Good Guy

Part Thirteen

The day wasn't ending the way Cleo had wanted it to.

For one thing, Adelih had been glaring daggers at her all throughout Psyche class. It seemed she was still a hot topic among the other students, although she was fairly sure her popularity had winded down a bit. Either that, or Adelih was salty because she and Maggie now got along well.

To cap off her uncomfortable experience of sitting through a lecture while Adelih Valeria glared at her, Cleo had another close encounter with Jackson Cavendish.

She almost bumped into him while getting out of the lecture room. He was walking through the hallway with his posse of other drop-dead gorgeous buddies and catching the eyes of her batch mates in the process. What pissed her off was that he raised an eyebrow her way and gave her a smirk, as if saying 'look what I can do.'

She was honestly tempted to give him 'the finger,' but figured she'd be the better person if she didn't stoop down to his level. Instead, Cleo merely rolled her eyes and went in the opposite direction. What she needed was a good two hours of studying by the soccer field to get her mind off of the two Class-A jerks.

She made her way to her new favorite study spot—

And almost lost her marbles when she noticed somebody very familiar sitting on her bench. She'd recognize that cropped hair and those broad shoulders anywhere. Cleo knew she was right when his distinct groan of disgust reached her.

"This is hard," Scotch grumbled while scratching the back of his head. His tattooed arm lifted, its muscles flexing as his fingers worked through his scalp. Cleo suddenly experienced a whole other level of 'thirsty,' and not just for knowledge. "Why is this so hard?"

Holy spit! she swore mentally, not being able to believe her good luck. Okay, Cleo. Keep it cool. You got this. Just swoop in and sweep him off of his feet. Knock his socks off. Render him speechless. You can totally get him to kiss you—Wait, what?—No!—Teach!—I meant to say teach! Teach you about your Chemistry lessons!

"Scotch?" Cleo greeted him as she approached, almost cringing at how squeaky her voice sounded. "Are you all right?"

Thankfully, Scotch was so surprised by her sudden presence that he hardly noticed. His head snapped up, and their gazes connected as quickly as the opposite ends of two magnets. At least, that's how it felt to Cleo. Scotch looked like he was too worried about his lesson to really feel much of anything else. It was a little while before her identity registered in his brain, and he smiled.

"Cleo? What are you doing here?" he asked excitedly—because that's what it looked like to her—and scooted to one end of the bench.

Cleo did not need to think twice about sitting beside him, lifting her Chemistry textbook for him to see as she did so.

"Oh..." Scotch nodded, his killer smile still in place.

"Any chance you can help out a poor unfortunate soul?" she asked, giving herself an imaginary pat on the back for managing to ask that question so smoothly.

It wasn't like she didn't know how to learn things on her own, but Scotch didn't have to know that yet. This was a prime opportunity to spend more time with him, and her parents always did say to grab any opportunity before it disappeared. Granted, they probably weren't talking about nabbing a boyfriend, but if the shoe fits.

"Any chance you have an extra brain that knows Classic Lit?" he shot back, causing Cleo to smile in triumph. It looked like the 'romantic development gods' were finally smiling down on her. If there was anything she was into other than Psyche, it was Classic Literature.