Jiley Oneshots

Apologies (pt.2)

Riley's POV:

"Where are you going?" Ella asks me in her vivid British accent as she stood up off the bench, her arms folded over her chest whilst she looked at me with a raised eyebrow when I grabbed my grey dance bag to quickly head out. James was revising in Hidalgo's, like I'd forcefully told him to before dance practice. It took a lot of persuasion to get him to cancel on band and remind him that our duet was already solid, so there was no need for him to worry.

Turning around, I look at Ella's curious face and tut my teeth, clicking my tongue as I let out a short breath from the amount of exercise we had both just done.

"Nowhere. There's just someone I need to talk to," I tell her, on purposefully being concise. Merely because I don't want her to know too-much about my boyfriend's personal life, let alone get herself involved and start asking a series of questions. That obviously doesn't stop her though, and her next words are:

"And that someone would be . . . ?"

"Just someone, no big deal," I state, shrugging it off, before I turn around to make my way out into the hallway. 

Leaving Ella to stand there, confused, I enter the restaurant area to find James sat there with his head bowed down and index fingertips rubbing each side of his temples, his gaze focused on the textbook beneath him. I sigh to myself, taking a look at the grief-stricken look on his face, and then choose to make my way over, pushing my other plans aside for the time being. 

"How are you doing?" I ask, standing behind him with my arms folded. He looks up at me and shakes his head, leaning back and letting out an aggressive breath as he puts his hands on his lap instead. I place my hand on his shoulder and read over the question he was looking at:

∛-x^6 =  ?

"It's not that hard, babe," I tell him. 

"Yeah, for you," he scoffs. I roll my eyes and haul my handbag off my shoulder before forcing him to shuffle up across the sofa seating so I could sit down beside him. I grab his pencil and examine the question again before explaining it to him.

"So, you've got minus-x to the power of six, right?" I ask him. He huffs but nods at the same time, muttering a 'yeah' in response. "Then you need to find two numbers that times together to make six-"

"Six and one," he interrupts me. I roll my eyes.

"No. It's the cube root, so it would be two and three."

"Two and three makes five," he says. I hit him in the chest with the pencil and then he moans, rubbing the spot I had hit.

"You're timesing it, James. Not adding."

"Okay, fine, whatever. Continue."

"Okay," I say before exhaling, trying not to lose my patience. "So because you've got the cube root twice, we have to take it away from the other, so that would be . . . ?"

"Three."

"No," I scold him again. "I said we take it away from the other. Three minus three is what?"

"Zero," he mumbles. I nod and write it down, taking specific notes for him.

"Exactly. So then if you cross cancel it, we're left with . . ." I look directly at him with a hopeful smile, before he leans forward to look and then says,

"Minus-x squared."

"Exactly. So that's the answer."

"I still don't get it," he refrains. I sigh and put the pencil down, placing my hand on his knee.