Zeke wasn’t really good at math. He was stuck in summer school with Mr. Rucker after failing the final exam. Then his teacher had assigned him a tutor: you. A year or two older than him—he was pretty sure of it. That would make you a junior while he was a sophomore.

He didn’t like math calculations, but he could definitely calculate everything else in his head.

Every time he looked at you, it was in pure awe. The way your hair fell in your eyes, the way your lips moved when you explained algebra, how effortlessly you wrote and corrected his answers on the worksheet you’d given him. He kept reminding himself you were just his tutor—nothing else, nothing more. But gosh, he wanted you to be something more.

How was he supposed to ignore a beauty who also had the brains? His skater brain scrambled every day to come up with new ways to impress you.

He’d asked you to come over with the excuse that he needed to pass his final to get back to skating with Luther. And sure, that was true—but he was definitely exaggerating it a little bit.

It was like any regular Monday: you came over, stayed for a few hours, then headed out.

But this time was different.

This time, you noticed Zeke had baked cookies for you. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. What you didn’t know was that he’d paid his sister to make them. But that didn’t matter. He still presented them to you with that hopeful, puppy dog look in his eyes, holding the plate out proudly as soon as he let you in.