She’s nothing like any woman I’ve spent time with before. Not that I spend a lot of time with only one woman.
“I should probably get going.” Joanna glances at her phone, her brows drawing together. “I’m going to be late.”
“For what?” I rise to my feet at the same time she does.
“Another tutoring session.” She grabs her bag, slinging the strap over her shoulder. “I’ll see you later!”
She’s gone before I can say anything else.
ELEVEN
JOANNA
The weekend goesby in a blur of work, writing two papers and hanging out with Natalie and a group of our friends Saturday night for dinner. Sunday is for laundry and cleaning up around the apartment. Monday is just…your typical Monday, and by the time Tuesday rolls around, I’m once again a nervous wreck.
Stupid Knox Maguire choosing me as his tutor. I lied to him about having another tutoring session. I just wanted to get out of there and away from him and his muscles and charm and his smile. I should back out. Say my schedule doesn’t align with his after all, and that he’ll need to find another tutor to help him. He’d understand, I’m sure.
Of course, I do none of those things, and by the time it’s the afternoon, fifteen minutes before two, I’m sitting in our reserved room, reading over the notes I made about him on my iPad, anxiously checking the door every few seconds like he’s going to show up early.
Much to my surprise, he strides into the room ten minutes early. He stops on the other side of the table, dropping his heavy backpack on the table with a loud thunk before unzipping it.
So far he hasn’t said a word and neither have I, which gives me time to watch him. He’s wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt and black shorts, even though there’s a chill in the air. Oh, and he’s wearing a white baseball cap backwards, his hair sticking out in wayward curls at his nape.
I sink my teeth into my lower lip, unable to look away from his curling hair. The backwards hat on—it’s a total weakness of mine. I used to love it when Bryan wore a hat like that. He played baseball during high school and I wasted a lot of time sitting in the stands, watching him.
God, baseball is so boring.
“Jo Jo, what’s up?”
I snap my attention back to Knox, meeting his gaze, his brow furrowed as he watches me. “Oh. Hey.”
“You all right there? I called your name three times.”
That’s embarrassing. “My name isn’t Jo Jo.” I sit up straighter.
“I said Joanna the first two times, not Jo Jo.”
“Oh. Sorry about that.” I clear my throat. “How was your weekend?”
“Good.” He pulls out the chair across from mine and settles in, his knees bumping mine, making me shift to the side. “We won.”
“I heard.” It’s hard to avoid all of the conversations about the game while on campus. “You scored a touchdown.”
He grins and I blink, momentarily dazzled. “You watched the game?”
I shake my head. “I don’t like football, remember?”
“Right.” He stretches out the word, dropping the paperback onto the middle of the table. “I listened to the chapters we were assigned during the ride back from the game Saturday night. You were correct—it’s a lot easier, listening to the audiobook. I feel like I understand it better when someone else reads it to me.”
Pride suffuses me and I smile at him. “I’m glad it helped.”
“It totally did. I have an assignment due Thursday. I need to come up with an opening paragraph for an essay,” he says.
“What’s the essay about?”
“We’re supposed to answer a question.” He flips open a notebook and clears his throat. “Discuss the differences between Starr’s two lives. How does she reconcile her two identities over the course of the novel?”
I’m frowning. “But you haven’t finished the novel yet.”