Free Shucked by Megg Jensen Page B

her arm through mine.
"Ready to get to class?" A smile lit up her face.
    "You're not mad?" I shifted
my books to my other hip, making the whole BFF pose a little easier to deal
with.
    "Why would I be mad? You're my
best friend, right? If you're happy, then I'm happy." Her smile grew and I
had to admit that she really didn't seem jealous. She thrust her index finger
in my face. “Just don’t turn into one of them.”
    “I’m pretty sure you don’t have to
worry about that!” Maybe everything I'd thought about American teens wasn't
totally true. Frenemies might be a myth, or at least not as common as I'd
believed.
    The bell rang, breaking up my
unexpected love fest. I'd gone from feeling like the worst thing in the world
to cementing my friendship with Becky, getting kissed, even if just on the
head, by Alex, and being invited back on the cheerleading squad after the
wicked witch of the farmland broke her ankle.
    Maybe it wouldn't be so bad living
here.

 
    Chapter Thirteen
     
    The good mood stayed until math. Knowing
I’d have to start tutoring after class turned my bowels to water. Kind of like
that time I had dysentery. It’s not pretty, I promise. After an insufferable
forty-five minutes of math instruction, during which I learned absolutely
nothing because I was so focused on what was going to happen after class, I sat
glued to my chair. The class filed out after the bell rang their freedom.
    Alex sauntered over to my table,
dropped his textbook next to mine, then turned the chair around and straddled
it. My mind raced and I tried to concentrate on the tabletop, and not his
package.
    “You ready to catch up in math?” Alex
asked.
    Illinois Jon stood at the front of
the classroom, erasing the chalkboard and totally ignoring us huddled in the
back of the room.
    “I guess.”
    “How much do you know?” Alex flipped
his textbook open to the first chapter. His fingers rested in his hair, his
palm on his cheek. He looked up at me with those deep brown eyes and blinked
twice. His long eyelashes touched his cheeks, then the smooth skin above his
eyes. I wanted to run my thumb along his cheek and…
    “Tabitha?” Alex waved a hand in front
of my face.
    A warm blush spread from my neck up
my face. I thanked the powers above that I didn’t live in one of those
paranormal worlds. If he was Edward Cullen, he totally would have known what I
was thinking.
    “Sorry, I was spacing out.” I opened
my math book to the same page as his.
    “Do you understand this stuff?” Alex
tapped the page with his pencil.
    The numbers swam in front of me, like
the fish in the tank at the dentist’s office. “Not really. I’ve never had any
formal math instruction. I can count change, add and subtract in my head, stuff
like that. But I’ve never had any algebra or geometry. No one uses it in the
real world.”
    Alex laughed. “That’s what I’ve
heard. But I understand it and I’m going to need it to become a doctor, so
you’re lucky I can teach you.”
    I ventured another look back at him.
He’d turned serious, the smile gone. Was this the same goofy boy who’d kissed
me on the head in the hall this morning?
    “Um, yeah, I guess I’m the lucky
one.” I repeated like a parrot. I looked back up to the front. Illinois Jon was
packing up papers into his satchel.
    “Let’s start with basic equations.”
Alex launched into a lengthy description.
    I tried to follow his reasoning,
nodded every time he looked at me, and even scribbled down some notes. Not that
any of it made sense.
    After five torturous minutes, Alex
finally stopped talking. “Did you get that?”
    I nodded. I didn’t understand one
word of it, but maybe it would eventually sink in through osmosis. If he just
came a little closer, put those lips on mine, maybe, just maybe I’d absorb
enough of it to pass class.
    “Okay, great!” He looked up to the
front. “Mr. Fenton, what do you want Tabitha to do as an assignment?”
    Illinois Jon wiped his hands on