SHIT! Clark was going to kill me. I took in the digital clock on the illuminated screen of my phone, through the one eye I had open. My other eye flew open fast to join it.

Charlie was a bad influence, I should never have gone out again last night.

I banged the phone back down and sat up in bed in one swift movement. Reaching down I picked up the pile of yesterday’s clothes and started to thrust my legs into my black jeans. I pushed my bare feet into my black Dr. Marten’s and pulled the laces tight, not doing them up in my trademark way. I picked up the crumpled heap of my T-shirt and tucked a small part of it into my jeans pocket, so it hung down the front of my leg, and threw a crumpled shirt over my bare shoulder. I fastened my button fly with one hand, grabbed my toothbrush with the other, squirting on some paste as I reached the small sink by the door, and quickly ran it under the cold water. In just under a minute flat, I vacated the small room I rented and ran to my only lecture of the day.

I ran between my room and the lecture hall in eight minutes, cleaning my teeth and spitting as I ran. I might just as well have walked. No amount of grovelling was going to get me out of this one. Perhaps I should have e-mailed that I was sick, but my attendance was running close to the margin of being kicked out, I just couldn’t risk it. The trouble was that even at this level of academia most of what was being taught I already knew and the lectures were like “water torture.”

I didn’t want to be kicked out. So, here I was skating that fine line between pissing off all my professors with my tardiness, but producing coursework and exam results that meant I was fairly near the top of my year.

That just meant they hated me even more.

I could see the clock through the narrow rectangular pane of glass in the auditorium door. I was exactly fifty minutes late. I pulled my crumpled T-shirt over my head, thrust my arms into my shirt, and placed my toothbrush in my back pocket. I took a deep breath before I pushed the door open to my economics class.

He was going to have a field day with this one.

Give him his due, he didn’t even turn at the noise of the air being sucked from the room as the door opened. The only tell I recognised, to show he knew I had arrived, was the teeth-on-edge scraping his chalk started to make on the blackboard as I started up the steps to find a vacant seat.

Yep, he was old school, Professor Clark. He refused an interactive white board and as he got the top results in the country the faculty let him get away with it.

I jogged up the final few centre steps, stealing a pencil and piece of paper on the way, and offering a wink as my thanks to a girl that I had fucked a couple of times. I couldn’t remember her name, I think it began with a C… Carrie… Claire… Connie?

Face facts! I hadn’t got a fucking clue.

I sat down in a vacant seat as near to the back as I could find and laid my head down on the small desk in front of me.

I listened to his monotone voice as he carried on explaining whatever the hell he was teaching today and gradually my tired eyes closed…

The sound of a plastic ruler smacking hard against the wood right beside my ear made my eyes jolt open fast.

SHIT!

‘MR. CARPENTER!’

‘Yes, sorry.’ I sat up quickly.

‘Now that you have decided to open your eyes, perhaps you would like to join me down at the front.’ It wasn’t a question that he asked, but more of a demand.

I had the decency to feel embarrassed as I stood and followed Clark down the steps of the nearly empty room, my heavy boots banging on every wooden step. I could see one girl with shoulder-length, nearly black hair sitting with her back to me. I wondered what she’d done wrong. The rest of the auditorium was empty. Give him his due, Professor Clark had dignity. He could have balled me out in front of very nearly a hundred other students, but he had chosen not to.

I owed him big time.

‘Take a seat, Mr. Carpenter, and do try to keep your eyes open for just a few minutes, won’t you?’ I let him have his little sarcastic joke, fuck knows I deserved the dig. He disappeared out of the room talking to someone on the other side of the door. Holding up his hand to us and gesticulating five minutes.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and sat down on the seat at the end of the row, biting the end of the stolen pencil and compressing the small piece of metal into the tiny rubber it held. I looked across the aisle to the girl that was sat there. I was sure I hadn’t seen her about before. She didn’t look over at me, not once. I watched fascinated as she picked nervously at the skin around her nails. To be honest, I was used to having more of an effect on girls in my presence, except Katy of course. I leant forward and shifted again in my seat, and then tapped the end of my pencil up and down quickly on the table trying to attract her attention. But still nothing.

‘Hi, I’m Jack Carpenter,’ I offered, stretching out my right hand towards where she sat.

Hesitantly she began to turn her head towards me. I watched as her tiny hand lifted and pretty-pink fingernails hooked some of her hair behind her ear, allowing me my first real look at the side of her face.

She was beautiful.

Not in a “Yeah I’d do that” sort of way. But in an “absolutely fucking stunning” sort of way. I could honestly say I’d never seen a girl like her before in my twenty-odd years of life, and I’d seen a lot of girls.

She still hadn’t replied. I watched as her face literally lit up into a shy smile, finally she turned fully and her emerald green eyes met mine. She had the longest eyelashes I had ever seen. Those long eyelashes flickered at me as she geared herself up to speak. It was mesmerising and vaguely reminiscent of watching the Venus fly traps catching flies in my mum’s greenhouse, she fluttered those lashes and I was captivated.

‘Huh, hmmm.’ I quickly coughed, closing my eyes to break our connection, as I tried to snap myself out the embarrassing situation I found myself in, just staring at her with my mouth opened wide.

‘Hello… I’m Lily Green. I’m pleased to meet you, Jack.’

Just then, the sound of the door being reopened broke the moment.

‘Right then… I hope you two have introduced yourselves?... Yes?’

I nodded at the Professor’s question and fixed my gaze downwards, staring intently at the pencil I held as I rolled it around quickly with both forefingers and thumbs.

‘Miss Green, believe it or not this rather scruffy, dirty-looking individual is top in my class.’ He spun his head around to fix me with one of his glares, I knew as I felt it penetrate the side of my head. I fought to maintain a straight face, as I lowered my nose and sniffed inside the baggy neck of my crumpled T-shirt.

Scruffy maybe, but not exactly dirty.

‘It appears that he manages this with very little to no exertion on his part… It pains me to say that I still, despite those facts, believe he would be the best man for the job.’

I furrowed my eyebrows at the “job” part, thrust out my jean-clad legs in front of me and crossed them at the ankles, leant back in my seat and linked both hands together at the back of my head.

‘I ain’t looking for a job, Professor.’

‘That’s as maybe, my boy. But this job will see that you manage to maintain the credits you need to pass the modules in my classes.’ He slowly lowered his gaze to look over the silver-framed, semi-circle glasses he always wore, checking to see if I had caught his meaning.

Right, I understood now. This was my punishment for basically offering zero effort.

‘Can I ask what exactly it is ya need me to work on, in this job?’ I released the hold I had on the back of my head to use my fingers to air quote around the words work and job.

‘Miss Green is new to the university and aims to complete her three-year economics degree in just two years. She has convinced me with her commitment to work and her attitude, that this is something she will be able to achieve. I am convinced that you are the one to help her do just that… and you never know, some of her dedication just might rub off on you.’

I wasn’t sure about her dedication rubbing off on me, but the idea of helping her to rub one out was beginning to occupy all my thoughts at once.

‘I will leave the two of you to sort out the details.’ The professor’s voice cut through my dirty thoughts and made the image I had of her spread out on the stairs in between us, disappear into thin air.

He turned from us both and began to repack his large black briefcase with the few belongings he had previously placed on the lectern. With that, we watched as he wordlessly left. As the door closed behind him Lily spoke.

‘Look, I’m no charity case. I’m not stupid enough to think that a guy like you would be even remotely interested in what the Professor has just suggested.’ I watched as Lily stood and moved her tiny frame out from behind the small desk in front of her. She picked up her raincoat from the floor and threaded it over… wait… a brown leather satchel?

Serious stuff!

As I took in the rest of the clothes she was wearing, I realised she was dressed like my gran. I was sure under the matching thin jumper and cardigan set thing and loose, long brown skirt, she had a descent shaped body, but hell… literally nothing she was wearing gave a clue of anything. I felt myself on instinct start to lean to the side, I just had to see what the hell she had on her feet. I leant over until I was only sitting on one arse cheek and stared at the small gap between her long skirt and the floor.

Yep, I knew it… brown flat lace-ups.

‘As you have nothing to say, it appears my assumption was correct.’ For the third time today, I was brought back with a jolt. I adjusted my posture and lifted my gaze to her face.

‘What do ya mean, “a guy like me”?’

‘I think that’s fairly obvious. You can’t be bothered to work, you turn up late and fall asleep in a very highly regarded Professor’s lecture.’ I saw the colour start to rise high on her cheek bones as she tried to put me in my place, she was so fucking sweet. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw any of the girls I knew blush. I felt the beginnings of a smile pull at the corners of my mouth as I stood up and stepped right in front of her. In a bid to tease her, I made sure she was now talking to my chest.

‘You were saying about “a guy like me”.’

‘This is exactly what I was talking about.’ She placed her open palm against my chest, just in between my pecs and pushed me slightly away.

Fuck.

That single touch on my chest made all my senses go into overdrive. I could smell the floral scent she wore escaping from her old-lady jumper. Although she had long since removed her hand, the place on my chest where she had touched was still alive. The only way I could describe it was, it was like being stung by a stinging nettle.

A whole fucking patch of stinging nettles.

‘I can see that you’ve already judged me. You’ve cast your eyes over me and you already think you know me. Let’s forget this meeting ever happened. You go your way and I’ll go mine,’ she said, as she walked quickly towards the exit not even turning around.

I did something then that I had never done before and was never likely to do again.

I chased after her.

‘Lily. Stop. Wait, please.’

I jogged over to where she now stood with her back to me, frozen to the spot.

‘Hey… look, we need each other. You’ve judged me too, and to be honest you ain’t been far off the mark in your observations, but ya need me to help you pass in two years and I need you… because…’ I faltered just trying to think of the exact words I needed. ‘I need you, because without ya I will probably fail my degree. That will upset my parents and that’s the last thing they need.’ I pushed both of my hands down deep into the pockets of my jeans and waited for her to turn around. When she did so, I noticed that the feisty little thing that had just torn me off a strip had tears in her eyes.

I looked away and down to my iPhone. ‘Can I take your number and then we can make plans?’

‘I don’t have a phone, Jack.’

I looked up quizzically, but made sure that my look left my face as quickly as it had arrived. ‘Oh, ok, so where are you staying?’

‘Before I say, are you sure that you want this sort of commitment?’

‘Commitment?’ Just the word made me shudder.

‘This working arrangement the Professor has suggested is a long-term thing. Are you sure you’re ready for that?’

‘I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.’ I realised that the words that had left my mouth out of habit, had just become some of the most significant I had ever said.

I watched as a perfect smile swept over her face and knew from that moment on, I would do whatever I could to make sure I saw that as often as I could. She hooked the loose hair behind her ear again.

‘I know where it is on campus, I’m just not too sure I’ve got the exact address correct. I only arrived this morning.’

‘Lead the way then. On the way, we can come up with a date for our next meeting.’

‘Date?’ she questioned as I held open the auditorium door for her. ‘I’m not… I don’t date.’

‘Figure of speech, Lily, that’s all. I don’t mean anything by it.’

Her body relaxed again as we made our way outside and onto the grass in front of the building. I moved my arm up and took her briefcase and raincoat off her shoulder, remembering for the first time in a long time, the manners I’d been brought up with.

I knew we had only just met, but I liked her, she was like a breath of fresh air. Already, I knew that I’d do anything to see her smile, and that blush was something else.