Duke Basketball

Chapter 3

The rest of the day was not great. Some of my classes were boring, and others were unbearingly hard. I found myself missing having Luke there to lighten the mood. That night at dinner, I could almost understand why Kenzie annoyed Mia so much. She just talked and talked about how mean her brother was to her and how she couldn't believe her dad was actually making her see that "Animal" I swirled my drink and tried to resist the urge to murder her. I saw Mia shooting me looks across the table the whole time while Carter was somehow able to listen and try to cheer her up.

"Ugh! I just don't know why he hates me so much! I swear, I was the best little sister ever. And now Dad's forcing us to 'Hang out'. He couldn't even agree to hanging out with me in public, he said he'd only talk to me in my dorm. So yeah, he'll be around here tomorrow night. I apologize in advance, he's a typical college guy, without the cute part."

I glanced up at the clock and saw it was almost seven. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Sorry Kenz, I gotta go." Mia looked up in interest at something that didn't have to do with Kenzie's brother.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

"Oh, just Bostock. A guy in my systematic inquiry offered to tutor me." All three of my new friends looked at each other, grinning wickedly.

"What type of guy?" Mia asked, her voice too high pitched for my taste.

"Umm, a guy guy? The male counterpart of females?" Carter giggled at my remark.

"Well, have fun with the 'male counterpart of females'." I looked at them suspiciously. It had been entirely too long without a fight between Mia and Kenzie. I suddenly realized why they were acting this way.

"Oh come on guys! This isn't middle school, I'm allowed to hang out with a guy." Mia wiggled her eyebrows.

"Well, you go have fun with your friend." Mia said, winking at me. The girls all laughed as I walked out the door rolling my eyes.

I got to Bostock and found an empty study room. Luke had texted me that he was on his way, and I didn't even have to wait 5 minutes before he poked his head in the doorway of the study room.

"Perfect, there you are." He held a plate in his hand that had half a slice of pizza on it.

"Are you supposed to have food in here?" I asked, half-laughing.

"Probably not. I'll just have to finish it quickly then." I laughed as he took a bite, put his bag on the table next to my open folder, and sat down in the chair next to me.

"So, systematic inquiry..." He scooted his chair closer to mine so he could look over my shoulder at the work I had out, I nodded. Luke walked me through everything till I was starting to grasp the concept. By then we had been at it for about 2 hours. My phone started to ring. The name of a person I hadn't seen in a very long time popped up on the screen. Mike Krzyzewski. I quickly hung up, hoping Luke hadn't seen it. I knew if he did I'd have to go into a conversation that I always tried to avoid.

"Who was that?" Luke asked.

"Just my mom, I'll call her back later." I lied. He smiled and nodded.

"Okay, where were we?" He asked, and we got back to work. We worked for another hour before we both realized how late it was and walked back to our dorms, apartment in his case. However, we did make plans for us to meet up the rest of the week due to my desperate need for help.

* * *

The next day went by fairly quickly. Luke decided to sit next to me in systematic inquiry, which was helpful and very unhelpful at the same time. He helped by explaining things when I didn't get it, but he was making jokes the entire time. They were funny, but Professor Levitt was not very happy to have two people chuckling in the back of the class. By the end of the class, Luke and I were crying from laughing so hard.