Thunder cracks outside, sending a boom down the art hallway on Thursday. Yesterday was overcast and humid, which made it horrible walking home from school. Today, our crazy Texas weather decided to really give us the finger. It’s been thunderstorming outside since first period began.

Luckily, April and I made it to school before it started raining. Nothing sucks more than being stuck sitting in class with soaked clothes. It’s happened twice since I started high school, which isn’t bad considering how many times I’ve walked to school. The junior high is only a block away from my house, so walking there was a lot easier. If it was raining, I’d just wait five minutes until it stopped and then run to school.

April turns the corner from the main hallway. She also has art for sixth period, but she’s in ceramics class and I’m in painting. She’s got her nose stuck in a paperback book, so she doesn’t realize when she’s about to knock right into me.

“Uh, excuse you,” I say rudely—but in a playful rude voice. She must not realize who I am because she startles and looks up, her eyes big like she might pass out from fear of colliding with a senior. Then she recognizes me and her shoulders relax.

“Sorry,” she says, shoving her bookmark back in her book. “This rain better let up before school is over.”

I groan. “If it’s not, we’re just gonna sit inside until it stops. I can’t stand the idea of getting soaked on our walk home.”

“Hey there.”

April and I turn to see who just joined our little group in the hallway. I nearly crap myself when I see Caleb Brown approaching, that one-dimpled grin on his face. It’s been two days since he stopped us on the road before school, and I haven’t seen him since.

“See you later,” April says, slipping past me. She is so weirded out by guys, the poor thing. I can’t even tell her bye because she leaves so quickly.

I swallow my nerves, but it doesn’t help at all. “Hi, Caleb.”

He’s wearing dark skinny jeans and a black shirt underneath his letterman jacket. It’s not even that cold outside today, but he looks good, so who am I to complain?

“It’s really pouring out there,” he says, giving a quick glance over his shoulder to the set of glass doors at the end of the hallway. The sky has turned an angry gray, and the rain is so thick you can barely see the football field outside.

“Yeah, it sucks because rain always makes me want to fall asleep in class.”

He chuckles, then leans forward, his head lowering just inches away from mine. “So take a nap.”

I stiffen. He smells a little like cologne, but also like something leathery, like he’s just left a car wash. “I wish,” I say, trying to sound sarcastic, but the truth is so real it makes my stomach hurt. “I can’t goof off in class anymore. My grades suck.”

“Nah, I don’t believe that,” he says, standing back to his full height. “You look smart.”

I resist the urge to tell him how terribly wrong he is. I have no idea why Caleb Brown is talking to me in the hallway, but I’d like to keep it going as long as possible. “So what class do you have next?” I ask.

“Athletics,” he says. “So, Natalie…”

The way he says my name sounds like he’s been thinking it over for a while. Now that he’s clearly about to ask me something, all the sounds in the hallway fade away until it’s just me and Caleb standing here face to face. I know it’s too early to expect him to ask me on a date but…what if he does?

“Yes?” I say, my voice barely a whisper.

“Since it’s monsoon season outside, I figured I could give you a ride home today.”

Oh. My shoulders fall. So that’s all he’s asking. Of course, it’s better than nothing. But I can’t leave April to walk home in the rain and she most likely won’t want to ride with him either. I’m about to tell him that when Jonah Garza interrupts the conversation.

“Hey, Natalie,” he says, flashing me a nervous smile. He’s holding a ceramic vase in one hand and a stack of papers in the other. I’d been so caught up in staring at Caleb’s gorgeous cheekbones, that I hadn’t even noticed Jonah walk by. “We still on for today?”

All of the excitement I’d had just seconds ago bursts into flames in my mind. Dammit. I have tutoring today. How could I have forgotten that?

“We’re still on,” I say, trying not to heave the world’s largest sigh.

“Cool.” He smiles, his eyes crinkling in the corners. He doesn’t even seem to notice Caleb standing there. “See you at three.”

After he leaves, I turn my attention back to Caleb. He looks annoyed…or maybe…jealous? There’s no way.

“So, you got plans with nerd boy?” Caleb asks, the irritation obvious in his voice.

Oh shit, is he jealous? Is he seriously jealous?

I am freaking out on the inside, absolutely losing my shit. Caleb Brown just asked to drive me home, which is basically a precursor to asking me on a real date. And then Jonah ruined it and Caleb actually seems jealous.

“Yeah, sorry,” I say, deciding to maintain an air of mystery instead of letting him know I just have tutoring. “I’m busy after school. But thanks so much for offering me a ride.” I grin and touch his shoulder with as much confidence as I can muster, even though my knees are shaking. “You’re such a sweetheart.”

With that, I turn and walk straight into my classroom, feeling as though my heart will explode. I cannot believe I just boldly flirted with Caleb Brown. My grades may suck, but right now my social life is totally on point.

 

***

 

“So,” Jonah says when I join him at the same table in the library after school. “Show me your stack.”

I put a hand to my chest. “Damn, Jonah. That’s a little forward, don’t you think? Maybe buy me dinner first?”

He looks confused for just a second and then he blushes and presses his lips together. God, I love how easily I can make this nerd blush. He’s probably never even dated a girl, much less flirted with one.

“I meant stack of papers,” he says. “Not…well—I don’t even know what the word stack could mean in another connotation.”

I shrug. “It sounds kind of like rack?”

He gives me this incredulous look. “You don’t even know the meaning of your own joke?”

“What can I say?” I reach into my backpack and dig around inside. “If I can find a way to crack in inappropriate joke just to see you blush, I will.”

“You are ridiculous,” he says with a long exhale. “I’m not blushing. If anything, I’m red with rage because you’re the most annoying person I’ve ever tutored.”

“Dang, Jonah!” I put a hand to my chest. “Bringing out the claws, huh?”

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “Show me your papers. How much did you get done?”

After our session on Tuesday, Jonah had looked over my stack of extra credit worksheets and said I should be able to do at least ten of them by the time we met again. Ha. Yeah. Freaking. Right.

I managed to do three of the easier worksheets after dinner last night, and that’s all I’ve done.

I hand him the stack of papers, hoping he won’t actually go through them.

But of course he does.

“Three?” he looks up at me and I expect a lecture or some other look of disappointment. Instead, his brows pull together in concern, “Is everything okay?”

His question hits home, but I’m not about to tell this guy anything about my stressful life away from school. I shrug like I don’t give a shit. “Yep.”

“Okay,” he says, turning his attention back to the papers. “You need to finish five a day to complete them all in a month. At this rate, you’ll be done in two months or longer.”

“Well, they didn’t give me a due date,” I say.

“Don’t underestimate how long it takes the teachers to grade these. I’d get them in as soon as possible. If they aren’t graded by the end of the school year, you’ll be SOL.”

“Oh, awesome,” I say sarcastically. “Now I’m even more stressed out about this crap.” I take the papers from him and shove them back in my bag. “Can we just get to the tutoring now? I promise I’ll work on the stack when I get home.”

“Don’t get tripped up if the questions are confusing,” he says, still talking about the stack of extra credit work. “Just circle it and skip over it and we’ll look at them next time we meet up, okay?”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

I feel a little bad for how sarcastic I am during the duration of our tutoring session. But I really can’t help it. Jonah is so hyper focused on work, work, work, and he never wants to joke around or get off topic. He’s just so serious all the time. And the worst part? That look in his eyes when he bothers to take his focus off the papers in front of him. When he truly looks at me, I see something reflecting back on his features that scares me a little.

The boy genuinely wants me to succeed. It’s not because we’re friends or anything, because we aren’t. It’s probably just because every person he turns from a failure to an honor roll student looks good on his college applications. But I can see it plainly on his features: he wants me to succeed.

And that’s just too much pressure for me.

What If I still fail? What if I screw up not only my chance of graduating without summer school, but his record as well? I’d hate to be the only student in his notebook whose grades didn’t improve after working with him.

“So, I thought we’d work on chemistry today,” Jonah says, pulling me from my thoughts. As always, he’s been talking this whole time and I haven’t been listening.

“I hate chemistry,” I say with a groan.

“I know, but you have a test on Monday. It’ll be here before you know it.”

“Seriously?” I say, and then I cringe because I totally said that way too loud for the library. I look over at the librarian and she’s staring at me. Oops.

“Natalie, what are you doing in class besides listening to the teacher?”

I pick at my cuticles. Today in chemistry, they were going over some five page worksheet—which I just now realize was probably the test review—and it was all so stressful I spent most of the time on my phone, trying to spruce up The Magpie’s Facebook page. When I tell Jonah this, his jaw falls open.

“I know, I know,” I say, holding up a hand. “I am the worst student ever, and if I want help and must also help myself, and your tutoring record will be ruined because of me, and you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” he says quickly. “I’m not thinking any of that. I’m trying to think of a good way to teach a student who doesn’t want to be taught.”

His eyes look off into the distance and then his face lights up. “I’ve got it. Come with me.”

I follow him to the back of the library to a row of computers that face the back wall. “You really hate studying the textbook, so I think a computer lesson might really help you. Plus, you can do it at home.”

He pulls out a computer chair and motions for me to sit. He leans over me and turns on the computer screen, then opens the browser. “Have you heard of ChemXLabs?” he asks.

“You smell good,” I say.

I clamp my hand over my mouth. I did not mean to say that. Oh my God, Natalie, what are you thinking?

I mean, I know exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking that Jonah is hovering over my shoulder and he smells like soap again and it’s such a nice smell compared to guys like Caleb who have got it going on in every possible way, yet they smell weird.

Jonah ignores my comment, which is probably for the best. He pulls up the school’s website and then clicks on the links for students. ChemXLabs is on the list.

“I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t used it,” I tell him.

He clicks on the log in then releases the computer mouse for me. “Just log in and I’ll show you how to set it up. You can pick the chapter you’re studying in chemistry right now and it’ll give you practice tests that pretty accurately match the one you’ll get in real life.”

“How do I log in?” I ask, looking back at him.

“It’s just your school log in for all of these websites.”

My lips squish to the side of my mouth. His eyes widen and he puts his hands on his hips. “You’ve never logged into these sites before?”

I shake my head.

“In all your four years of high school?”

I lift my shoulders and bite my lip, trying to look somewhat innocent. He rolls his eyes. “It’s SHD in all caps, and then your birthdate. The password is SHD2017. That’s the same username and password you can use to sign into all of these very helpful school approved study sites,” he says. “You might want to write it down and use it sometime.”

“Thank you, Mr. Garza,” I say sarcastically. “You’re so smart and helpful.”

He doesn’t respond to my sarcasm, of course I didn’t expect him to.

“So my username is SHD,” I say, typing in the letters.

“And then your birthday in month, date, year format,” he says.

“April third…” I say, looking at the keyboard.

I type in my username: SHD04032000 and then the password, and what do you know, it works. Jonah finally takes a seat in the rolling computer chair next to me and he walks me through how to set up the chemistry lesson that we’re studying in class. The website is pretty good, as far as something boring like studying goes. We spend the rest of our time working the questions online and taking a few of the practice tests.

By the time we’re finished, I actually feel like I might know some stuff about chemistry now. No, I feel better than that. I feel like I’m going to pass the test.

“Thank you for showing me that website,” I say as we gather our things and log off the computer. “I’m feeling pretty confident for the test on Monday.”

Jonah grins, sliding his messenger bag over his shoulder. “Let me know how it goes, okay?”

“You’ll be the first person I tell,” I say. Then I give him a wink just to see if he blushes.

He totally does.