“What do you think his evil plan is?” Benji whispered in my ear.
It had been two weeks since I smashed his nose, and the bruising had finally begun to fade.
“Who?” I asked.
“Cyrus.”
“What makes you ask?”
“He’s just got that look in his eye, you know? Like he’s up to something.”
Get out of my head, Benji. “No, I don’t know.” It was the truth. I didn’t know, and hell if I was going to give Benji Reynolds the chance to say we had something in common.
“Lunch today?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, typing Dr. Z’s last point into my laptop.
Eating with Benji was a much better alternative to eating alone in one of the cafeterias. He was the only student at KIT who didn’t have to blather on about whatever project he was working on, and he wasn’t bad to look at either.
“Now, be quiet. I can’t miss any notes.”
I trained my ears back onto Dr. Z’s lecture. With all the wondering and hypothesizing about Cy, I’d become unfocused in my classes, and it was beginning to show. Typically an A student, I was struggling in some classes to retain a B. Dr. Z noticed Bs, and when he noticed something, he wouldn’t leave me alone until I made him un-notice.
Just another reason to hate Cy. He was becoming a huge distraction.
“You’re doing it again,” Benji said.
“Shh.”
“Watching him. I’m hoping it’s because you’re suspicious of him like me.”
“Or maybe I’m counting how many times he draws a dot on his paper, which is two hundred and thirty-nine.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“How can you tell from up here?”
“I noticed the dots in his notebook in the lab a week ago. Now, I sort of notice.”
“I wonder what they mean.”
I looked over at Benji’s book where he’d doodled letters of the alphabet in different fonts. They were actually pretty good. “What does that mean?”
“That I’m bored mostly.”
“There’s your answer. Cy just can’t draw as well as you.”
Benji smiled, seeming satisfied with that answer. What I wasn’t telling him was that Cy’s dots were always in intricate patterns, and sometimes he added in what looked like hieroglyphics. But I wasn’t interested in investigating Cy and certainly not with Benji, so I kept that tidbit of information to myself.
After class, Benji struggled to keep pace with me as I walked to Gigi’s Café, just a few blocks off campus. It was our unofficial, completely platonic date spot that we didn’t talk about because if we acknowledged that it had become a thing, I would stop saying yes.
“…so I said, ‘Therefore, I was correct. A meteor is a flash of light, not the debris.’ It’s just ridiculous he wasn’t aware of the difference at this level.”
“Agreed,” I said before taking a sip of my water.
I picked at my grilled panini while Benji updated me on his classes, his annoyance with the nerds at Charlie’s, and why—even though he was a legacy—there was no way in hell he was joining Theta Tau. He would never give Bobby Peck—the fraternity president, sufferer of Little Man’s Syndrome, and Benji’s nemesis—the satisfaction.
“So, I know you said you were a little behind in some of your classes,” Benji said. He was fidgeting and clearly leading up to something.
“So?”
“So…you want to carve out some time in the evenings to study?”
“I can’t. I have to work every evening.”
“Not every evening,” Benji said with a smirk. “If your grades continue to fall, Dr. Zorba will suspend your assistant duties anyway.”
I glared at Benji. “Who said anything about my grades?”
“I just assumed, when you said you were behind.”
I tried to remember if I’d even told Benji that much. Telling him anything even remotely personal meant fifty questions and relentless attempts to make whatever it was better. Our friendship was comprised of his relentless positivity and chatter and my bitter quips.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Of course not,” Benji said, dismissing my comment with a wave of the hand. “I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I was hoping to benefit from your genius.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Did you just backpedal?”
“And flatter you in anticipation that you’d agree to study with me? Yes.”
“Do I look like Ellie Jones to you? Flattery won’t help your cause.”
“Ellie Jones?” Benji said, his nose wrinkling. “What made you bring her up?”
“She moved into the room next to mine.”
“Oh,” Benji said. The expression on his face mirrored the way I felt about her new living arrangements. “That’s…unfortunate.”
Benji knew that Ellie never missed a chance to insult me. I wasn’t sure why she’d chosen me to torture. Mom once told me that people like her were miserable inside, and making others even more miserable was the only thing that made them feel better. I disagreed. Ellie Jones was just an evil, cum-burping gutter slut.
“So, flattery doesn’t work. Will buying your lunch work?” he asked, serious.
“Yes,” I said. What was left of my inheritance was being funneled into Kempton, including a meal plan, but if I didn’t avoid the irritating cafeteria at least once a week, I wouldn’t be able to handle the pressures of KIT. Gigi’s Café was my one break from it all, but ten dollars a week on a tiny budget was adding up.
“What if I buy your lunches as many times as we come to Gigi’s as long as you help me pass Dr. Zorba’s final?” Benji asked.
His request made sense. Dr. Z’s finals were notoriously difficult, and I could use the extra study time myself.
“Deal.”
Benji slapped his fingers on the table as if he’d won something. When our food came, I tried to keep my attention on the cars passing by and the pedestrians walking their dogs, anything to keep from making eye contact with Benji. He was too happy anyway, and now that we would be hanging out regularly, his eyes were even brighter, and he couldn’t stop smiling. It was disturbing.
After lunch, Benji and I walked back to my dorm. We agreed on studying twice a week and then up to three times a week during the two weeks before finals.
“So, we can start tonight?” Benji asked.