Free Addicted for Now by Krista Ritchie, Becca Ritchie

he seems more interested in pictures of rich kids showing off their
Ferraris and guzzling liquor.
    “You know, Rose claimed that you’re some kind of hot-shot
tutor on campus—that you even have a waiting list,” I snap.
    “I am. And I do.”
    “People actually pay you to ignore them?” I shut my book.
I’ve known Sebastian since I was ten, but I spent more time at the Hale
residence than my own, so know is
really up for debate. He has always been into appearances, especially clothes
(which as a fashion designer, Rose values in a friend), and his
ostentatiousness is nothing new.
    But I didn’t know he was such a raging dick.
    He’s actually looking at
me this time. “They pay me for other things.”
    Like sexual things?
I frown. No, that can’t be right.
    Can it?
    He sees my brows scrunch in confusion.
    “I do have a waiting list,” he says, “but not for tutoring.”
    That clarifies nothing. A naked Sebastian pops in my head, getting
propositioned for sex like a gigolo. I withhold the urge to ask if he’s a
hooker. Although it’s there, threatening to be blurted out.
    “Then…what?” I mumble. Wow, that took a lot of self-control.
    His leg drops from his knee and he leans forward to grab his
leather briefcase. What if he sells sex toys? Okay, doubtful, but he would jump
up ten points in likability for me.
    He pulls something heavy out and sets it on my textbook
before zipping his briefcase closed.
    These aren’t dildos or vibrators or Ben Wa balls.
    It’s paper. Stacks of stapled paper with red markings along the margin.  
    They’re old exams.
    This is one of those moments where someone hands you a joint
and you have to make a choice to either pass it on or take a puff.
    “Isn’t this cheating?” I ask, not touching the papers on my lap.
Fingering one may just corrupt me.
    Sebastian slides a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and
slaps the carton on his palm. “Don’t scribble the answers on your hand,” he
says. “Memorize them. That can’t be too difficult for you, can it?”
    He twirls a cigarette between two fingers.
    “Rose won’t like it if you smoke in here.”
    Sebastian arches that one brow again and gives me a look
like I know Rose better than you . He
lights the cigarette.
    Fine. Rose will do a better job reprimanding him anyway. I
flip through the old exams, most of them marked up with A’s. “What if the
questions are different?”
    “You have Dr. Harris,” Sebastian says. “He always recycles
questions from tests. Just be sure to memorize all of them.”
    I thumb through the stack. “There must be fifty exams in
here.” How can I memorize all of
them?
    “They date back ten years. So yeah, there’s a lot.”
    I hesitate to use them as a study tool, even though it’s not
outright cheating. “And you can’t actually tutor me?”
    He blows a line of smoke towards the ceiling. “You didn’t
just sort-of fail your first two exams, Lily. You bombed. Most students would be crying in a corner, and if they had
me as a resource, they’d be riding my—”
    “Okay,” I cut him off. And then realize that sounds like I
actually want to ride his… “I mean, never mind.” I shake my head, roasting from
the forehead down.
    He wears a crooked smile as he puts the cig to his lips. “To
pass the class, you have to make A’s on the last two tests and the final. I’m
not a miracle worker.”
    “Connor Cobalt is,” I mutter under my breath.
    He must hear because he says, “Connor thinks he pisses
rainbows, but he’s not that good. And he’s definitely not better than me.” He
leans forward and taps ash in my plastic cup—full with Fizz Life, Fizzle’s new
soda, zero calories and no aspartame. I stare at the soiled drink for a long
while, trying to process what he just did.
    But when I turn, I see him tapping more ash into the
porcelain vase on the end table that a friend of Rose’s gifted her from Prague.
“Rose is going to skin you alive.”
    He smiles that smarmy