Mackenzie

Somehow I'd made it through dinner with Edwin, Friday classes, and Brandon's party without going clinically insane. It had been hit or miss for a couple of moments when Hannah had gotten so drunk that she threw up all over the outside of my car, and then Kate called her ex-boyfriend at 1AM to tell him that he was a 'raging alcoholic piece of trash'.

At least Hannah had been a decent person and helped me clean it off in the morning. Kate had still been fast asleep on our couch when I'd left to come to school to work on homework and newspaper.

I'm sitting in the newspaper office, editing my afternoon away, eating almonds because it was the only thing I could find in the pantry that was edible as-is. The thing I hate most about the office is that it has narrow windows, so often I feel like I'm sitting in a fish bowl, because people can stare at me and I rarely notice them because the windows are to my side. I swear I feel like I'm being watched, but when I look over, there's no one there. Why would there be? It's Sunday, no one spends Sunday in the Student Center. It's always creeped me out.

I'm reading through the sports articles, trying to get it over with as fast as possible, when my phone lights up. It's Dane. I stare at his name for a long moment before finally picking up my phone.

Have you eaten lunch? His text catches me off guard, because when he asked for my number in the library, I had just assumed he was fucking with me, and would never use it past texting me the one time.

Even though I'm tempted to ignore him, I text back. No? I don't know why I put the question mark there.

He replies immediately. Do you like pizza?

I laugh to myself. I'm not clinically insane. Of course I like pizza.

You seem like the type of person who might be lactose intolerant. I'm not sure what that means, but I feel kind of offended. His next text comes quickly. What's your favorite? Basic-bitch pizzas only.

Cheese.

That's the ultimate basic-bitch pizza. He replies. I slam my phone down on the desk, feeling like maybe he's flirting with me or maybe he's just being an asshole. I'm not used to even the vague possibility of someone flirting with me. But I do know that Dane has a girlfriend, she hangs off of him everywhere they go.

My phone doesn't light up again so I return to editing. I'm almost through the sports articles when a knock on the door causes me to jump. I hear a short laugh, and I peer through the narrow windows.

Dane is standing there, a plate of pizza in either hand. He's mouthing something, but I'm terrible at reading lips so I really have no clue what he's trying to communicate. I roll my chair over and open the door.

"I brought you lunch." He announces, setting a plate down in front of me. It has two slices of cheese pizza on it. Leaving the door open, he collapses in one of the other chairs. His plate has six slices on it. I briefly wonder if he's poisoned it because I didn't think I left the best impression on him in the library.

I eye him suspiciously, as I take a bite of the pizza. It's shitty, student center pizza, but it's honestly not the worst pizza I've ever had. And, as I eat it, I realize that I'm actually really hungry. Almonds were definitely not cutting it.

"What do you want?"

"A guy can't just do something nice for a girl that he met in the library two days ago?"

"No." I say pointedly.

"I've been thinking." He takes a massive bite of pizza and I'm surprised he doesn't choke on it.

"Seems like a dangerous pastime for a baseball player."

"It is." He gives me a wicked smile. "I want you to tutor me. I'll pay you of course."

"Excuse me?" I'm pretty sure Dane is out of his mind. I'm not sure what value I'm possibly going to provide a baseball player. Jocks have never been my field of expertise, and the thought of trying to tutor one makes me a little nauseous. I've heard horror stories of guys on the football team at our school trying to pay off their tutors to do their assignments for them.

"Look, I like to think I'm actually decently smart." Dane says with not even a hint of modesty in his voice. "But, I have to take a computer science class this semester. There are coding assignments every couple of days, and I'm terrible at it. We're three weeks in and I'm already failing. Big time." He looks at me with puppy dog eyes. "You're doing math-shit. I know you've had to take this class before." He's right, but I don't know why he thinks I'd help him.

"There's a tutoring program in place for this specific scenario. Those people are paid to help you." Dane looks at me expectantly. "Plus I'm really busy." I look at him, realizing that he's a baseball player, so he's probably busier than me. "You're busy too. I have a hard time believing that we have enough overlapping time for me to tutor you." I'm sure this is a bold-faced lie, but I try to say it with confidence.

"I'll make it work." Dane says with the extreme ego that must come from being good at a sport. I've never related to something less in my life.

"Is this just a ploy to make me do your homework for you?" I ask, trying a new strategy.

"I am offended to my core that you would think that about me."

"Plenty of jocks pull that shit." I say defensively.

"I am not like most jocks." He tells me proudly, and with a wink. I can't help but smile. Just a small one. I don't want him thinking that he's won me over. "I really do want to learn it. It's just not intuitive for me." He's so honest that I'm having a hard time saying no. I sigh.

Clearly my strategy isn't working.

"You don't even know that I'm good at computer science." I tell him. I really wasn't expecting to be tutoring a self-entitled jock for the semester.

"False." I roll my eyes and then glare at him. "My roommate, Noah, has taken classes with you. He says you're brilliant." I unfortunately have taken classes with Noah, and I'm terrible at lying, so I can't pretend that I have absolutely no idea who Noah is. I also quite like Noah, and in my head, he doesn't fall into my dumb jock bucket, he falls into my friendly nerd bucket. Dane clearly catches that something has changed in my expression, because he smiles like he knows he's won.

"Maybe Noah is full of shit." I say hopefully. Dane laughs, clearly not willing to let this go.

"What is going on here?" A demanding female voice cuts through our conversation. My head whips around to the drop-dead gorgeous girl standing in the newspaper office doorway.

"I'm trying to get some tutoring help." Dane says.

"Like hell you are. Not from this bitch." I'm shocked, because I've never met this girl before in my life, and she's calling me a bitch. I literally am at a loss for words, so I just blush profusely and look down.

"Amy." Dane says placatingly, like he's dealt with this a million times. "I don't know--"

She cuts him off. "Dane. Come with me." She grabs his arm and tries to pull him from his seat. I nearly laugh because she clearly does not have the sort of strength it would take to lift someone of Dane's height and build from a chair.

Dane lets out a weary sigh and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. As he's yanked from the office, his pizza plate still in one hand. He shoots me a wink. "I'll text you." He mouths, before he's roughly pulled around the corner.

I find myself blushing, both at what seemed like the flirty banter we'd had going, and the fact that his girlfriend had so clearly seen me as a threat. I don't know what she thought I was going to do to Dane. He was a baseball player, popular, hot, used to girls like her, and I was editing the newspaper that no one read on a Sunday afternoon in sweatpants and a t-shirt that had once been my dad's.

I was no threat to Amy, I had no idea why she thought I was. I was even wearing glasses and my hair was greasy from not washing it for two days. I was pretty sure I was at my ugliest. The more I think about it, the more embarrassed I am that Dane had seen me at all.

Realizing that thinking about this is getting me absolutely nowhere, I return to paper editing. Of course the last article has to be about fucking baseball. One of our sports writers, Jacob, is just absolutely obsessed with baseball. He's actually obsessed with all sports, but I'm pretty sure that I hear him talking about baseball the most.

Luckily, the article is not about Dane specifically. Instead it's about the College World Series and how our team compares to the teams that made it last year. Reading the article proves Jacob's obsession to me once and for all, because he talks about going to College World Series and he took a camera and took some of the best photos that I've ever seen anyone take for the paper.

"You don't usually leave the door open." Camilla sits down next to me. She's one of my editors, and secretly my favorite. Sometimes not so secret, to be honest. She comes up with the least excuses out of everyone, and often helps me do all the final edits and layout adjustments. She's also got an eye for photography, like Jacob, so she's often the one running around taking pictures of events.

Camilla is easily one of the most talented people I've ever met. She's working on an engineering degree, writes the most articles for the paper consistently, is a photographer for the paper and also for the engineering department events, and lives at home with her mother, who is one of the most difficult people I've met in my entire life.

"I had company." I tell her.

"Oh." Camilla raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Was it Erwin?" Hearing Erwin's name slams me back into the reality that I also have someone that I'm seeing. I don't know why I was even letting Dane rope me into his flirting.

"No. Dane Sawyer."

"Our star pitcher?"

"That's the one." I agree.

"What was he doing here?"

"Trying to get me to tutor him." Camilla gasps, as if this is the most shocking thing to ever happen to her.

"You have to, Mack."

"I don't know." I mutter. "He seems really full of himself."

"Don't you just want the chance to look at him? Dane is--" Camilla whistles instead of using her words.

"I have Edwin." I say, but the words taste like chalk. I do not have Edwin, because Edwin absolutely bores me out of my mind, and any initial attraction I had towards him is gone. Eaten up by the fact that I find him insanely boring. Sometimes I like the attention he gives me, but overall it's not worth it, and I feel awful for even having these thoughts. Edwin is nice. But that's all he is. He is certainly not attractive on the level that Dane Sawyer is attractive.

Camilla gives me a pitying look. "Let yourself live a little. Tutor Dane."

"I'll think about it."

Like the devil is just watching my life and laughing at me, Edwin chooses this moment to text me. Would you like to come over to my place for dinner tonight?

Sure. I wonder what the fuck I'm thinking as soon as I reply. I should just break up with him. Maybe he's not as bad as he seems, I try to convince myself. I just need to have an open mind. Dane has just clouded my judgment with his asshole words in the library.

6?

I send him a thumbs up back. I dread dinners with Edwin at his place. Once, I told him that I like lasagna, and he's never asked me what I wanted to eat again. Instead, he just rotates through various boxed lasagnas that he finds at the store. Lasagna has been ruined for me for a long time. I don't even know what good lasagna tastes like any more.