Lessons in Faking (Hall Beck University #1)

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Henry skipped our Accounting lecture, which I thought was childish. Then again, it meant whatever we were doing was working. In return, I’d had a light bounce in my step and a smile on my face for most of the day.

What’s better than a plan working out when you weren’t sure it would work at all? In this case, it was exceeding expectations. Even if I wasn’t speaking to him, at least I knew he was thinking about me. I hadn’t been this certain about it since our parents had died.

I could tell by the look that washed over him when he spotted me in the hall. The way his head whipped in the opposite direction before I even really looked at him. He was on his way home, I was on my way to McCarthy’s tutorial, and that fact probably wasn’t lost on him.

Divine intervention or a simple coincidence? When McCarthy’s head popped out of his TA office before I even reached it, I said a silent thank you . I assumed he spotted both me and my brother when a cruel smile formed on his lips.

The hallway was long, though the door to McCarthy’s office was barely ten feet from where my and Henry’s paths would cross. The light beige walls were peppered with doors to my left and windows to my right. Between every window, the bust of some historically important person was placed on a slim, wooden podium and I thought Henry might walk into President Abraham Lincoln himself, with the way he eagerly avoided my gaze.

“Pressley!”

I wasn’t used to my arrangement with McCarthy just yet, and the friendliness of his tone caught me off guard. As Henry’s gaze shot toward him, it seemed he wasn’t familiar with the sound either. Though, when someone called your name, it was almost like second nature: you’d check, right?

The look that passed between the two could’ve frozen lava.

McCarthy shifted his gaze first, quickly—to make sure Henry’s attention was still on us when he casually raised his hand and gave me a lazy smile. One that hopefully said: Oh, my girlfriend, I’m so glad to see you , in the most convincing way.

“Would you look at that,” I muttered, as I sidled past him into the tiny office. “You can actually sound like a decent human being when you try.” He shut the door behind me with a thud, gesturing to the uncomfortable chair on this side of his desk.

“You’d be surprised how kind and generous I can be when you’re not around.”

“I’d guess about just as much as Shaw on a bad day.” My brows rose. “Right?”

McCarthy threw me a wide, fake smile, though his attention was already on the source of my demise for the next sixty minutes when he sat down: Statistical Interference I.

“Have you read this before?” He held the book out to me, a brow raised critically.

“Sure.” I leaned back in my seat, and the gesture made him drop his hand with a theatrical sigh. He knew that the honest answer was a big fat nope .

“It was required reading last year, Pressley.” Instead of waiting for me to take the thing out of his hand, he made a point out of opening, turning, and placing it in front of me with a noise that startled me. He went on without checking if I was even looking.

Then again, if I weren’t looking, I wouldn’t know he wasn’t checking.

“It’s got a chapter on everything you’re failing to understand.” His finger slowly ran across the table of contents, giving every relevant chapter a purposeful tap. The null-hypothesis: tap . Calculating probabilities: tap . Confidence intervals: tap .

I didn’t know why my eyes were practically glued to the book. The book —not the ringed finger running across it.

McCarthy turned the page slowly, continuing to run his finger across every chapter of the table delicately. A-B tests: tap . With every tap, his finger curled slightly before straightening to continue running down the white page. Correlation coefficients: tap . I noticed a vein that ran from his knuckle upward, and my eyes followed it mindlessly. Regressions: tap . They were nice hands. Firm, tough-looking, with veins running across the back of it. He wore rings, too. Three silver ones.

My eyes jumped up to his quickly. I wasn’t quite sure how long he hadn’t said anything, and I was even less sure of how long his hand had remained on the page. When our eyes connected, his brow rose in amusement, waiting for any kind of reaction. I huffed as I stalled for time.

“The thing is also, like, a hundred pounds, McCarthy,” I finally retorted. “There’s no way—”

The book snapped shut, and I was sure the only reason he closed it was to keep me from talking. His patience was already wearing thin, five minutes into the whole ordeal, and I wasn’t sure whether to feel proud or a little guilty. Being Shaw’s TA must be hard enough without the burden of having to teach a hopeless case statistics.

“What is your problem with this?” he asked, with an equal mix of aggravation and confusion in his voice. “You’re not dumb, Pressley, but somehow you don’t want to understand.”

My head tilted with a fake pout on my lips. “That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I quipped, and McCarthy’s eyes rolled in annoyance.

“I’m being serious.”

“And that might be the problem.” A shrug accompanied my words. And as the silence that followed my statement lingered, I dared a glance at the man opposite me. A hand ran through his dark brown hair, eyes on the wooden table. I sighed. “I don’t know,” I admitted.

McCarthy couldn’t help but let out a sarcastic snicker as his eyes batted open. “You’re not even trying,” he pointed out.

Rightfully so. I wasn’t trying. And I didn’t know why I wasn’t trying. At the very least, I always tried.

Perhaps it was the fact that, no matter how hard I’d try with this, I’d never be my mom. I’d never be Naomi Yung, the woman who had changed the way we applied statistics in business today. Way past her death, her success was a lingering presence. Last semester, I’d stumbled over her name three times trying to study for this damn class.

I’d never be her.

The thought made me sick.

Henry was basically Dad, living up to his name and the reputation of a Pressley in soccer. He’d go pro after college, just the way he was supposed to. The draft was but a month away, and I wasn’t even worried he might not make it. Everyone knew he would.

Why couldn’t I be just a little more like either of our parents, too?

Could I be—if I just tried a little harder?

I wasn’t quite sure what trying in statistics looked like, but the following tutoring session with McCarthy was not it. Any traces of the bounce in my step and the smile on my face that had been a constant companion for the past few days were wiped away by the end of it.

I watched as his nose scrunched, trying to decipher the notes in front of him. His brown hair fell into his face as he read through the words, as unsure about them as I had been. His tongue poked the inside of his cheek, he squinted, then flicked his eyes toward me.

You ’ re totally staring at him , the voice inside my head blurted out as soon as our gazes connected. It was right. I was staring. Why was I staring?

Though now that his attention had diverted from the paper in his hand, he held our eye contact steadily. So technically, was he staring at me too?

When his lips broke into a rare smile—all dumb and teasing and uncontrolled, and the dimples in his cheek became visible: for a brief second, I remembered why. He was irritability attractive. It was a fact. Probably one that contributed to why I disliked him so strongly. Probably one that contributed to why Henry did, too.

I shook my head to snap out of it. “So—” I began. I didn’t get very far.

“You were totally staring at me.” McCarthy bit his bottom lip to keep from breaking into a toothy grin. Apparently, he’d picked up on it, too. “Don’t shake your head like that.” He went on. “Athalia Payton Pressley, you were totally staring at me,” he said again, dropping the sing-song voice.

I mulled over his accusation for a moment. “Stop being a five-year-old, McCarthy.”

He was grinning now. You. Were. Totally. Staring, he mouthed back, then redirected his attention to the notes in front of him. Before I could retort, a knock on the door cut me off.

McCarthy’s eyes dragged themselves toward the sound. He took a double-take at the clock above it—3 PM, on the dot—and then sighed. “I’ll email you the details for tomorrow,” he said, handing me my notes back, before raising his voice for a louder “ Come in. ”

And he did. Over the tip of his long nose, Professor Simon Shaw studied us somewhat curiously. His black hair hung into his features messily, and I almost couldn’t see the way his brows rose when I stood up.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, head slowly turning in my direction. Standing still, I was glad he didn’t expect—or at the very least didn’t want to wait—for a response. “If you could fit five minutes with me into your, no doubt, busy schedule, Miss Pressley.” Shaw’s hand extended toward his office, inviting me inside with a snarl.

He didn’t ask me to join him; he expected me to. I thought, even if I’d had the most important appointment of my life in those five minutes, I still would’ve stepped into his office without a second thought.

A single glance across my shoulder showed McCarthy mouthing a sarcastic Good luck my way before he closed the door between us.

Professor Shaw’s office was brighter than McCarthy’s. Bigger, too. And tidier. Though, with the number of times I’d been in here, I wasn’t surprised by that. The chair on the opposite side of his desk looked more comfortable, too, but I didn’t get the chance to sit in it.

“There’s no need,” Shaw said when I was about to. “This will be quick.”

So I stood, nodded to will him to continue.

“How are you finding your tutoring? Making any progress?”

I blinked at him, and the urge to throw McCarthy under the bus was huge. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to destroy the flawless reputation he’d built with staff at this school. Even the janitors love him , was what Henry had said once, clearly annoyed by the fact.

Still, despite the golden opportunity, I nodded. McCarthy was doing me a solid, so this was hardly the time to stab him in the back.

“Yes, sir,” I muttered. “It’s only been two hours so far, but I feel like I’m getting the hang of it.”

“Great.” His mouth dropped into a straight line. “So why did I need to get an email from your brother expecting me to drop these sessions?” My cheeks flushed bright pink before I could stop them. “ Expecting me to grant you a free pass?” he snarled with clearly faked curiosity in his voice.

“Professor—” My mouth was dry when I spoke, and I cleared my throat before I could go on. Shaw stood behind his chair, squinting at me and making the most uncomfortable eye contact in the history of eye contact.

“Just because your parents have earned their reputation at this school doesn’t mean either of you have, Pressley,” Shaw hissed, his voice still dangerously low. “Just because you’re their daughter and he’s their son, doesn’t mean you get to waltz around this school— my class—and tell me what you might prefer I do.”

He was right, of course. Henry had overstepped massively, overestimated the influence he might have around athletes and the sports faculty as Felix Pressley’s son. He did not have it here, and he should’ve known before he sent the goddamn email . I could kill him.

For some reason, I still didn’t rat him out. I really wanted to, more than I wanted to throw McCarthy under the bus. But instead of telling him that Henry should be the one in trouble—that it was his idea entirely and he hadn’t even consulted me beforehand—all I said was “I know,” followed by an “It won’t happen again.”

Shaw nodded, his mouth twisting in discontent, despite my words. “It is a shame,” he drawled, studying me. “With all that your mother accomplished in the field, I was excited to hear you’d joined my class last year.” He shook his head in disappointment, sighed. “It’s a shame you’re not living up to her reputation, Miss Pressley.”