***

“I’ll show you my tits,” the girl said as she threw him a lewd look over the table.

Rusty looked at her chest. Yeah, he was totally curious. Big tits on a smart girl? He was in.

“Do we have a deal?” the girl pressed.

“Hmm, let’s just see the goods first.”

She rolled her eyes and stood up. “No way I’m going to fall for that kind of cheap trick. What do you choose? Tits and study? Or nothing?”

Hmm, ah, damn it, he was so fucking tempted. She wore a cool sweater that made those things bounce up and down, with the power to hypnotize people. But his pride was at stake. “Nah, I’ll pass,” he said and bit on his tongue to punish himself for it.

She huffed and brushed by him with a strong hip on her way out. “You’re a fucking pig, Rusty Parker.”

“Hey, for the record,” he called out after her, “they look pretty amazing in that sweater! I just don’t want to lose!”

She didn’t catch all of it, as she stormed out of the room. He shrugged. Well, that kind of concluded the tutoring contest. Good thing Jonathan had such deep pockets. No one left without being paid at least once. It wasn’t his fault they were so unconvincing.

He stood from the chair to go to the door and rub his victory in the face of everyone in the house, but at that very moment, the door opened and almost hit him in the face. Right there stood the boy with glasses from before, with a killer look in his hazel eyes. He had a wooden ruler in his hand and promptly smacked his shoulder. “Sit,” he ordered.

Rusty grinned. “Are you trying to be a tutor, little guy?”

He wasn’t that little, actually, but compared to Rusty, a lot of people looked short. He had to be at least five foot nine, which, for his lithe build, was totally fine.

The next smack with the wooden ruler took him by surprise. It hurt a little. “I said ‘sit’,” the boy insisted.

Was it really the same guy? That one had run away scared after a look at him. This dude had to be his evil twin. Well, it was worth exploring, Rusty decided. With a shrug, he returned to his chair and sat down. “Are you new around here?”

The newcomer threw him a withering look. “I’ve been around here,” he emphasized each word, “for as long as you’ve been.”

“Funny thing, I didn’t notice you around.”

“Of course.”

Was this guy a tiny bit annoying or what? The implied words had to do with something related to how he knew Rusty, while Rusty was completely ignorant about him. It wasn’t self-deprecation. No, it wasn’t. This dude was full of himself.

But his upturned nose was still cute as a button, and his big hazel eyes should have belonged to an angel if they had been blue. Maybe that was why he was a little demon, instead. Rusty continued to inspect him closely. Okay, so maybe, just maybe, before the last year, he hadn’t even noticed dudes a lot, and that explained the overlook. This guy’s skin was absolutely fucking flawless. Rusty felt an itch in his fingers to reach out and touch it. Was that what they meant by porcelain skin? This dude had to see a lot of action since he looked like half of the most beautiful stars in Asian boy bands. Only his big eyes didn’t look Asian. His soft brown hair was slightly wavy and hung down to his shoulders. This guy had to see a lot of action from girls.

“How many girlfriends did you have last year?” he asked out of professional courtesy. If there was any competition on campus, he had to know about it. That would explain why some chicks still told him ‘no’. They had this doll of a dude to gush over.

For a moment, it looked like the angry and cool façade would slip. “None of your business,” came the icy reply.

“Fuck,” Rusty groaned, “that many? Hey, did you land Nancy what’s her name, you know, the one with those nice pear-shaped titties?”

The hazel eyes turned frosty. “No. Stop dallying. Let me introduce myself. My name is Matthew Han, and I’m here to tutor you.”

“Han, huh? That explains it,” Rusty said out loud.

“Explains what?”

“You know, the whole nerdy BTS look,” Rusty pointed out. “I bet you beat girls away with a stick. Or are you ambidextrous and use two sticks? Man, that would come in so handy. You know, you could do really cool stuff.” He made a move as if he was handling two sticks as weapons.

“My dating life doesn’t concern you. I’m well aware of every trick students try to pull to get out of tutoring.”

“Really? Do you tutor a lot?”

“Yes. My experience recommends me.”

Rusty leaned back in his chair. “You’re a demon, aren’t you? Are you going to beat me up with that ruler? Smack my bottom with your big book of knowledge?”

“If the need arises,” the answer came promptly.

Rusty felt his eyebrows jumping up in surprise. The boy stared at him through his glasses without blinking. All right, so he was cute, but he was also uber-nerdy. Maybe Rusty had happened to strike a nerve with all those comments on fucking around with girls. That horizontal pattern did the guy no service. He hadn’t noticed anything else below belt level, but he would do that, as soon as their tutoring session was over.

“The clock is ticking, and not in your favor,” Matthew reminded him. “If I keep you here for one hour and you are able to memorize at least one thing I tell you, then I win and I’ll tutor you throughout the semester.”

Was that a challenge or what? Rusty leaned back in his chair, placed his linked hands on top of his head and stared at Matthew Han through his eyelashes. “Challenge accepted,” he said. “But braver men and women have failed already. I thought you should know.”

“Braver than me?”

How could warm hazel eyes look so chilling? Rusty knew he was intrigued. Just not enough to lose. So, he smirked. “In the cafeteria, the first day. That was you. You dropped your glasses.”

Matthew seemed unfazed. “Your point?” He adjusted his glasses and stared at Rusty.

“You screamed and ran away. Admit it.” Rusty leaned over the table and grinned. “You’re afraid of me.”

“I did that because I remembered that I left the oven on.” The reply was delivered in a deadpan manner.

“Yeah, right.”

Matthew measured his wooden ruler slowly, caressing it. Rusty found himself fascinated. “What’s the deal with the ruler? Are you into corporal punishment? That your take on tutoring?”

“Can you take it from me with your hands tied behind your back?” Matthew the tutor asked, ignoring his question.

Rusty smirked. This was getting good, and he was having fun. He showed Matthew his hands and put them behind his back. He waited patiently while Matthew produced a hair tie from his pocket and secured his hands together. Secured was one way of saying it. Rusty was sure he could snap it without even trying.

He waited for the other to sit and wave the thing in front of him again.  Then, he lunged and grabbed the ruler with his teeth, snatching it away from Matthew. He was about to mumble his victory, when Matthew suddenly grabbed Rusty’s phone from the table. Rusty let the ruler drop. “Give that back!”

“Not until you learn one thing from me and repeat it in front of your friends.”

“Do you think I can’t take it from you?”

“Do you use face recognition?”

Rusty couldn’t believe the nerve of the guy. He released his hands, but it was too late. Matthew, who appeared quite nimble for all that he wore glasses and was nerdy, had retreated to the other corner of the room and was now deep into his phone. Without wasting a moment, Rusty rushed toward him, but Matthew was ahead and soon, they were chasing each other around the table.

“Do you really need your Tinder profile? It’s so yesterday, you know?” Matthew commented.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Rusty warned him. He moved to one side suddenly. Matthew couldn’t be that fast.

He wasn’t, but he did make the phone disappear into the front of his pants. Rusty stopped dead in his tracks. “Dude, are you rubbing your dick against my phone?”

“I’m wearing underwear,” came the immediate protest.

“What color?”

“None of your business. You’ll have your phone back if you promise to be a good boy.”

Rusty pondered. Well, he wasn’t completely against manhandling Matthew to get his phone back, even if it meant bending the guy over and stuffing both hands in his pants. He could totally do that.

Or he could do some laundry today. He put his hands up and reveled in the expression of satisfaction on that cute face. “You totally got me. What are you going to teach me?”

“Ethics and Consumer Behavior,” Matthew said promptly.

“Meh, I’m not into ethics. And I’m a consumer. I already know a lot about that. And how to behave.”

“I doubt that.” Matthew moved his hips as if he was playing with a hula-hoop. “Who knows what my dick is doing to your phone right now?”

The ugly t-shirt hiked up enough to let a sliver of firm belly show.

“You have abs!” Rusty exclaimed.

Matthew dropped his arms in alarm, covering the perfectly shaped lower abs in the process. “Everybody has the same muscle groups,” he protested.

Hmm, now that was a reason to lick his chops. Rusty could smell blood in the water. Why was Matthew Han hiding his abs under those ugly clothes? And his cute face behind those glasses? Truth be told, he had a nerdy appeal because of them, so if the plan was to make him less attractive, it wasn’t working.

“Nah, nah, nah,” Rusty said. “You,” he pointed at Matthew, who stared at him like the proverbial deer that must have gotten tired of getting caught in headlights and shamed because of it, “have awesome abs. Let me see them.”

Matthew crossed his arms around his lower belly in a protective gesture. “No.”

“I’ll do your bidding. Pinky promise.”

Matthew seemed to consider. “Will you allow me to tutor you? For the whole semester?”

“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? Abs for learning whatever you want to teach me this time around.”

Matthew pouted, and Rusty found himself staring. It wasn’t some coquettish gesture on the guy’s part. Nah, Rusty doubted his tutor realized the cute faces he was making. He was just calculating with that big brain of his. He had to have a big brain, or else he wouldn’t be able to keep Rusty’s attention for longer than all the other tutors had combined.

“Fine.” Matthew pulled his shirt up, revealing perfect washboard abs. He wasn’t overly muscled, since he was so slender, but the definition of those muscles was great. Rusty moved, eager to touch them.

Matthew moved out of the way with the same ease as before.

“You’re no fun,” Rusty complained.

Matthew shrugged, as if he couldn’t even be bothered. Maybe the guy was so straight that he couldn’t even bear for some dude to touch his abs. Very well. That meant that he had a weakness, and Rusty would exploit it at length. He would take his time, seeing how this tutor fiend thought he’d be able to put a leash on Rusty Parker, just like that.

“All right. A deal is a deal. Can I have my phone back?”

Matthew nodded and pulled the phone out of his pants. However, he didn’t give it back, as requested. He searched his bag for something and took out what looked like a cleaning kit.

“Really, dude?” Rusty laughed. “I didn’t really mean it about your dick. Unless it got a stiffy seeing my Tinder profile.”

“In your dreams,” Matthew replied and set himself hard at work to clean the screen.

Yeah, he was so damn cool. He had to be uber straight. Rusty knew for sure that most dudes got a bit flustered in his presence, even if they weren’t gay, just because of his expansive personality and the way he moved his body. The same was not happening with Matthew Han. A tough nut to crack.

Just what he needed this year to escape pure boredom with everyone getting the studying bug. Rusty intended to do some serious studying, too. Only the topic he intended to study was Matthew Han.

“Ready for the first lesson?”  Matthew asked while pushing the phone toward him with two fingers.

Rusty couldn’t remember his phone screen ever being so clean. He looked at his new tutor, pondering for a bit. Damn, Matthew was surely making bank with that cool attitude. Chicks often went for that kind. Unless this dude was only into studying. And keeping his abs in tip-top shape.

***