The Truce

Chapter 4

"You don't have to walk me in," I said as Scott held the door for me. We weren't one of those 'hang up, no you hang up' couples. We didn't do the whole useless sentiment thing. Any time he gave me a ride for an errand or something, he left me at the curb. And he was coming back in less than two hours.

"I know." He took my hand once we were through the door. "I want to."

Settling on thinking it was sweet, despite being unnecessary, I shrugged off the weirdness and we headed for the study section. When I spotted Sebastian by the window, I took a cleansing breath, hoping without really believing that this would be painless.

"Guess I'll see you later," I said, attempting to free my hand. When Scott didn't let go, I looked curiously up at him and realized that his narrowed gaze was on Sebastian. I glanced between them for a second. Sebastian was watching us with an amused expression. I guess Scott was going for intimidating, but it didn't seem to be working. Which might have had to do with the fact that Scott wasn't the biggest guy. I was short, so he was still a lot bigger than me, but he was only about five-nine and lean.

"Okay," Scott said, grabbing my attention shortly before he grabbed my face, pulling it to his own. It would have been a really good kiss if it hadn't been for show. 

When he pulled back, I raised an eyebrow. "All done flexing now?"

He smiled. "Almost." He kissed me again. It was the short and sweet kind and it was much more authentic.

"See you at nine," he said before walking away.

Shaking my head, I made myself start walking over to Sebastian. I didn't want to be insensitive to Scott's feelings, but I honestly didn't understand them. I also wasn't wild about the whole possessive thing.

When I reached the table, it was incredibly awkward. I had no idea how to do this. I hadn't willingly put myself anywhere near him for almost a decade.

"Are you planning to sit at some point?" he asked, looking up at me.

Pursing my lips, I dropped into the chair opposite him and deposited my bag on the floor. Just get it over with, I mentally coached myself. "Alright." I glanced at his open book, glad that he seemed to be making an effort. "What do you need help with?"

He frowned. "I don't know. All of it, I guess."

Was he kidding? Even if we weren't a month into the semester, this was Algebra II. That was a lot to cover in a few hours after school.

"You can't narrow it down a little?"

He huffed. "If I knew what I didn't get, I wouldn't need help."

How in the world were we going to do this? I wasn't a teacher. I knew what worked for me. I had no idea how to get other people to learn things. Especially when I didn't know what they needed to learn.

"Okay..." I looked at the messy paper in front of him. "Well, what are you working on?"

"Homework," he grumbled, shoving the paper at me. "It's probably all wrong though."

Taking the paper, I started looking it over. He actually didn't have a bad start, but it was a mess. Problems overlapped and there didn't appear to be a lot of organization within each problem. That was probably a big part of why he was struggling.

"First of all, you have to be neater," I said. "It's easy to get confused if things aren't organized. Especially as the problems get more complex."

He seemed surprised that I was genuinely offering something constructive. It irritated me that he would think I wouldn't be taking this seriously, but I shoved the feeling down since I knew he was frustrated and embarrassed, and no happier about this arrangement than I was.