Chapter 1: The Bargain: A Tutor’s Shameful Secret
The library study room smelled like old paper and lemon-scented disinfectant. A stale, recycled chill hung in the air, fighting a losing battle against the stuffy heat from the overheated vent. Liv Thompson dropped her pencil and let her head thump onto the open calculus textbook. “It’s useless. It’s all just… Greek. Angry, spiteful Greek.”
Chris Miller blinked from across the small table, his own notes neat and orderly in the soft glow of the table lamp. “It’s mostly notation. Once you see the pattern–”
“The pattern is ‘inflict pain on Liv,’” she groaned, sitting up. She stretched her arms overhead, her sweater riding up, and then, with a sigh of relief, she did what she always did when frustrated. She hooked her heels on the edge of the table and stretched her legs out long, her bare feet coming to rest just shy of his stack of binders.
Chris’s pen stopped moving.
He was a good tutor, patient and clearer than any of her professors. But for the past three weeks, Liv had noticed a… pattern of his own. It wasn't creepy. It was fascinating. Every time she kicked off her shoes—which she did almost immediately, a habit from years of dance and track—his attention would fracture. His eyes, usually focused on her face or the problem set, would flicker down, just for a heartbeat, before snapping back up with guilty force.
It was the most interesting thing about these sessions.
Liv wiggled her toes, watching his gaze slip again. This time, it didn’t snap back. It lingered for a full second on the arch of her foot before he caught himself, a faint pink tingeing his ears. He cleared his throat.
“Problem twelve,” he said, his voice a bit tighter than before. “Try the substitution method I showed you.”
She didn’t look at the problem. She kept her eyes on him, a slow smile playing on her lips. She flexed her foot, the muscles rolling under her skin. Chris’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Chris,” she said, her voice light, conversational.
“Hmm?”
“You’re staring at my feet.”
The pink in his ears bloomed into a full, crimson flood across his face and neck. He looked like he’d been slapped. “I— No, I was… I was looking at the table. Zoning out. Sorry.”
“You’re not sorry,” Liv said, tilting her head. Her smile widened. She experimentally brushed the ball of her foot against the corduroy of his thigh, just the faintest touch.
He flinched as if shocked. A sharp intake of breath hissed through his teeth. His whole body went rigid, his knuckles white around his pen.
Liv felt a thrilling jolt of power. It wasn’t malice. It was pure, addictive curiosity. She had seen that look before, but never so naked, so completely unmasked. It was vulnerability, a secret laid bare. And Liv, ever the observer, couldn’t let it lie.
“It’s okay,” she said, her tone softening from teasing to something more genuine, though no less intrigued. “Really. I don’t mind.”
Chris finally ripped his gaze from her feet, meeting her eyes. His were wide, mortified. “I mind,” he whispered hoarsely. “I shouldn’t… It’s inappropriate. I’m your tutor.”
“And you’re doing a great job,” Liv said, maintaining the gentle contact. His leg was warm. “The best I’ve ever had. It’s just… a thing, right? Everyone’s got a thing.”
He looked utterly tormented, caught between fleeing and freezing. The conflict was so raw on his face. For a long moment, the only sound was the distant hum of the library’s HVAC system.
Liv pushed a little further, gently rotating her ankle so her heel pressed a little more firmly against his leg. “So,” she said, her voice dropping to a playful, confidential murmur. “Just how much would you pay?”
He blinked. “What?”
“How much would you pay,” she repeated slowly, savoring the words, “just to touch them?”
The question hung in the stuffy air. Chris’s mouth opened, then closed. No sound came out. He looked utterly, completely wrecked—a beautiful, crumbling statue of academia and repressed desire. His chest rose and fell too quickly.
That choked silence was her answer. It was more eloquent than any number.
She withdrew her foot slowly, letting it settle back in her own space, and watched as a palpable, almost painful shudder of relief—or was it deprivation?—went through him. He slumped back in his chair, running a hand over his face.
“Liv…” he started, his voice ragged.
“Don’t,” she said, her smile turning kind. “It’s fine. Our secret.” She pulled her textbook back towards her, the model of sudden studiousness. “Now, problem twelve. Substitution, you said?”
He stared at her, utterly disoriented, the shift in gears too abrupt for his overloaded system. He just nodded, mutely, his eyes still dark with a storm of embarrassment and something else, something hot and hopeful and terrified.
Liv looked down at the meaningless swirls of numbers and symbols. For the first time all semester, she wasn’t bored. The calculus was still Greek, but now it was just background noise. The real problem set, far more compelling, was sitting across from her, his heart practically visible beating through his thin t-shirt. And she was very, very good at solving puzzles.
She glanced at him from under her lashes as he mechanically began explaining the steps, his voice steadying by sheer force of will. He was trying to reclaim normalcy, to bury the moment under a mountain of academic procedure.
Good luck with that, she thought, flexing her toes under the table. The game was on. And she had just discovered she held all the pieces.
And she had just discovered she held all the pieces.
Chris’s explanation of the substitution method was a dry, technical murmur. He was good, even now. The steps were logical, sequential. But his finger, pointing at the textbook, trembled just slightly. His eyes were locked on the page with a desperate, fixed intensity, as if the ink itself could anchor him.
Liv rested her chin in her hand, watching him. The overhead light caught the faint sheen of sweat at his temple. She let one foot, still bare, drift downward under the table until the sole brushed the floor. She dragged it slowly back, the scrape of skin against linoleum a soft, intimate sound in the quiet room.
He stopped mid-sentence. His breath hitched, just the tiniest catch.
“Go on,” Liv prompted gently, smiling. “I’m listening.”
He forced himself to continue, his voice tighter. “So… so you let u equal x-squared plus one. Then the derivative…” He trailed off again as Liv, with a sigh of faux concentration, lifted her foot back onto the table, this time letting it come to rest much closer to his arm. Her toes were inches from his elbow.
Chris went perfectly still. The library’s quiet hum seemed to swell, filling the room with a static tension. He was fighting a war inside his own skin, every muscle taut with the effort of not looking, not reacting.
“The derivative,” she echoed, prompting him again. Her big toe nudged the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
He jerked his arm away as if burned, finally turning his head to look at her foot. The defeat in his eyes was total. Beautiful. “Why are you doing this?” he whispered, the sound ragged.
Liv cocked her head. “Doing what? I’m just sitting here. Trying to learn calculus.” She flexed her arch, a slow, deliberate curl. “You’re the one who can’t focus.”
He stared at her foot, his jaw working. The shame was still there, hot and bright in his gaze, but underneath it now, something else had broken through. A raw, hungry want that stripped away the pretense. “It’s not fair,” he breathed, more to himself than to her.
“Probably not,” Liv agreed. She lowered her foot from the table, but instead of returning it to her shoe, she stretched it out sideways under the table, the tip of her toes finding the cuff of his jeans, brushing the bare skin of his ankle above his sock.
A full-body shiver racked through him. He made a small, choked sound in the back of his throat.
And she laughed.
It wasn’t a cruel sound. It was bright, surprised, and utterly delighted. It bubbled up from her chest and filled the sterile little room, bouncing off the books and the glass partition. It was the sound of discovery, of a game becoming truly interesting.