Excerpt

College Discipline
Caitlin Ricci © 2017
All Rights Reserved

Jensen was ten minutes late for his initial tutoring session. It wasn’t the best way to make a great first impression, but he’d had a hard time getting up when his alarm sounded and then missed his bus. Who actually got up before ten on a Saturday morning anyway? Definitely not him.

But he made it to Sam’s door anyway. His new college tutor, the one his parents had insisted Jensen get because he had such a good reputation, lived in a nice house on the outskirts of Denver. There was a new SUV in the driveway that still had the temporary plates on it. Something like that, with 4-wheel drive, was definitely fun to go off-roading in, and if he’d had a vehicle like that, Jensen would never have to sit on the bus again or deal with the driver being late or get hit on by drunk guys in the middle of the night while riding it either. He was still practically drooling over the SUV when a man opened the front door.

“I assume you’re Jensen? I’m Sam.”

He gave Sam his attention and quickly nodded. “Sorry I’m late. The buses and stuff.”

Sam shrugged. “You’re here now at least. Come on in. Let’s get started.” Jensen kicked off his shoes as soon as he was inside and was glad to put his heavy backpack down for a while. “When your parents hired me, they said you were having trouble with calculus, right? Anything else I should know about?”

Jensen stripped off his sweatshirt. The house was too warm, and Jensen was already dying in the heat. His T-shirt came up with his sweatshirt, like it always did, and he quickly pulled it back down.

“Uh… Math in general, I guess. I have a hard time focusing since my mind goes all over the place and I get bored easily.” He dropped his sweatshirt on the back of the couch and grabbed up his backpack again. “So where do you want me?”

Sam nodded toward the kitchen, where Jensen saw two glasses of water and some popcorn already spread out for them. His cheeks flamed. “You were waiting a long time for me, huh?”

“A little bit,” Sam confirmed for him as he led the way into the kitchen. “We can get started now, though, and next time you’ll be here when you’re supposed to be. If the busses are an issue, I can come get you. Or we can do the sessions at your place.”

Sam’s house was so neat and tidy compared to his apartment. Jensen definitely didn’t want him there. He had enough to be embarrassed about with how bad his grades were and how stupid he felt that he didn’t want to add how much of a slob he was to the list.

He sat across from Sam and sipped his water. “How long have you been a tutor?”

“Five years. Since I graduated college with my bachelor’s degree in education. How long have you been bad at math?” Sam smiled at him, and Jensen started to relax.

“Pretty much forever. I just don’t get it.”

Sam chuckled, and Jensen started pulling out his books. He didn’t want to delay any longer in case Sam started to get the idea he just didn’t care if he passed math this semester or not. He did care, but not because he wanted to be good in math or anything like that. He mostly just wanted his parents to get off his back about how he clearly wasn’t applying himself.

“What part are you having trouble with?”

Jensen waved vaguely to the entire textbook. “All of it. I can’t even do long division. I shouldn’t be in this class, but I got lucky on a few questions on the placement test, so now I’m there and I just want to pass.”

Sam put the book down on a nearby chair. “We’ll get to that later then, since it sounds like you need some of the basics reworked first, and I don’t want to overload you on your first day here with me. When you’re having trouble concentrating, what’s normally going on?”

Jensen had a hard time concentrating whenever his teacher was nearby. He pressed his lips together and tried to think of a better answer than that, but he didn’t have one, whenever he was struggling, it was normally because Professor Anderson was there with his tight khakis on. He’d be standing close to Jensen’s desk since he sat right in the front, and all Jensen could think about was leaning over and offering his professor a blow job.