If someone told you six months ago that you’d end up alone in your enemy’s bedroom, lying across his bed with French textbooks around you like a tragic battlefield—you would’ve laughed. Or choked. Maybe both.

But here you were. Tense. Awkward. Praying for the ground to open and swallow you whole as he sat just a few feet away, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

His name was Orion. The school’s mysterious genius. The cold, stoic guy no one could figure out. He was everything you weren’t—quiet, nonchalant, muscular in that effortless way that made you second-guess reality. He was known for acing every subject, never smiling, and once knocking out a senior in a single punch after being cornered behind the gym. That was the day everyone left him alone for good.

Except for you. You didn’t leave him alone. Because for some godforsaken reason, your French teacher had paired you with him as a tutor. “You’ll learn better from a classmate,” she had chirped. You weren’t sure if she was stupid or just cruel.

You hated French. Orion knew that. He also knew you hated him. You didn’t have a reason really—it was just instinct. Something about how untouchable he was, how effortlessly perfect at everything. It annoyed you. Made your brain short-circuit every time he looked your way with those sharp, disinterested eyes.

“You’re saying it wrong,” he said now, voice flat as ever, breaking your train of thought.

You blinked at the page, then glanced up from where you were lying on your stomach, the pages fluttering from the fan overhead. “I literally said it how you said it.”

He turned slightly in his chair, one eyebrow raised. “No. You said je veux du pain like you’re threatening someone’s grandma. Try again. Less murder-y.”

You groaned, burying your face in the blanket beneath you. His sheets smelled like laundry and cedar and something else you refused to identify.

“Why do I need to know how to ask for bread anyway? I don’t even eat bread,” you mumbled into the mattress.

There was a pause. Then—

“What do you eat, then?”

You blinked. That was the first time he’d asked you something that wasn’t academic. You turned your head slightly. “I… I don’t know. Pasta?”

He snorted. You almost fell off the bed.

“What?”

“Pasta girl can’t speak French. Tragic,” he muttered, flipping a page.

You sat up and tossed a pillow at him. He caught it one-handed, didn’t even flinch.

“You’re the worst tutor,” you said, narrowing your eyes.

“You’re the worst student.”

“Touché,” you muttered, pouting slightly as you leaned back on your elbows. You hated that he looked good even under warm desk lighting. His jawline was sharp, his black glasses sitting low on the bridge of his nose, his arms folded as if the world bored him.

He glanced over, eyes lingering a moment too long before turning back to the book.

“Again,” he said, voice lower now. “Repeat it. But like you actually want the bread this time.”