Make It Count (4 page)

Tara stood up and walked to her desk. “Your relationship with Max is getting close to its expiration date anyway.”

“Expiration date?”

Tara turned around and laughed. “What’s it been, like two or three months? That’s about the shelf life of a Kat Caruso boyfriend.”

Kat shook her head and opened her mouth to deny that, too. But she snapped it shut when she couldn’t think of one boyfriend she’d had for longer than three months.

“Shoot,” she said again.

Tara picked up her book bag and shrugged on her heavy ski jacket. “Why is that?”

Kat hated lying to people. But sometimes it couldn’t be avoided and this was one of those times. This was something she didn’t want to admit out loud, so she turned away from Tara. “I don’t know.”

Tara heaved a sigh. “Well, I gotta get to class. We’ll talk later?”

“Yep,” said Kat, not really paying attention. “Oh wait!” she called after her friend. Tara stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder expectantly.

Kat hopped off of the bed and grabbed a notepad from her desk. She ripped off the top paper and handed it to Tara.

She looked up and raised her head questioningly. “Alisa Dombrovski?”

“You said Amy wanted to take dance, right?”

Tara, the oldest of five, had told Kat her youngest sister wouldn’t stop talking about ballet after seeing
The Nutcracker
last year. But her parents couldn’t afford it and Tara had been saving money from her retail job for lessons.

“Alisa is the sister of the ballet instructor I took lessons from when I was a kid. I called Irina the other day and told her your sister really shows talent but . . . um . . . funds are tight. So she called
her
sister, whose studio is about a half hour from your parents’ house, and Alisa agreed to take on your sister. No cost.”

Tara blinked at the paper and then at Kat. She opened her mouth, but Kat cut her off.

“I know it’s a half hour and that’s a strain on your parents, but I’m sure one of your brothers can drive her. Also, don’t give me crap about how you won’t take charity. Alisa said if you demand to pay something, she needs her studio painted and maybe Greg can do that, too, if he’s already driving her.”

Tara’s throat worked and she finally found her voice. “You seriously got my sister free ballet lessons.”

Kat waved a hand. “I didn’t do anything. I just called Irina.”

“Kat, I . . .” Tara flicked the paper in her hand, then folded it carefully and tucked in into her pocket. “I’m not too proud to take charity. Not for my sister. Thank you so much. She’s going to scream when I call her and tell her.”

“A good scream?” Kat squinted.

Tara laughed. “Yeah, a good one.” She glanced at her clock. “I gotta go, but we’ll talk more, yeah?”

Kat waved as Tara walked out, but her friend poked her head back inside. “Think what I said about Max?”

Kat nodded and Tara smiled, then left.

Kat flopped back down on her bed. Max was the perfect guy for her—loud in a way that he didn’t hear much other than his own voice in his ears. He didn’t look closely at her other than her physical attributes and that’s how she liked it.

There wasn’t a commitment with Max and guys like him. She knew when they made fun of her for her scatterbrain or got tired of her and left, she could let it roll off of her back.

She was careful to stick to guys like that. Guys who would never have her heart or mean much to her. She didn’t like being alone, which was the reason she even kept them around.

The problem with Alec—the reason she needed to keep her distance—was he wasn’t like Max. Alec already made her feel brain-naked; with those intelligent eyes on her and a few kind words, he’d have her heart-naked, too.

She couldn’t afford that. Because once he found out what she was really like, there was no way he’d stick with her. And she shuddered to think what marks he’d leave on her naked heart.

Good thing she had a boyfriend. Good thing Alec would never see her as more than a dumb girl who needed a tutor. Good thing she thought Alec was a jerk and wasn’t at all attracted to him or grateful to him for sticking with tutoring her.

Oh, crap on a cracker.

Chapter Four

A
LEC PLUNKED THE
smoothie down on the table in front of an empty seat and sat down opposite. Hopefully the spinach concoction would be like a peace offering to Kat. He debated whether he should have spiked it with rum when booted heels clicked on the tile, and Kat’s shadow fell on the table.

She stared at the smoothie questioningly, then raised her eyes to his without moving her head.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, you had a green smoothie the other day, and this was the only one the guy at the counter said was green so . . .” He gestured lamely at it with his hand.

“You remembered I had a green smoothie?”

He didn’t want to tell her he remembered the smoothie was green because it matched her green sweater she was wearing that day. Because that would definitely be weird. So he shrugged. “Yeah.”

She blinked at it and sat down, then wrapped her lips around the straw and sucked. While drinking, she looked up at him with those big blue eyes and his chest constricted. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck as she hollowed her cheeks and—
Shit, did someone turn the heat up in this damn library?

He exhaled roughly and looked away. When he turned back to her, she had finally stopped with her sex-act simulation and folded her hands primly on the table in mock innocence, smiling sweetly.

And that made him swell in his jeans, because damn, she was good. He didn’t want to think about the fact that this was the first time in a long time he’d been so strongly attracted to someone. Getting cheated on tended to dull the libido.

A subject change was necessary. “You ready to get started?”

The innocent sex kitten look rapidly faded, replaced by tension in her body. He wanted to cringe at her obvious discomfort. She nodded curtly, then dug into her book bag for her textbook and notes.

He glanced at the syllabus she had among her class materials in the center of the table. It was covered with different colors of highlighter, and he made a note to look more closely later, to study her system. “Oh, Dr. Alzahabi? I had him for macroeconomics. He’s tough but fair.”

“Yeah, well, my professor could be, like, the inventor of statistics or whatever and I’d still be failing.” She blushed a little and bit her lip at the admission.

Alec decided it was best to move on. “Okay, well, let’s go over your notes on the class so far. Start at the beginning.”

For the next forty-five minutes, they read over her notes. The pages were covered in scribbles and sometimes her notes would end mid-sentence, as if she hadn’t caught the words or hadn’t been paying attention. Her notes were like a dozen half-started mazes, and he hoped he had the correct map to help her finish them.

During the session, it started to rain, and he caught her several times staring out the window near their table, her eyes trailing the rivulets of water. He knew he should try to redraw her attention, but she was so beautiful in profile, all long lashes and full lips and smooth skin. She ran her hands through her hair and his fingers itched, wondering what it would be like to sift his own fingers through the dark golden strands, or see them spread out on his pillow, clear blue eyes staring up at him.

Whiffs of citrus from her shampoo or body wash hit him each time she turned her head, and it was fucking distracting. He spent most of the session uncomfortably half hard and wondered how he was going to be able to do this twice a week.

And he felt guilty as fuck. A total hypocrite. Was this how it started with Carrie? Did she start looking at some guy—he didn’t know who it was—and think about touching him? Shit, he didn’t want to think about it.

And here he was, turning around and thinking of doing almost the same thing to Max.

He was such an asshole.

At the end of the hour, Kat’s self-consciousness had faded, and he hoped she hadn’t noticed his completely over-the-top reaction to her presence.

“So, do you feel better about some of the material?” he asked.

She smiled and it was nice to see Kat relaxed, without tension or the straw-sucking sex kitten act. “Yeah, you’re good at this stuff. Thanks.”

“No problem.” He reached for her notebook and as he handed it to her, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor.

“Let me get that!” Kat said urgently, jolting from her seat as he picked it up. He wasn’t paying attention to her though, his eyes on the piece of paper. It was a quiz, dated that Tuesday.

In red print and surrounded by a broken circle was 2/10. Her score.

She snatched it out of his hand before he could look any further. “That’s mine,” she snapped, crumpling it and stuffing it into her book bag.

“Kat, what’s the big deal—”

“Great, so we’re done for now, right? See ya next week.”

Her face was pinched, and her voice was shaky. She was riding the edge of that wave right now, and he really, really wanted to help steady her.

“Kat.” He kept his voice calm. Her hands, fumbling with the clasp on her bag, slowed. “That was a quiz from statistics?”

She swallowed and sighed, looking out the window again. Finally, she nodded.

“Okay . . .” he said slowly. “Why didn’t you show it to me? We can go over it and see where you went wrong—”

She whipped her head to the side, hair cascading around her shoulders. “I failed it. I’m not really sure what point there is in rehashing it.”

Alec felt like a horse trainer trying to calm a wild mustang. “Yeah, you did fail it. But that’s why you have a tutor. So we can bring your grades up, but we need to see where you struggle before we can fix it.”

She still wouldn’t meet his eyes, so he decided to take a chance. “I don’t understand why you get so defensive—”

“I don’t want you to think I’m stupid!” she yelled, then froze, biting her lips furiously, her eyes wet.

Oh shit, he didn’t know what to do with tears.

“I don’t think you’re stupid—”

She snorted under her breath, her head turned away again.

“Okay,” he hedged. “At first I might have assumed you were one of Max’s typical girlfriends, but I know that you aren’t. I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you aren’t good at statistics, and you’re not the best note-taker. None of that means you’re stupid.”

She blinked rapidly and then turned to face him, hunching over her folded arms. This self-conscious Kat made his chest hurt.

“I don’t like feeling stupid,” she said quietly.

Damn.
“I don’t think anyone likes feeling stupid.”

She stared at her hands, picking her nails. “I tend to feel that way a lot and I hate it.” Her eyes rose to meet his. “I’ve never really admitted that to anyone before.”

She was killing him. All he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and smooth her hair and never let anyone again make her feel less than brilliant.

But he couldn’t control anyone else.

“If I ever do anything to make you feel like that, you tell me, all right?” Those blue eyes stared into his, and he felt lost in the whirlpool, like the rain had flooded the library and they were all actually underwater.

Something worked behind her eyes as she watched him, and he wanted to kick his own ass for ever thinking she was just another girl.

She licked her lips. “Okay, Alec.”

His name on her lips, said without snark, coated his skin like a hot towel. Guess he hadn’t drowned.

“So, is this kind of like a truce?” she asked.

Apparently confessional time was over. “Yeah, sure. Something like that.”

“Pinky swear?” She held out her hand, little finger extended.

“Uh . . .”

She wiggled it, along with her eyebrows. “Come on. Don’t be too cool to pinky swear.”

“I’m twenty-one years old. I’m not going to pinky swear.”

She stuck out her lower lip in a pout and widened those eyes.

He huffed out a breath, slammed his elbow on the table and linked little fingers with her. “Note I’m doing this under duress.”

She raised their hands up and down. “Noted.”

He released his finger from hers before he did something stupid like haul her across the table and kiss her.

She turned her head toward the window and sighed. He followed her gaze and watched as an icy rain beat against the windows. “Ugh,” she groaned. “No way am I walking out in that.”

“Yeah, looks like we’re stuck here for a little.” He shifted in his seat, conflicted over being in her presence for longer.
She has a boyfriend, man. Your best friend!

“I don’t feel like studying anymore,” Kat said.

“Want to come with me to get a smoothie? I heard they have a protein one. I’ve been meaning to check it out. The line was long when I got here, so I just ordered yours, and I had a run before I came.”

“Oh really? You run?” They rose from their seats and skirted the tables on their way to the snack counter.

“Yeah, I was on the cross-country team in high school.”

“Wow. I admired those guys. I hate running.”

“Oh yeah?” He nudged her with his elbow as they stood in line. “I bet you were a cheerleader.”

Kat scrunched her nose. “No, I wasn’t, actually. My friends tried to get me to join the team, but I didn’t like the uniforms. I look bad in yellow.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

“But,” she continued. “I was a football manager.”

“A football manager? What is . . . what did you manage?”

She looked at him, all wide-eyed innocence. “Tight ends.” Then she bent over in peals of laughter, her whole little body shaking, undignified snorts drawing side-eyes from other students.

He groaned. “Kat, that was awful and seriously not funny.”

She straightened, wiping her eyes. “Yes, it was totally funny.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“If it wasn’t funny, then why are you laughing?”

He hadn’t even realized he’d
been
laughing. What was it about her that he found himself smiling whenever she was around? He rubbed his mouth to cover the rest of his chuckles. “Because watching you laugh makes me laugh.”
Shit, did I say that out loud?

Kat sobered quickly, her eyes rising to meet his. All flirting sex kitten gone as she absorbed his words. Finally, she spoke. “No one has ever said that to me before.”

He looked away and shrugged, unwilling to continue the conversation further because he didn’t trust himself. But he mentally kicked himself, because he would have loved to hear her laugh like that all day.

He ordered his smoothie, and they returned to their table. Alec kept telling himself he should leave and brave the icy rain, but Kat’s draw was powerful. He shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “So, what’s your major again?”

A faint blush crept into her cheeks. “Um, I’m actually undecided.”

“Oh? Well, do you know what you want to do?”

The blush didn’t fade and Kat shifted in her seat. “I’m not . . . I’m not sure yet. I just . . .” She straightened her spine and looked him in the eye, her voice strengthening. “I know that I want a degree. I know that I don’t want to be a secretary for my parents’ company, which is where I would be without graduating from college.”

“Why’s that? There are other jobs you can do without a degree.”

She shook her head. “I know myself. I’d give into the pressure of my dad—I love him, but he’s kind of a battle ax—and I’d take the easy way out. And then I’d be miserable.” She took a deep breath. “I believe I have some sort of purpose. Something I haven’t realized yet. I have to find it.” She peeked at him from under her lashes and threaded her fingers through her hair. “Does that sound stupid? I mean, I know you might not get it because I’m sure school was always easy for you, but—”

“Don’t do that,” he cut her off.

“What?”

“Don’t compare me to you. We’re totally different people and we each have our own strengths and weaknesses. And I think that’s great that you’re doing something for yourself. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t sure what you want to do yet for the rest of your life. You’re only twenty. But you’re going for your goal, and I think that’s awesome. I’m proud of you.”

She stared at him, her fingers motionless and tangled in her hair. Then she smiled that rare, genuine smile. “Thanks.” She released her hair and drained her smoothie, the straw gasping in the empty cup. “But I have to pass statistics first.”

He winked. “Good thing you have me.”

Her snort sounded sort of ironic. “Yeah. Good thing.”