And They Were Roommates, page 9
“It’s true,” I say. I won’t let my classmates run me out of STRIP until my own room is secured. “I’m his loyal student, here to watch.”
Jasper looks my way to send a covert thank you, then over to Robby. “Who’s the first horse?”
* * *
First, Jasper lights a taper candle in a brass fixture set on the tome table—the only light source in his office now that he’s turned off the antique lamps.
Next, he leans toward our first patron sitting across from us. Faint mumbles come from a line beyond the brocade curtain, waiting to be served. “Thank you for trusting me with your love story today. What is your name?”
I sit in silence beside him, staring nervously at the candle releasing a semisweet cherry blossom fragrance only someone like Jasper would enjoy. Our bedroom was pushing it, but flammable objects in a building full of paper? Maverick the Residential Retainer would cut him like a fish.
“My name is Eli,” the patron says shyly despite the office’s privacy, playing with his Shetland pony card on the table. His blazer sleeves hang to his fingertips. Either he’s a first year who hasn’t figured out the unspoken guidelines, or even a size S is too big on him to maintain the rolled sleeves look.
“Tell us about yourself,” Jasper says.
“I’m fourteen. On the debate team.”
From his JFG cross-body bag, Jasper reaches for his broken fountain pen and journal to jot notes. Immediately, red ink smears across his right hand and the page. He glances at my closed backpack on the floor. “Not taking records, student?”
“You’re not giving said student any guidance,” I say, frowning.
“You’re the second-year Excellence Scholar. Shouldn’t you be capable on your own?”
I stiffen, unsure if that’s an insult or a compliment, and catch myself hoping it’s the latter before shutting that feeling down. I don’t care what Jasper thinks. I reach for my mechanical pencil and composition notebook, which look mediocre next to Jasper’s bajillion-dollar pen and journal. Despite what Jasper likely believes, holding a bougie pen doesn’t dictate note quality. I’ll take great notes. The best notes.
“When did you meet her?” Jasper asks Eli, voice repulsively soothing.
Eli stares over my shoulder as if a shimmering sunset has appeared behind me, full of longing. I turn around. Only a concrete wall. He snaps back to reality. “Sorry. Fifteen days and three hours ago.”
“You met during orientation?”
“One day after. During the debate team’s first meeting of the year. We got special permission to visit the sister academy’s team and plan the flower sale fundraiser we held this week. She’s on their team.”
Jasper writes more. I don’t. Wouldn’t it be nice if my love tutor gave me directions?
Guess I’ll go with what’s always the most logical. Facts.
Patron Name: Eli
Date Met: One day after orientation.
Location: First debate meeting.
Other: Not even three weeks have passed, and he’s acting like he’s lost his princess to a witch handing out free apples.
“Her name?” Jasper asks.
“I was too nervous to ask.”
“Her appearance?”
“She wore a braid. It was super windy. She accidentally wore her blazer inside out.” The longing on Eli’s face returns. “I want to learn more about her and send her a lot of letters, and then I’ll hopefully get the courage to send one to ask her to the mixer—”
“Hold on.” I grip my forehead. “We can’t deliver letters to someone we don’t—”
“We’ll see it through,” Jasper says, pushing a finger against my lips. A chill lances up my spine, the rest of me turning to stone.
“Thank you so much,” Eli gushes before leaving through the curtain.
I rip Jasper’s finger off my face and take a deep breath, attempting to slow down my racing heart. “My shoulder exists.”
“Would that have been enough to stop you from talking? It appeared that you were instigating a duel with him.”
“Well, I’m right. How are you going to find someone you don’t know the name of? Isn’t this extra work for you?”
Jasper eyes me strangely, like his memory is once again jogged by the sass I keep trying and failing to stifle around him. My whole body tenses until the look fades. He lazily spins the base of the taper candle around the tome table, not caring about the flame nor the melting wax. “We’re not only poets, von Hevringprinz. We’re cupids.”
Grimacing, I spring up from the floor. “Well, I didn’t sign up to be a—”
“Yo,” a new patron calls, pulling back the curtain.
Jasper tugs me back down by my blazer. Our shoulders bump, and I grunt. “Come tell us about your situation, Cody.”
As the patron sits, his features jog my memory. The bedhead, the foot for a face—the one from PE who thought me not wanting to take the class was hilarious. He rests an arm along a propped knee and waves my way. “Nice to meet you.”
He can’t even remember who he insults.
My annoyance spikes, but Jasper taps my notebook. I keep writing.
Patron Name: Foot
Jasper, who’s peeking at my note taking, snorts. He covers it up with a cough.
Foot Cody pulls a sports drink out from his bag and takes a swig. Red droplets spill on the tome table. “I need to send a letter to the third-year class president over there.”
Jasper stares at the Red Dye 40 seeping into the bound book page edges, then the NO LIQUIDS sign on the wall. “Name?”
“Rachel. I think.”
“You think?”
“Rachel Wood, maybe.”
Jasper takes the note. “How did you meet? Through your student council duties?”
“Haven’t met her.”
“Then why send a romantic letter?”
“She’s going to be my date for the mixer after she gets this letter.”
Date Met: Unknown.
Reason for Letter: The mixer, like literally everyone else.
Jasper shuts the clasp of his journal, the ocean-blue gemstone reflecting the candle flame. “Thank you. Please send in the next patron on your way out.”
Cody gulps down the rest of his sports drink instead of moving. Another red droplet slithers down his chin and onto his dress shirt, which is as wrinkly as a brain. “Not to doubt your poet-ing skills, but can you write with that little info?”
“I’m not writing your letter.”
My head flicks up at Jasper’s sudden change in tone. The sweetness usually coating it has vanished, leaving behind something colder.
“You’re denying me?” Cody asks. “You can’t just do that.”
“We’re an unofficial, free program. So, yes, we can just do that.”
“Better watch your mouth, Grimes.”
Jasper calmly taps the corner of his own lips. “You should wipe yours.”
Cody slams a palm against the table and lunges forward like he might punch Jasper in the jaw—but he falters and wipes the drink residue with his other hand. Maybe he recalled who Principal Grimes’s nephew is. “You want the academy to discover what you do back here? How you really use your equestrian center privileges? Only takes one student to tell your aunt.”
“Go ahead.” Jasper doesn’t flinch.
My mouth hangs open. What is Jasper doing?
Cody sneers, tosses on his bag, and passes us on his way to the curtain.
“Although,” Jasper calls, still motionless, “what a shame this will be for our classmates. Their love letters will never be delivered again. Established couples who rely on us throughout the year? Future couples who haven’t even had the chance?”
Cody turns around. “So?”
Jasper smiles, but it’s off. His lopsided dimple is missing, and his blue eyes are glazed—I’ve only seen this look once before, when he was kept waiting by me and Luis in the library. He stands, readjusting the number-one enamel pin on his dress shirt, and takes calm but intentional steps toward Cody. “I hope they won’t be mad at whoever tells my aunt. Maybe they’ll sabotage his status as the student council president?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“You threatened me first.” Jasper shrugs, still exuding a collected aura that proves he isn’t scared, yet one that has me on the edge of my seat. “It’s an equivalent exchange.”
“If you—”
Jasper points over Cody’s shoulder, toward five other patrons peeking through the curtain to check on the raised voices. “Go on.”
Cody’s foot face nearly flashes red with anger. Without another word, he storms past the captive audience and out the crypt.
Sighing lightly, Jasper reclaims his spot beside me on the floor. He picks up his fountain pen and twirls the base with his pointer finger and thumb. “Who’s next?”
Unspoken Guideline 10: Principal’s nephew’s powers include threats and blackmail.
Sweat beads on my hairline as I mentally play back Jasper’s silky-smooth, authoritative tone and how strangely captivating it was. Well, not to me. To the crowd it gathered. Yeah. I’m an empath. “You threatened someone.”
“I suggested he should leave.”
“By threatening him.”
“STRIP isn’t here to harass women.” His voice is soft now.
I study him in surprise and, I’ll admit, begrudging respect. “You’re not worried he’ll tell your aunt?”
“It’s his word against mine and the student body’s,” Jasper says. “I wish him luck.”
The one-on-ones go faster than I expect after that, taking only another hour. Jasper smiles through every discussion—a real one, dimple included—and I lower my defenses. Once patron number nineteen walks out, Jasper blows out the taper candle, the runaway blond locks of his ponytail fluttering around his cheeks.
“Good work today, student,” he says beside me. “Now, please write letters for all nineteen of our patrons today.”
“What?” I say, pushing my glasses up my nose to reread the scribbles in my notebook. Out of the nineteen letters, five are common correspondence to their girlfriends, but the other fourteen have Mixer written down as the reason. Delilah was right. Students do care about this event. Maybe even more than grades. “You’re starting to deliver my letters already?”
Jasper laughs so hard that he grips his stomach, his half-buttoned shirt drooping and revealing even more chest that I pointedly avoid looking at for the hundredth time. “No, this is your first homework assignment. Solely practice.”
He thinks the notion of my letters being sent is a bit too funny.
I try my best to glower but fail. Despite Jasper’s billions of flaws, that bubbly laugh of his is, unfortunately, not one of them. “Due date?”
“One week from today.”
Nineteen love letters in seven days. The next public grade rank announcement is one day before. In addition, I’ll need to ace my chemistry and world history unit exams. I’m supposed to handle all of this. That’s my job.
But what if I can’t?
“That’s seven days away,” I say, hoping he’ll budge.
Jasper hums. “You want less time? Apologies, I didn’t want to expect too much from you.”
My desire for more time poofs into smoke.
I force a smile. “One week works … Tutor Jasper.”
Chapter 15
IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
One week did not work.
That’s all I can think as I meet Luis at the gift shop after his shift, wait for him to break free of his sandwich-board-heart costume, and grab lunch with him in Dix for the first time.
In thirty minutes, at noon sharp, the public grade ranks update. I studied every free second between STRIP Time and my first few cardio training sessions with Xavier. Even if Jasper turned in his chemistry and world history exams twenty minutes before I did, none of the answers stumped me.
But studying also came with a price tag: zero time to write love letters from my one-on-one notes. All nineteen are due in twenty-four hours.
“You good?” Luis asks loudly through a mouthful of pad thai, competing with the lunch rush voices bouncing around Dix’s cathedral-like high ceiling. He was in the middle of describing the time he snuck his cat into his room here but chickened out, especially since his roommate, Bingo A. Dixon, is allergic. I think.
I rub my thighs that are still catastrophically sore after the laps Xavier made me do around Pragma Recreational Center’s field a few days ago. Which may have ended in me collapsing on the grass and Xavier promptly deciding we would wait until I healed to start our first weight training session. No, I am not good.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I say anyway, picking at my salad bar concoction, the only food I can stomach lately. The table Luis chose is two rows from the center, lined with teardrop chandeliers. From what I can tell as I sit down in Dix for the first time instead of awkwardly loitering around the perimeter, it’s a neutral zone of popularity. The back, toward the check-in clerks, is for the less so. The front, where a maroon curtain frames headshots of seemingly influential Valentine men of the past, is apparently for foots like Cody, who laughs at a table swarmed by others in Valentine gift shop sweatshirts. Someone as outgoing as Luis probably belongs over there, but generously met me in the middle.
I wonder where Jasper sits.
Even though Dix’s indoor tables are smaller than the outdoor picnic-style ones, allowing Luis a closer view of me minus the bouquet centerpiece separating us, I haven’t shaken my hair over my face or kept my hands off the table runner. I trust Luis a little lately. Considering his lack of seriousness toward life that contradicts Jasper’s approach, maybe he could help with my letters in a way that won’t make me die. “Question.”
“Bring it.”
“If you got a love letter from someone, what would you want it to say?”
“I’ve never thought that far.” Luis tugs on a curl, though, like he definitely has.
“Really? About getting a letter?”
“Getting confessed to at all. In this place, it feels impossible to date other guys, let alone if I could pull any. A love letter is, like, my step ten while it’s everyone else’s step one. Actually, no—first step is making sure Valentine doesn’t smite me. It’s like we’re being watched at all times. Like.” He points his chopsticks at the front of the hall. “Why’s bro here?”
I follow his chopsticks toward the framed old men again, where at the center is a six-by-six painting of Saint Valentine, draped in gowns.
“He is everywhere,” I mutter at my salad.
“My guess is, on paper, they wouldn’t kick me out, you know? But there’re other ways of phasing someone out. Suddenly, me sharing a room with another guy is a prob. Living in any res hall is a prob. PE is a prob. Principal Grimes calls me into her office to explain that there may be schools that suit me better, and I’m done.” Luis tosses a hand. “At least, my theory.”
“I get you.” My grip on my plastic fork tightens so much that it bends. I loosen my fingers.
Luis eyes my permanently screwed-up fork. “Thought you might.”
Thought I might what?
I guessed that Luis clocked me as something when we first met, but this confirms it. Fear creeps in, wondering if he’s figured out what exactly that something is—and if he’s not the only one. Still, the fear is milder than expected, knowing it’s Luis. He may count as my people. Our issues are similar, at least.
“If I got a love letter,” Luis starts again through more noodles, “then I’d want it to be heartfelt and stuff. Something I could read at the wedding years later.”
Never mind.
The conversation topic is my fault, but I’m already squirming in my chair. I reach for a napkin in the dispenser instead of looking at him, only to grab a trading card with a horse on it. Furrowing my brow, I stick it back in. “You’re not joking?”
“Nah.”
“I assumed you’d want a purposely bad pickup line.”
“Okay, not too heartfelt. I’m in love, love, love; oh, please, baby, oh—is cringe.”
I grimace. “Don’t say that again.”
“Exactly. So, no cringe, but I’d make it count. Especially if it were for the mixer. It’s the one thing that keeps us alive while we pull all-nighters and fail tests through the year. The love letter’s gotta match the fanfare.”
“How did this mixer become this big of a deal, anyway?”
Luis shrugs. “Why are the Buffalo suburbs decked out in so many blow-up inflatables and flashing lights around Christmas that you total your car? Why do we watch the Superbowl’s ten minutes of gameplay when it’s three whole hours long? Stuff gets hype.”
I force myself to meet his eyes again. “You really think heartfelt is the most logical?”
He smiles like this topic isn’t uncomfortable at all. Is this how most are about the cursed L-word? “My brain says I should care more about something like this. You get a lifetime to tell jokes, but you only get one chance to confess your true feelings.”
We finish lunch and exit into a downpour, knocking the temperature down enough that goose bumps dot my arms. He leaves for the residential hall, but I head toward the weekly grade ranking board, the grip on my umbrella tightening by the second. Classmates rush past me so quickly that their raincoats flutter behind them, and their boots splash gross puddle juice on my slacks. Icy gunk seeps into my socks, but my stress won’t let me care.
“One week works, Tutor Jasper.” I punt a chunk of gravel, imagining I’m aiming for the back of Jasper’s stubby ponytail. “That’s fine, Tutor Jasper. What is wrong with you, Charlie?”
No way can I finish nineteen letters in one day—and make them meaningful enough to have them read at a wedding—like Luis suggested. My true feelings. I don’t have any when I have zero experience in the art of romance.
Well, a little.
My mind flashes with memories of the only person I’ve kissed, looking two years younger than he does now, and my heartbeat thrums quicker. Jasper doesn’t count as experience in the art of romance when he broke my heart. He’s left me with negative experience.
