Blake’s heart did a weird skip.
Farrah looked away. “What about you? Why are you holed up in the library on a Friday night?”
He didn’t bother lying. “Homework.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I did not figure you for the studious type.”
Her tone rankled him. Blake was used to people thinking he was a stupid jock. He usually shrugged it off—who was the one with a 3.8 GPA, bitches?—but Farrah’s assumption stung.
“Why not?”
Farrah appeared taken aback by his cool tone. “I don’t know. I guess it’s because you’re a football player and the athletes at my school aren’t exactly familiar with the library.”
“I’m not an athlete at your school, and I don’t play football anymore.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”
Blake’s ire melted at the chastised look on her face. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.” He shoved another forkful of beef into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed before adding, “I wasn’t getting much done, anyway. Foreign languages are not my strong suit.”
“What do you have problems with? Grammar? Pronunciation?”
“Everything, but mostly the characters. I can’t g
et them right.” How the hell was he supposed to learn a language with no Roman alphabet? There were thousands of Chinese characters, and they all looked the same.
“They’re hard,” Farrah acknowledged. “I have problems with them myself, but mnemonics can help. Here, give me your textbook. Did you learn radicals yet?”
“Yeah.” Depending on how you defined “learn.” Classes started so early Blake found it hard to stay awake.
“If you memorize them, they can be really helpful. Take kou, for example. You see how it sort of looks like a mouth? It’s part of most characters whose meanings have to do with the mouth, like jiao, to call, or chi, to eat.” Farrah wrote the words out. She went through a few other examples before moving on to the next radical.
Blake followed along, trying his best not to stare at her mouth. Farrah’s lips looked like they were made for—
Don’t go there, buddy. She’s a virgin. She’s probably never even given a blow job before.
He refocused on the lesson at hand. To his surprise, the characters made more sense. Not a lot, but more. It was a start.
Every once in a while, Blake broke up the monotony with random stories from his childhood and questions about Farrah’s life back home. He told her about the time he donned a bear mask and scared the hell out of Joy during a family camping trip at Big Bend, and how Joy tricked him with fake adoption papers as retaliation. That was messed up. To this day, a tiny part of Blake wondered if he was adopted.
Farrah told him about “borrowing” her mother’s lipsticks and using them as crayons on her family’s freshly painted walls.
Blake smiled at the mental image. A budding creative at age six. Farrah really did have her life figured out.
By the time they finished the first chapter, it was close to one in the morning. The food was long gone, and Blake’s eyes were bleary from staring at the text.
“We should call it a night,” he said. His brain wanted him to stay, but his body screamed for sleep. “Thank you for helping me with this.” He gestured at his notes.
“No problem. Consider it my apology for thinking you’re, you know.”
“A dumb jock?”
Farrah blushed. “Well, yeah. You’re different from what I imagined.”
“I am awesome,” Blake agreed. He scooped the empty food containers into a bag.