smirk was back, complete with that dimple that should be illegal in academic settings.

"I think about how much university funding it wastes." Another lie. I mostly thought about how unfair it was that someone could look that good in a simple white t-shirt.

"Is that why you're refusing to tutor me? Protest against athletic spending?"

"I'm refusing to tutor you because—" I started but was interrupted by my phone buzzing. A text from my roommate Dex:

"Heard you're mentoring my brother! Try not to murder him with your dental tools. Mom would be upset."

I stared at my phone in horror. "You're Dex's brother?"

Oh no. No, no, no. This is worse than when I accidentally emailed my entire Victorian medical device wish list to Professor Westin instead of my homework. This is worse than when I tripped into the dean during orientation.

"Alexandra Morrison, yeah." He grinned, and for a second, I saw the resemblance—they had the same devastating smile that made you want to either kiss them or push them into a fountain. In Jack's case, it is definitely the fountain option. Probably. Maybe. "Didn't put that together, did you?"

"But... she uses her mom's maiden name. And you're so..."

"Devastatingly handsome? Intellectually intimidating?" Each suggestion came with a slight tilt of his head that made his hair fall across his forehead in a way that belonged to a shampoo commercial.

Yes, to both, actually, but I would rather catalog an entire museum backward than admit that.

"Infuriating," I finished. "She's actually reasonable."

"She collects jewelry made from dead people's hair."

"That's historically significant," I defended, then caught myself. "Stop changing the subject. I'm not tutoring you."

"And I'm not being tutored by someone who thinks hockey players are one step above plague-carrying rats." He stood up, looming over me in a way that was probably meant to be intimidating but just gave me a better view of his unfairly perfect jaw. "I'll tell Dean Williams we both refuse."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Neither of us moved. A group of freshmen walking by stopped to watch, probably hoping for another dental tool incident. I could feel my face heating up under his gaze, which had suddenly turned intense in a way that made my stomach do complicated things.

My phone buzzed again. Dean Williams, this time: "Your first session is scheduled for 7 PM tonight in Study Room 204. No excuses from either of you. And Ms. Chen? Please leave your dental tools at home."

Jack read the text over my shoulder, his breath warm against my neck. That should not affect my heart rate like this. It's just breathing. Everyone breathes. His breathing just happens to smell like expensive coffee.

"Guess we're stuck with each other," he said, and his voice had dropped into that lower register that made my brain short-circuit.

"I'm making rules," I said quickly, trying to ignore the way my skin tingled where his breath had touched it. "So many rules."

"I break rules," he reminded me, stepping back with that infuriating smirk. "It's kind of my thing."

"We'll see about that." I was already mentally drafting a rulebook that would make Victorian etiquette guides look relaxed. "Seven PM sharp."

"Can't wait," he said in a tone that suggested he very much could wait. He turned to leave, then paused. "Oh, and Sophie? I'll try not to be too distracting. Wouldn't want your dental tools getting jealous."

Too late for that, I thought, watching him walk away. His motorcycle was parked at the curb, and he swung onto it with that same fluid grace that had featured in several dreams I was not admitting to having.

Several students swooned as he passed. I made a mental note to add a rule about unnecessary displays of motorcycle prowess during academic hours.

At 7:15 PM, the door to Study Room 204 burst open. I'd spent the intervening hours creating the most comprehensive tutoring rulebook in academic history and not checking the hockey team's Instagram for recent practice photos. For research purposes. Obviously.

Jack stood there, motorcycle helmet under one arm, looking like he'd just stepped out of a photo shoot for "Bad Boys Weekly: Academic Edition." His hair was slightly damp, probably from practice, and his white Henley had no business fitting like that.

"You're late," I said, not looking up from my meticulously prepared study schedule. Color-coded. With timestamps.

"Practice ran long." He dropped into the chair across from me, his leather jacket creaking. "Nice cardigan. Very sexy librarian."

A jolt of electricity shot through my stomach. No. Absolutely not. We are not doing the sexy librarian thing. Even if this cardigan does bring out my eyes—stop it!

"Rule number one," I said loudly, pushing a laminated sheet across the table. "No comments about anyone's clothing."

He picked up the sheet, eyebrows rising as he read. "Rule 17: No unnecessary smirking. How exactly do you define unnecessary?"

"If you have to ask, it's unnecessary." Like the way you're smirking right now, which is doing dangerous things to my blood pressure.

"Rule 23: Maintain a minimum distance of three feet except in cases of academic emergency." His smirk violated Rule 17. "What exactly constitutes an academic emergency?"

"Focus," I said, tapping the syllabus I'd prepared. "We're starting with Victorian literature."

"My favorite," he said, pulling out his copy of "Wuthering Heights." It was dog-eared, annotated, and looked read. I tried not to let that impress me. Or notice how his hands—strong but surprisingly elegant—handled the pages with unexpected care.

Stop watching his hands. So what if he knows how to properly hold a book? So what if his marginalia show actual insight? So what if—is that a quote from Emily Bront? on his wrist?

"You did the reading?"

"Don't sound so surprised." He leaned back in his chair, which should not have looked like a GQ pose but somehow did. "I contain multitudes."

"Rule 42," I said quickly before my traitor brain could dwell on exactly what multitudes he might contain. "No literary quotes used in a flirtatious manner."

"You have a rule for everything, don't you?"

"I'm adding one about obvious observations right now." And maybe one about the prohibited use of reading glasses because he'd just pulled out a pair that made him look like a model moonlighting as a graduate student.

Two hours later, I had learned several things about Jack Morrison that were seriously threatening my carefully constructed worldview: 1) He actually had intelligent thoughts about Victorian literature, 2) He deliberately dumbed himself down around his teammates, 3) His hair did this incredibly distracting thing when he ran his hands through it while thinking, and 4) I was in serious trouble.

"Same time, Thursday?" he asked as we packed up, deliberately brushing my hand as he returned my pen. The contact sent sparks shooting up my arm.

"That depends," I said, ignoring the electricity from his touch and the way his cologne seemed to have saturated the air in our small study room. "Are you planning to follow any of the rules?"

"What do you think?" He grinned, and I added Rule 73: No grins that make tutors forget Victorian literature.

"Thursday," I agreed, already planning to laminate at least twelve more rules before then, including one about the prohibited use of reading glasses in combination with literary tattoos.

"Wouldn't dream of missing it." He paused at the door, those impossible eyes catching mine. "Oh, and Sophie? You missed a button on your cardigan. Very scandalous for the Victorian era."

I looked down automatically. All buttons present and accounted for. When I looked up to call him out on the trick, he was gone, his laughter echoing down the hall.

I was going to need more rules. And possibly a Victorian fainting couch. And something stronger than tea to deal with the fact that the campus bad boy had just demonstrated a better understanding of Victorian social norms than most of my literature professors.

Oh, who was I kidding? I was in so much trouble.