Unexpected

[13] Touchy Subject

Hey everyone! I know I haven't posted in forever, but I hope you enjoy regardless. :) Please vote/comment if you like it!

Clara.

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Study sessions with Ryan were apparently a point of gossip in the halls of Ocean View High. I didn’t know how people had found out, but for the first few days it was like I was constantly being watched. Why was it so fascinating that I needed a Chemistry tutor? But I soon realized that it wasn’t necessarily the fact I needed a tutor that made people stare, but more who my tutor was. Everyone thought that Ryan “tutoring” me was really just a cover-up for me to go to his house every Tuesday and Thursday to hook up. The first time I’d heard it, I admit the rumor had not only shocked me but also made me angry. But I got over it, and after two weeks of the mutterings in the hallways between classes it honestly didn’t even bother me anymore.

    The only bad thing about the situation was Dean. If he wasn’t happy about seeing Ryan and I messing around in the pool, he was definitely not okay with him being my “tutor.” He’d come home from school the day he heard about it completely livid and demanded that I find another tutor. When I told him I wasn’t going to, I seriously thought he might go find Ryan and beat him. Thankfully, though, I was able to calm him down and we finally all compromised by me and Ryan meeting at a coffee shop instead of his house. That didn’t mean my brother let it go, though. He badgered me about it every minute he got and it was really starting to get old.

    I had some peace at the moment, while Dean and Travis were working on their class projects together. My laptop was open in front of me, a bowl of ice cream in my hand as I video chatted with Jake and Paige.

    “So how are things on your end?” Paige and Jake were eating ice cream too (we’d quickly made this a tradition after my move) and her spoon clinked against the bowl.

    “Okay, I guess,” I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “School’s fine, I have a few friends. It would be nice if Dean would shut up about this tutoring thing, though.”

    Rolling my eyes, I shook my head and took another bite. Jake raised an eyebrow.

    “Tutoring thing?”

    Crap. I forgot I hadn’t told them about it yet, weary that their reactions would be much the same as everyone else’s.

    “Yeah, I wasn’t doing so great in Chemistry, so a friend of mine is tutoring me.”

    “And Dean isn’t okay with this because…?” Paige gave me that look, like she knew I was hiding something but didn’t want to say it.

    I shrugged nonchalantly and took my time with a bite of ice cream.

    “Kodi,” she prompted and I sighed.

    “Because my tutor is Ryan.”

    “Ryan?” Her eyebrows furrowed. “Bad boy Ryan?”

    "He isn’t a ‘bad boy,’” I rolled my eyes again. “He just likes beer and girls…a lot.”

    “You’re being tutored by this guy? Is that a good idea?”

   Jacob’s eyebrows shot up and annoyance flared inside me for a second. Was everyone completely against him?

    “You don’t even know him, so you aren’t allowed to judge.” I snapped at their skeptical faces. “And just so you know, he has one of the highest grades in that class.”