His mother or father would walk in the door at any second, and it was going to be a problem if they found out that we were doing something we were most certainly not supposed to be doing. He laughed as he pushed me playfully against the wall next to the doorway that led to his bedroom. He pressed his knee up against me, just enough to tease me, and he had me pinned up against the brick wall. With my arms pinned on top of me, our fingers intertwined, as he moved away from my mouth and slid his lips toward my neck.
I giggled as his shuddering breath sent a shiver down my spine. He was kissing me hard, pressing up against me, his kisses making my muscles and body contract with pleasure.
He moved away from me, pressed his forehead against me, and his eyes shone as he held my gaze. I looked down at his lips, which he was biting.
“Do you want to do this? We don’t have to,” he said. “We don’t have to go any further than we have before.”
“Do you want to stop?”
“No,” he said. “But I don’t want you to feel like you’re doing anything you don’t want to do.”
“Does it seem like this is something I don’t want to do?”
He laughed, kissing me on the lips again. “Okay, but if it’s awkward or weird, we can stop.”
I grabbed his hand and put it on my waist. “How about we start before we decide to stop?”
He bit down on his lower lip. “Yup,” he said. “That sounds good.”
He kissed me again, putting his hand behind my head, and kissing me even harder, so hard that my head was bouncing against the wall and his hand was the perfect protective barrier.
I heard the door and pushed him away playfully. “Hey,” I said. “Your parents are here, I think.”
“Shit,” he said, moving away from me. “Go to the dining room. I need the bathroom—”
He looked down at his own erection, which was clearly visible despite the fact that he was wearing tight jeans that seemed to keep it down. He scrambled away toward the bathroom and I moved the hair away from my face and tried to straighten up my clothes. There was a rush to all of this and, despite myself, I could feel how excited and exhilarated I was. I didn’t want to let it show, of course, because I was supposed to be the responsible tutor who was helping Jody bring up his grades to an acceptable level.
I looked up to see if I could meet his mother’s gaze as she walked in, surprised to see that it wasn’t his mom or dad at all. Instead, it was a bunch of his classmates—our classmates—coming toward me like a stampede.
There were three of them, but they all were large and a little terrifying. There was Max, who was six three and wide at the back, with a shining and deceitful smile. The other two were Alan and George, two wholly indistinguishable entities from one another. They were both tall, slightly dark haired, with tans that they got from playing volleyball at the beach. Their personas were entirely practiced.
That wasn’t what they wanted the rest of us to believe, but anybody smart enough could’ve seen it.
It was still a little strange to me that Jody hung out around them. He was better than them. He was smarter, funnier, more kind. But when he was around his friends, it was very easy to see that they all worshiped him. It was a little disconcerting, because it wasn’t like he tried to get them to like him. He just acted like himself; cool, calm, collected. It was one of the things I had always envied about him. He made everything seem easy, even when it clearly wasn’t.
George, or at least I thought it was George, looked at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m tutoring him.”
“Not on his social skills,” Max said, grinning. They all laughed, as if he had said the funniest thing in the freaking world.
“Calculus, if you must know. If his average goes down, he won’t be able to play volleyball anymore, and then he won’t be able to carry our team. You know you couldn’t do any of what you do without him.”
“Didn’t know you had such a fan in Jess Meyer, Jody,” George said as Jody emerged from the hallway, looking like he had just washed his face, and perhaps even his entire body, with cold water. I saw him tense up and his gaze darted between me and his friends. “We let ourselves in. The door was unlocked and you weren’t answering your phone.”
Jody swallowed. “Sure, no worries.”
“So why haven’t we seen you at any of the games?” Max said, turning to me. “Since you’re such a big fan and everything.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t like any sports,” I said. “I just know the importance of averages. He’s bringing you up.”
Max rolled his eyes. “You’re so cute,” he said. “Look at little Jess, pretending she knows shit about volleyball, and pretending she knows anything about Jody. He’s only taking your stupid tutoring so he can play. Don’t flatter yourself and think that’s why he’s with you, you’re only in the Banks house because you’re getting paid to be here. And let’s be real, you should be the one paying him.”
Jody winced a little at that, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, his gaze darted between his friend and where I was sitting. There was a second where it was clear that he was
