“Do you think I’m too dumb to notice that you just called me an idiot or do you just not care?” Lo asks.
“Honestly,” Connor says, “I don’t care.”
“Huh…” Lo mutters. I imagine his forehead wrinkling as he tries to process Connor Cobalt and his blunt （sometimes incorrect） honesty.
“Lily was pretty worried last night. We wasted a lot of studying hours looking for you. Where’d you end up going?”
“Wait,” Lo says in disbelief. “You helped look for me?”
I had the same reaction when he offered to search for Lo. It barely fazes Connor that accompanying someone he hardly knows to hunt for a drunken boyfriend isn’t at all ordinary.
“Yeah,” Connor says. “We tried the highlighter party on campus, but you weren’t there. I ruined a pair of pants doing it. Girls always go right for my ass. I don’t get it.”
“Lily didn’t hit on anyone, did she?”
I should be hurt that he doesn’t fully trust me. But I’m glad he’s cautious of my fidelity. It means he cares. And it’ll make me try harder to be faithful.
“Why would she do that?” Connor asks. “You two are together, right?”
“Newly together. We’re trying to work through some things.” Wow, Lo doesn’t lie. Does Connor Cobalt have magic truth dust that he sprinkles on people? Or maybe it’s too hard to lie to his brutal honesty.
“So, where’d you go?” Connor nudges.
“A bar down the street.”
I wish I could eavesdrop for another twenty minutes, but I do need to pass the class. I pad further down the hallway and make my presence known.
Lo spins around on the bar stool, holding the neck of his beer. When Connor turns, I notice an identical Fat Tire in his own hand. He can drink and study? Is he a superhero or something?
“Feeling better?” Lo asks with concern, hinting at a lie he must have used for Connor’s benefit.
“It was probably all the caffeine,” Connor tells me. “If you’re not used to Red Bull and coffee together, it can upset your stomach. I should have brought some antacids.”
The tops of my ears warm in a rash-like red, never wishing to hear someone talk about my indigestion—fake or not. And the fact that Connor’s tutoring methods involve cycles between caffeine and antacids is mildly disconcerting.
“You’re flushing oddly. Do you have a fever?” Connor asks, not embarrassed by anything. Maybe he thinks other people are immune to that sentiment too. For me, not so much. My shoulders cave forward, like a turtle creeping back into its shell.
“She does that a lot. You embarrassed her,” Lo says with an edging smile. Attention to my humiliation only brightens my shade of red.
“Can we just…go back to studying?” I pop open my Diet Fizz and sit on the other stool beside Connor.
“I like that plan,” Connor says. He turns to Lo. “You want to join? You could probably use it. You’re looking at a high sixty. And high or not, an F is still an F.” A high sixty? I frown. I should have known Lo wasn’t doing well in class and that he frequently skips others. The signs are there, but I’m too preoccupied in my own business to notice. Now that I do, I’m at a loss of how to help. I’m not even sure he’d appreciate my prodding.
“I guess I have nothing better to do,” Lo says.
I hide my surprise, which quickly turns to pride. I want nothing more than Lo to succeed, and that actually means he has to try on his own terms. Baby steps.
By the evening, my skills rest at a solid C-status, and Lo is in the mid-B range. Connor looks pleased and actually smiles when he grades my problem sets now. Lo pries off the top of his twelfth beer, not hiding the fact that he consumes alcohol a little too regularly. When he switches to bourbon, he rejects his thermos and pours it into a clear glass. I thought Connor would make a comment about Lo’s drinking habits, but he never says a word. The only time he brings up alcohol is to ask for a second beer.
Twenty minutes later, Connor gathers the work books together in his arms, balancing a large graphing calculator on top.
“How much do I owe you?” I ask, fumbling in the basket by the foyer for my checkbook.
“Save your money. I’d rather write these hours down as voluntary. It gives me more community service credentials.”
Lo smiles into a swig of beer, more amused than peeved. In fact, he’s taken the rude comments pretty well. Maybe he finds Connor endearing like me. Or as endearing as a pretentious honor student can be.