Lessons in Faking (Hall Beck University #1)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

When I got home that afternoon, the details McCarthy had wanted to email me were waiting in my inbox.

[email protected] 03:12 PM

Pressley,

If you survived Shaw, I’ll meet you in front of the Alexandrian Library tomorrow. Three PM sharp.

Happy Fake Date Thursday Eve! You better get your hopes up.

Disrespectfully,

D.?M.?W

“ This? ” was the first thing I wondered when McCarthy walked up to me that Thursday. “This is what you had in mind? What I was supposed to get my hopes up for?” My tone was disbelieving as I watched him, a copy of Statistical Interference I in hand.

“Well, did you?” The corner of his lip quirked at the prospect. As he took a seat beside me, leaving the bench on the opposite side of the picnic table empty, I rolled my eyes.

“Of course not.” I might not know McCarthy well, but I knew him enough to lower my expectations when he suggested I raise them. I shook my head again. “Normally, dates involve a movie, dinner, drinks. Flowers. Not—” I pointed at the 100-pound book now resting on the table between us. “That.”

“And usually, dates aren’t at three o’clock in a college courtyard, to make sure a certain someone would see you.”

Touché.

“Besides,” he added. “This is perfect. It makes sense. I’m your tutor. This—” He gestured back and forth between us. “—is a cute, unsuspecting study date. Taking in the last of this year’s sun in front of the library your brother happens to be in for—” He thought for a moment, his eyes shifting off the circular building to throw me a questioning glance. “How much longer, again?”

I shrugged. “Like half an hour.”

“Half an hour,” he echoed, checking his phone for the time and nodding in confirmation. “See? Perfect.”

If there was one thing about Henry, it was that he always followed a schedule. He had done, since he was fifteen years old; and he stuck to it religiously. It’s what kept him grounded, productive, and on top of his game. In control . And as someone who’d been with him since before his first to-do list, I knew his routine better than my own.

Mostly because the only routine I followed was Indian takeout on Saturday nights, and even that lacked consistency most weeks.

We lived very different lives, my brother and I. Every second that wasn’t planned out was a wasted one for him. Life was sacred, being someone he could be proud of in ten years’ time the most important thing.

I… didn’t quite operate that way. What happened, happened. Life went on regardless of the mistakes you made, regardless of who lived or died. So why invest so much energy into living a perfectly planned-out life when we all ended up in a casket, no matter what?

He’d tried often enough to fix that, by putting me on a schedule and giving me some kind of planner every birthday. Once, he’d stolen my iPad password to download one of those calendar apps. The only reason I hadn’t used it was to annoy him.

“You know,” I huffed, attention back on McCarthy and the devil’s testament in his hand. “The only reason I had any motivation to study statistics by myself, was not having to see you every Wednesday.”

He snickered in amusement, and I could feel his eyes on me. “Now that I’ll have to see you regardless, what motivation do I have left?” My theatrical sigh accompanied his hoarse laugh, and I let my head fall onto my arm on the table in a similar manner.

I was back to not wanting to even try. What. Was. The. Point?

“Proving me wrong?”

My previously closed eyes shot open, finding an honest look on his face, his head tilted slightly as he waited for me to grasp the concept. I sat up at once. I continued evaluating the stakes.

“Prove you wrong, how ?” Suspicion laced my voice.

“I told Shaw you’re a hopeless case.” He shrugged as if it was the most casual of things to do. “He asked after your… conversation yesterday.”

I knew I was a hopeless case. McCarthy knew I was a hopeless case, and Shaw probably thought I was a hopeless case, too. But there was a significant difference between thinking, knowing, and having a conversation with your TA about it.

“You can’t just—” I wanted to argue, my raised voice faltering at his next words.

“He agreed with me.”

My body deflated, and a loud groan slipped past my lips. “Fuck you,” I deadpanned, unsure what else to retort as my head fell back.

“I’ll take that.” His hands raised in mocked surrender when I threw him a narrowed glance. “But it also provides you with an amazing opportunity.” I didn’t have to ask what he meant, and he didn’t have to say it out loud again either. A short silence lingered before he did, anyway. “Prove us wrong, Pressley.”

I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him. Yet, to myself I could admit the brilliance of his approach.

I was as competitive as the next person—it’s what growing up with an overachieving brother did, I assumed—and so the opportunity to prove McCarthy wrong, to prove Professor Shaw wrong… it was inviting.

So inviting, that I actually tried to listen, the next time he explained the basics of statistics and what we could do with them. Sure, trying wasn’t doing.

That blue Frisbee being thrown into the blonde girl’s face, who had been exceptionally talkative on the other end of the grass (even before it had hit her in the head), was still more interesting than why we needed a null-hypothesis. And the look on my brother’s face when he spotted us half an hour later was still more satisfying than actually understanding what a null-hypothesis was supposed to do.

When it came to statistics, I wasn’t used to understanding anything. I wasn’t used to paying attention to McCarthy, his voice, or what he had to say, either.

At one point I’d become so desperate for distraction, I found analyzing the curve in his dimple, the rasp in his voice after he cleared his throat and how voluminous his hair was—how soft it looked—more interesting. I briefly wondered if he used 3-in-1shampoo, though hoped to God he didn’t.

I’d been so bored, I found the glances he threw me exhilarating enough to still think about them, back in the comfort of my own home. Accompanied by the genuine interest that had laced his voice when he asked if I got it, and the faked pout when I deadpanned no .

Then again, who was I kidding? Everything— everyone was more interesting than statistics.