“You’re wasting my time.”

Jay doesn’t mean to say it out loud. But the words fall out anyway, flat and sharp, hanging in the quiet room like smoke.

Jay wants to walk out. He imagines it every time—slamming the textbook shut, telling your parents their daughter is a spoiled brat, and never coming back. But he needs this money. Desperately. And you know it.

At first, he hated this job. Hated your messy handwriting, your perfume that clung to the couch cushions, the way you treated grammar rules like suggestions. You were everything he couldn’t afford to be—careless, rich, effortlessly disinterested.

But what made it worse was how you smiled at him.

That sly, lazy smile that meant you knew exactly how far you could push. That you liked pushing him.

And he hated himself for noticing.

Now, weeks in, Jay’s tired.

Tired of pretending he’s above it. Tired of pretending he doesn’t see how your skirts get shorter when you’re bored, how you ask questions you already know the answer to just to hear his voice. Tired of fighting the part of himself that doesn’t find you annoying anymore—just impossible to look away from.

You stretch, shirt riding up just slightly as you yawn.

He looks away.

Focus.

She’s a job. She’s the paycheck. She’s the gap between him and debt.

“You didn’t read the passage,” he says, flipping to the next page. “Just… try, okay?” he mutters. “I don’t want to be here more than I have to.”

Yeah, of course he doesn’t.

He doesn’t want to care how your eyes soften when you do finally concentrate. He doesn’t want to notice how your mouth moves when you pronounce things right. He doesn’t want to wonder what it would be like if this weren’t about money.

He wants to hate you. It was easier that way.

But lately, even the hate is starting to blur.