Free Make It Count by Megan Erickson

her. She wasn’t used to this—this whole idea of being proud of herself for grades. She hadn’t realized what a high it was to work hard and see the benefits. She could get addicted to this. And to those prideful smiles on Alec’s face.
    “Yeah, yeah,” she said, plopping down in the seat across from him. “I got this tutor. He actually doesn’t help me at all. I can do statistics blindfolded. But I feel bad for him and I want to make sure he feels important.”
    Alec rolled his eyes. “What a sucker.”
    Kat reached into her backpack, pulled out a candy bar, and handed it to Alec, knowing it was his favorite. “Yep, he is.” Then she winked.
    His answering wink and the small moan he made as he bit into his chocolate-caramel goodness made her gut lurch. First in a positive way because she liked both. A lot. Then in a negative way because she had no business flirting with Alec.
    Why did he have to be so charming and nice? Right now, a stray lock of hair grazed his forehead, having escaped from its pomade pompadour prison. Her hands twitched to reach out and smooth it back.
    “So, I know your major is criminal justice, but what do you want to do?” Kat asked.
    Alec stuffed the rest of the candy bar in his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “Lawyer, and possibly judge.”
    “Is that something you always wanted to do?”
    He paused. “Yeah. Pretty much. And it’s a job that pays well. Mom and I never had a lot of money so . . .” his voice trailed off and he waved his hand as if to push the conversation away. “Anyway, so you have a test coming up, right?”
    Kat blinked at the change in subject. “Um . . . yeah. I have the midterm in a month.”
    He smiled softly. “I say let’s make a bet. If you get a B or above, I buy you dinner.”
    Kat wiggled in her seat and grinned wickedly, rubbing her hands together. “You’re on.”
    They broke out their notebooks and began to go over the notes from that morning’s class. Kat yawned. She had been up late the night before, and was coming down from the high of her improved quiz score.
    She was finding it hard to pay attention.
    “So, in this problem, we first need to find the mean difference in the population between the male student absences and female students absences.” Alec explained. “How do we do that?”
    Kat stared at her notes, but her handwriting wasn’t neat and the numbers on the page kept jumping around. She knew if she stayed silent long enough, Alec would answer for her.
    But he didn’t this time.
    She cringed because sometimes the letters on the page in front of her looked disjointed and the numbers didn’t match up. Add in the words from this statistic problem and the whole thing was a jumble. She couldn’t remember what the mean was. Or the difference. And the mean difference just sounded cruel.
    Alec paused, his finger on the paper. He looked at her and furrowed his brow. Cripes, she felt stupid.
    “Um . . .” she said.
    Alec squinted his eyes, studying her face.
    “Um . . .” she repeated.
    He had mercy on her. Finally. “Right here,” he tapped the page. “We subtract the boys’ absences—fifteen—from the girls’ absences—ten. So it’s five.”
    So, she couldn’t subtract ten from fifteen? How embarrassing. But as always, she was a master at the coverup. “Right!” she laughed, but it was fake, and Alec didn’t even crack a smile. “Yep. Sorry. Long day.”
    He slowly leaned back. “Okay, you want to take a break from studying and get a coffee or something?”
    “Yeah, that would be great.”
    Alec seemed lost in thought as they gathered their bags and headed out of the library. He glanced at her several times out of the corner of his eye. Kat ignored the looks and focused on her second biggest gripe—after her brain—which was the cold. The icy rain had dulled to a bone-chilling mist.
    But at least it took her mind off of the failed library study session.
    “We should be able to use something for