Heart As Cold As Ice | 18+ | ✓

03: alondra

Why is Jack in our room? How did he even find out what room we live in?

I yank my headphones out quickly, "What are you doing here?"

"Well you said door's open, implying that it was okay for me to come in." He says, setting his bag on the floor next to my bed, implying that he's staying.

Pritchett looks at me bewildered and I have no words. I don't have a clue of what's going on. "No, I mean what are you doing here? In my room?"

"It's Tuesday, pretty sure we have a tutoring session," Jack says slowly.

My jaw hangs open because I thought we covered this earlier after class. "There is no tutoring Jack. I literally only said that to save my ass with my dad. You don't need tutoring, you're fine."

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Darling, I'm not fine-"

I brush past him, cutting Jack off to resume my previous position on my bed. "If this is about my rating on our kiss, it was better than a three."

"Forget it, this was a bad idea," He says after a moment. "I didn't come here to make out with you, I actually do need help with a class but I'll find someone else."

Pritchett shoots me a look after he turns to leave.

"I'm sorry. I was just surprised to see you in my room." I blurt out, trying to wrap my head around how weird this all is. "You don't have to go."

He looks at me skeptically, trying to gauge if I'm being serious or not. I move my homework to one side and motion to the end of my bed to prove that I am in fact being serious. Jack slips his shoes off and tentatively sits down, leaning against the wall, his blue eyes never leaving mine.

"Hey Jack," Pritchett says, offering him a smile, trying to smooth the awkwardness.

Thankfully his smile returns, "What's up Pritchett?"

"Oh just enjoying watching Alondra try to be nice. She's not very good at it." She teases and the sound of his laughter fills the tiny room.

My cheeks flame red, "I can be nice."

Pritchett sticks her tongue out at me in response before reaching into her backpack to pull out her headphones. "Sure. While you figure out how to be nice to him, I'm going to go back to watching my show before Eli calls. Jack you might want to think twice before asking her to tutor you. She helped me in high school to study for a final and I almost chose failing over Al's help."

"But did you pass?" He asks, pulling his computer out of his backpack.

"She got the high score." I answer for Pritchett who smirks at me. I am a great tutor which is why it was believable when I told my dad that. "So you need help with calc?"

The tips of his ears grow red and his cheeks are tinted pink, "Not calculus; microeconomics. I um...I kinda have dyslexia and I do my best to keep up, but I'm having a hard time making sense of it. I kinda failed it last year so I'm retaking it this semester. I don't know if you've taken it or not, but you seem smart so I thought I'd see if you could help."

"Lucky for you, I took it last year in high school." I say, feeling bad about telling him that he didn't need tutoring. "I'll tutor you, but no funny business outside of it, okay? Just tutoring."

Jack smiles, "Not even friends?"

"Nope."

He opens his textbook, "We'll see about that, darling. I think you want to be my friend, you just don't think you can handle it."

"You think I can't handle it? Please Jack, give me some credit." I snort, pulling up my old notes I scanned into the hard drive on my computer after I graduated. Pritchett made fun of me for doing that, but jokes on her, it's serving me well now. Not me exactly, but it should help Jack.

"Then why don't you want to be friends?"

I raise an eyebrow, "Do you have any friends that are girls?"

"Does my best friend's girlfriend count?" He asks with a cheeky smile, highlighting a set of dimples.

"No. It doesn't count Jack."

He shrugs, "I think it counts, but it's cool if you don't want to be friends now. I'll wear you down at some point."

I bite back a smile because he seems awfully confident that he'll be able to do that. Jack doesn't know that I'm just as hardheaded as my dad. Tutoring him is a stretch for me, but it sounds like he really does need the hell. Jack also isn't aware of my rule involving anything to do with hockey players—which Pritchett knows all too well. She looks up at us sitting on the bed together with a faint smile and I'm almost certain she paused her show to listen to our conversation.

Guess all I need to do to find out is ask Margot about it.

For the record, Jack and I are not friends.