Chapter 3

WRENLEY

His name is Jerry.

That's all I got at the party before Tess dragged me to the snack table and started narrating the social standing of everyone in the room like I'd asked.

I remember leaving there feeling things I never thought was possible. Meanwhile, Aurel has been trying to talk to me all week but I avoid him.

The thought of Jerry fills my head until I can't think of anything else which is a problem, because I have several actual problems that deserve the attention more.

"How do you get a guy to like you?" I blurt out to Tess one afternoon. The second the words leave my mouth, I consider throwing myself through the nearest window.

"Oh my, look at you having your first crush," she teased, bringing her chair closer to mine.

"I regret asking already." I muttered with a hand over my face. We had just finished class for today. "Who is he? Is it Aurel?" She gave me a light shove. "I saw the way he looked at you at that party."

"Ewww, no. I'd rather be married to a dog than him. I'm talking about that grad student from the aquarium. The one who's always around when I go to clear my head."

"Oh," her happy expression changes. "Well I guess the best people to ask are the guys."

"What are you talking about?"

"They are guys. If anyone knows about winning guys, it's the guys on the hockey team."

Yeah right. As if I can just walk up to one of them to ask for dating advice.

"Why can't you advise me?" I asked.

"Me? What does my single ass know? I've been single ever since I was born so I know nothing."

"Fair point," I replied.

As luck would have it, I overheard Aurel and his coach discussing his poor grade in law and the possibility of him not playing if he doesn't get it back on track.

An hour later, I find Aurel in the basement of the athletic complex, at a long table with a textbook open in front of him that he is very clearly not reading.

He has the look of someone who's been on the same page for twenty minutes and has started to take it personally.

I sit down across from him without being asked.

He glances up. "Red? What are you doing here?"

"Don't you dare!" I glared at him.

"What? It's a really catchy name."

"I hear you're failing." I say it flat, and his eyes go wide.

"Where did you hear that from?" he asked, and his right hand twitched on the table before he stopped it.

People don't shake like that over a bad grade. They shake over what happens after the bad grade.

"Elise complains about it like it's something you're doing to her personally." I lied, hiding the fact that I totally eavesdropped the conversation he had with his coach. It's not like she's going to find out anyway.

"And here I thought you came down here for my company," he said with a sad face.

"I came down here to make you a deal." I put my hands flat on the table. "I'll tutor you for free. As much as you need, until the grade's fixed and you keep your spot."

He leans back. Now he's interested, and trying not to look like it. I look at his hands that are no longer shaking while he asks. "What's the catch?"

"You help me with something." The words cost me more than they should have. "Unfortunately, it requires talking to you."

I never thought a day would come where I would ask him for help not to talk of dating advice.

"Okay, that shouldn't be hard, what's that?"

This is the part I rehearsed and it still comes out wrong.

"There's someone I want. A guy. I don't..." I stop and start over, plainer. " I don't know how this works, the talking, the... whatever you people do before you decide you like someone. But you do. You're good at it, everyone says so, it's apparently your entire personality. So you teach me that, and I teach you Con Law, and we both get what we want."

For a long moment he doesn't say anything.

"Who's the guy," he says finally.

"Does it matter?"

"It might. If it's somebody I know I can tell you if you're wasting your time."

"Jerry?" he blurts out halfway through my description.

I stop. "You know him?"

"Sure, uhm Jerry is a great guy. I can totally help you." He tries to sound cheerful but his furrowed brows give him away.

"You don't sound like you want to." I pitched in.

"I want to pass Con Law." He pulls his textbook closed and looks at me, with a smile on his face.

"Deal. You teach me the commerce clause, I teach you how to get the guy. When do we start?"

"Now. Or else you're going to fail before we finish negotiating."

In the last two hours of our study session, I've come to realise that he's not so stupid after all. Everyone talks about Aurel Castell like he's a nice golden retriever who happens to be good at hockey, and he lets them, but when I make him explain the cases back to me in his own words instead of reading them, he gets there fast.

He just couldn't make the course stick to his memory.

It's almost ten pm when my phone buzzes. I almost don't look.

It's an email, forwarded from the property manager, and I read the subject line twice before the words go in.

NOTICE OF UNIT ENTRY; LOCKS TO BE CHANGED 6:00 AM.

"Hey." Aurel snaps his fingers in front of me. "You went somewhere. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I lock the phone and stand up too fast, gathering my things, my notebook, my one good pen. "Same time Thursday. Read the next chapter before you come or I'm not explaining it twice."

"Wrenley."

It's the first time he's used my actual name. It stops me for half a second, which I hate.

"I'm fine," I say. "I'll see you Thursday."

I leave before he asks me another question.

I have until six in the morning to figure out where I'm going to live, with three trash bags' worth of a life I built out of nothing, and no one on this entire continent I can call.

I have never once, in any world, been this alone with a clock running.