Chapter 3

[JJ POV]

It's now thursday and I had barely made any progress with the stack of work I needed to complete in order to get a decent grade. I had exactly 9 days left to complete it all. I felt absolutely hopeless. As I got home I immediately got to it. Nobody else was in the house and I was appreciating the quietness, but even then I still felt overwhelmed. At 7 o'clock I was on the verge of giving up. I could make progress on assignments and essays, but the studying part was really killing me. Feeling defeated I finally decided to call probably my one hope.

"Hey Spence," I said into the phone, "I hope I'm not disturbing."

"Oh, h-hi JJ. No, you're not disturbing at all. Is everything alright?" he replied. He was so caring.

"Um, actually I wondering if you were still up for Derek's offer. I could use a little help with work."

"Oh! Of course, sure."

"Okay, thanks a bunch Spence. Is it okay if you come over?" I asked. He said yes so I gave him my address.

It was only a short while before the doorbell rang. I opened the door to a nervous looking Spencer. "Hey, come on in."

He stepped in carefully, taking a look around. "Is anyone else home?" he asked, probably noticing the silence.

"Nah, my parents areout until Monday," he nodded and I closed the door behind him. I started to walk back upstairs but I noticed he wasn't moving so I motioned for him to follow. I entered my room but he stopped just outside the door.

"Oh jeez, come in Spence it's just a bedroom," he stepped in shyly and I couldn't help but smile at how adorable he looked. I moved my things onto the carpet in front of my bed and sat down on the floor. As he sat down across me I decided to skip the awkward small talk and just get right into it.

After a couple hours I had gotten through more that what had taken me an entire day. He was so kind and patient with me, and a great teacher as well.

"You should tutor people for money Spence, you're quite good at this." I laughed, "Or maybe I'm just a bit dumb."

"You're not dumb at all JJ, in fact you get this faster than half the class, you just need to focus."

My smile dropped a little, "Yeah I guess that's a bit difficult sometimes," I accidentally said out loud. He looked a little confused but thankfully he didn't say anything else.

Suddenly I felt hungry and realized I hadn't gotten dinner. "Shit," I said to myself.

After hearing me Spencer looked up, "Hm?"

"Have you eaten Spence?" I ask him and he shook his head no. "Well do you want to order something? I just remembered I haven't eaten either."

"Umm," he looked away shyly.

"OK, why don't we walk down to that little pizza place, get dinner then you can head home."

"OK sure," he said. I was pretty sure he'd agree to anything I said.

I packed up a little and led the way outside, the entire time Spencer just following me around. We walked in comfortable silence and in only 5 minutes we were at the little pizza place. We ordered a pizza to share and we ate while talking a little. He also told me a lot of facts that I did not understand at all, but I sort of admired it in a way. I learned that he lived quite near to where I did and so when we were done he offered to walk me home.

"Alright then, thanks again for helping me out. If you don't mind maybe we can do this again?"

"Sure, just give me a call or something."

Before it became awkward I stepped forward to give him a hug, something I usually did. Instead of hugging me back though he froze.

"Oh sorry, do you like not do hugs?" I pulled back.

"W-what? Um not usually it was a little unexpected." he said rubbing his arm.

"Oh! Sorry Spence," I chuckled," Well um, thanks for walking me home. Have a good night," I wave at him as a walk toward my front door.

"Bye JJ," he waved back and didn't start walking until I opened the door. I closed it behind me and stood in silence once again. I have to admit I did have a good time with Spencer, he seemed to make everything calmer. And so for once I managed to fall asleep, with a happy feeling inside of me.