Special Tutoring

Fifty Shades of Adorable

*It's been a while since we had a little one-on-one between Mai and Ethan right? For the fans who have been waiting patiently.... Luv, Vardin*

"I don't know about you but I am totally freaking out."

I reluctantly tore my gaze from my Calculus to Amy, who said this calmly from under a peel mask. The Varsity juniors were in my bedroom, ostensibly to plan the upcoming Cheer activities. Instead of discussing the "Toys for Tots" drive, bake sale and end of Season banquet, they were sprawled out around me on the carpeted floor, rejuvenating their skin with cucumber slices and facial masks.

"Freaking out about what, Ames?" Liz asked equally mildly, face pointed towards the ceiling, careful not to disturb the cucumber slices on her eyes.

"ACT."

I almost rolled my eyes at Amy's answer. I was the only one studying, even though we had registered for the December test together. It was the best time to take it given that December was a somewhat lull period for Cheer after the State. Sometimes I envied my friends for having zen parents who supported them in whatever they did.

My parents had turned up the heat on me in the last few days. They even enlisted Qin to help prepare me for my ACT, SATs, and get this... AP exams (I didn't even take AP classes!) in MAY, not knowing of course that I already had a tutor who lived next door. Speaking of my tutor, the  gorgeous blond devil, I'd better end this quickly so that I could head over to my classes with him. Despite declaring to my family that we were dating two Sundays ago, his smses since then had hardly been of the romantic nature. Unless Calculus, Physics and Chemistry homework had suddenly turned sexy. He was so twisted this way. Then again he just sent me a message about how he was going to either punish or incentivize me later, based on how well I did my assignments. I could hardly wait. *wink*

"Hey, you guys, wake up. We need to at least finish discussing the "Toys for Tots". I got something on later. "

"By something on later, you mean... " Amy made loud smooching noises to the other girls' giggles. I flushed a dull red. My being with Ethan was fast becoming common knowledge within our close-knit group because there was no such thing as secrets in Cheer. We spent way too many hours together to be able to hide anything from one another, though, by some miracle, nobody caught sight of Ethan carrying me (so sad, I would have loved to keep a photo of that for posterity). So no one outside of Cheer knew about our relationship.

"Yeah, how firm are those buns, Mai? Dish the juicy details," said Rachel. "After all, we had been so nice, admiring them with you all this while. You gotta reward us for our loyalty."

"Oh please, stop it. We are not like that and you know it."

"Right, because when you are at his place, all you do is study." Giggles all around, me included.

"Studying each other's anatomy, you mean," laughed Tessa, and Rachel gave a low whistle.

"Must be easy, since he has such defined abs and nice tight buns." Liz formed two rounded shapes with her hands. The rest of the girls laughed even harder which earned them all fluffy hits on the heads with my pillow. After much exclaiming over how I was ruining their complexions, we all finally calmed down enough to rinse our faces and count how many toys we had managed to garner so far, after canvassing through our Facebook fan page, and seeking donations via our booth at home games.

"It's not bad," I said, leaning against my bed frame. "But it's not great either. We are doing slightly better than the Seniors did last year. We should be able to buy some decent toys."

"Too bad we don't live in LA or Florida. Imagine how much money we'd get if we were able to throw a bikini car wash." Liz grumbled.

"Excuse me, we live in a small town. Even if we were able to, do you think our parents and the High would allow us?"