Lessons in Faking (Hall Beck University #1)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

Along the way, our morning coffee at Daisy’s became somewhat routine. Only that this week, McCarthy had cancelled. The email hadn’t given away much. Something came up. Wouldn’t make it in time . I hadn’t replied, and my fingers definitely hadn’t been itching to type a passive-aggressive response.

Not that I was curious to know what had come up.

Not. At. All.

We hadn’t been alone since The Incident five days ago, which was what I’d decided to call it in my head. Mostly to keep from thinking about what it had actually been: a kiss. A good, damn near perfect kiss.

When I knocked on his office door the following Wednesday, the eighth rose peeked out of my brown messenger bag. Apparently, he still found that to be as hilarious as ever.

I’d gotten used to the sarcastic “I’d rather not”, that he’d shout through the closed door whenever I knocked, but I didn’t wait for it this time. Itching to get back into that room for reasons unknown, I pushed open the door. That was my first bad decision of the day.

Because that’s when Shaw looked down at me—in the literal sense. I stuttered to a halt. Maybe if I didn’t move at all, I’d blend into my surroundings enough to be spared his wrath. Despite the muted colors I wore—a tight black long sleeve that disappeared into wide, brown tailored pants; belt around my waist matching the darker brown of my messenger bag —and despite my utter stillness, he still stared condescendingly over the bridge of his crooked nose. Perhaps the olive trench coat hanging over my arm had been a mistake? Shaw’s stoic expression didn’t waver, his blue eyes boring into my own.

“Oh my God,” I exhaled loudly, noticing the amused twitch of McCarthy’s lip at my flustered state. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect anyone to be here at this time—” Redundantly, my eyes jumped to the clock on the wall above the offices’ connecting door, where it read 2PM on the dot. I knew it would.

“So why’d you knock, Miss Pressley?”

“I—”

“If you think Mr. Williams has no other obligations as my TA, other than tutoring you, there’s no reason to knock, is there?” Shaw’s brow rose. “Especially if you don’t have the decency to wait for an answer.” That delivered the final blow, and judging by the pleased expression on his face, he knew that.

I gulped, feeling various insults rise in my throat, while the desire to throw all of them at him grew exponentially. “Sorry,” I croaked. It was all I could say without adding a “cranky bitch” at the end of my sentence, and I was lucky I had as much restraint as I’d just shown.

Shaw turned away from me without another word to face McCarthy standing behind his desk. Immediately, he wiped the smug expression off his face, and in return, I raised my middle finger at him behind Shaw’s back.

“In any case.” The professor cleared his throat. “We were done here, weren’t we?”

McCarthy nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll get right on this.” He lifted a stack of papers in emphasis and paired the gesture with a courtesy nod. Shaw gave me one last, lingering look of pure evil before disappearing into his office.

“You asshole.” The words flew out of my mouth, head turning in McCarthy’s direction with lightning speed. I was pretty sure that was a smile on his lips as he let himself fall into his chair, shrugging.

“What was I supposed to do?” he claimed—like phones, and calls, and texts didn’t exist.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I went on, theatrically throwing my hands up in disbelief. “Give me a heads-up, maybe?” I huffed as I sat in my own chair, bag slipping out of my grip and to the floor. A portrayal of my defeat. “Text me, call me. Fucking email me, if you have to.” Annoyed, I added: “You knew just fine how to do that a few days ago.”

I should not have said that. As I watched his lips quirk into a surprised, yet teasing grin, regret filled every fiber of my being.

“Oh.” His head tilted as he took me in. “You’re talking about Daisy’s.” As he leaned back in his chair, a satisfied sigh left his lips. “Have you been wracking your little brain about me? Why I wouldn’t make it? What must’ve come up?”

An incredulous sound left my lips—I couldn’t quite identify it myself. “You think entirely too highly of yourself.”

He didn’t even acknowledge my words when the smile on his lips grew wider, making way for the dimple in his cheek. “Did you—” He gasped. “Did you miss me, Pressley?”

“Oh my God,” I groaned, head falling back. “I did not miss you,” I clarified. To myself and to him. “I have not been wracking my brain about you and I do not care why you cancelled or what came up.”

McCarthy snorted, went on without a care in the world. “Don’t worry, princess. I wouldn’t dare cancel on you if it weren’t of the utmost importance.” His gaze levelled with mine, the nickname rolling off his tongue in a snicker. “Coach wanted to speak with us before class. About the upcoming Brown game.”

“ I don’t care. ”

“Right.” He underlined the cockiness in his voice with a wink. “By the way,” he added. “If you want me to spontaneously notify you about who might be in my office at which time and for what reason—” I went to interrupt him again, but McCarthy raised his voice playfully. “I should probably have your number.”

My body deflated at the valid argument, though that didn’t keep me from rolling my eyes. I hesitated for a moment, sighed when I gave in, stretching my arm across the desk for his phone. It only took a second until I held it in my hands, unlocked.

“Don’t sign me up for any weird spam with this,” I threatened with a grumble, typing in my number begrudgingly.

“Or what?” Judging by the smug expression on his face when I handed him the phone back, he was enjoying this a little too much.

“Or I’ll have you killed.” The sweet smile on my lips didn’t match the icy, serious tone in my voice. McCarthy chuckled— actually chuckled, and it was kind of cute—as he threw his head back in amusement.

“I’d like to see you try, Pressley.”

“Pearson product-moment correlation?”

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said this was probably the hundredth time that phrase had come out of his mouth today. Thinking positively, which I’d been told to start doing often enough, I was pretty sure an hour ago I’d never heard of the term before.

Progress, right?

Still, that didn’t help much when I was supposed to define it. With so many new words in my vocabulary, they were all scrambled and mixed together, forming one giant statistical mess in my head. The odds of getting the definition of a Pearson product-moment correlation right were pretty slim.

I groaned, my head falling back and my eyes shifting off McCarthy and onto the ceiling. He’d given up his seat on the opposite side of the desk, saying he needed to walk off his frustration . Fine by me. Until he’d decided to lean against my side of it for a more… intimidating approach.

His words, not mine.

One foot hooked under the other, his arms crossed, he stood against the relatively small table. Convincing him and myself that I had no problem being this close to him, I positioned my chair right in front of him. It didn’t leave much space between my angled knees and his extended legs. I could catch a glimpse of his hopeful expression as I looked at the ceiling.

How he still had any hope left after this, I didn’t understand. I had given up a long time ago. Still, I tried my best as our eyes connected again. I’d promised myself as much. I owed it to Mom, at the very least.

Pearson product-moment correlation.

It’s kind of like high school English class—memorizing terms and definitions. I’d been great at that. It had been the only subject where I hadn’t been standing in my parents’ shadow. Something I’d been better at.

Better than Mom and her algorithm-equation-brain, and perhaps even better than Henry with his lack of creativity, which did not benefit him when it came to building mnemonic forms. Another thing I’d been great at.

Only now, instead of defining cinquain poems and sonnets, McCarthy was asking about a certain type of correlation. Which meant some kind association between…

“Measures strength.” I began, wary. But he nodded. “And direction of association between two variables?” I half-guessed, half… didn’t?

To my surprise, McCarthy’s face didn’t fall in disappointment at my words, like it had countless times today. He didn’t roll his eyes, or opt for a teasing comment, before asking the same question again. Instead, a wide smile crept across his features. He uncrossed his arms and braced his hands on the table behind him.

“That’s it!” He smiled so widely his words were almost muffled. “Well done.”

In some distant corner of my mind, I noted that his praise felt good. Like I’d accomplished something by making him proud. I couldn’t help the smile that took over my entire face until I noticed it was there, and until I grasped that the reason for it was his smile.

It dropped as soon as the realization did. My lips fell into a straight line, and McCarthy mirrored my gesture with no hesitation. When he cleared his throat, his attention diverted for what seemed like the first time since he’d taken his position against the desk.

“We should probably end this on the only positive note we’re gonna get out of you today,” he suggested, eyes scanning the room dismissively. The shift in attitude made me squirm in my seat, nose flaring at his sarcasm.

“ Ha-ha. ” I didn’t want to admit he was probably right. “Have a little more faith in me, McCarthy.”

Perhaps the way to master (or at the very least, not fail) this class, was to stop thinking about how great a statistician Mom had been, and consequently, how awful I was in comparison. Instead focus on what I’d been better at (e.?g. memorizing).

McCarthy hummed lowly. “The problem isn’t my faith, princess.”

There was that nickname again. The one that wasn’t supposed to make my stomach flip and my lips twitch. It was an insult, after all. A dig at everything that screamed privilege about me. So I just glared at him.

“You still think this is going to end well?” I had to suppress a scoff because, really, we’d been doing this for a while, and I was nowhere near a passable grade. Exams were fast approaching, too.

McCarthy just shrugged. “Of course.” He said it so casually, so convinced, he almost had me. “If you fail, it means I’ve failed,” he reminded me, a beat of silence following before he added, “And I don’t do that.”

He was right, of course. If there was one thing bigger than my ego—which was clearly failing me at the moment—it was his. And when McCarthy said he wouldn’t fail, he wouldn’t.

My eyes lingered on him for a little while longer, taking in his five o’clock shadow and the sharp features on which it was growing. His lips were parted slightly, a pretty pink and a little puffy, probably from gnawing on them whenever he’d waited for me to answer a question. His brown eyes roamed the room as if he didn’t spend hours in here every week, and as if he hadn’t already burnt every detail of it into his mind. He made a point out of not looking at me, and I kind of enjoyed just watching him in silence.

That snapped me out of it.

I wasn’t successful when I cleared my throat to banish the thoughts of his pretty face and prettier lips. Instead, I was reminded that they’d been on mine just a few days ago.

Enough .

I shot up in a motion so fast, my body needed a second to catch up. The sound of my chair scraping against the wooden floor filled the room before his head snapped in my direction.

And there he was again. Unintentionally all up in my face. So close to me. So, so close . Every effort to keep my mind from going there , went out the window. His pupils blew wide, though his breath was steady against my nose.

Unfortunately, my breath stuck painfully in my throat, and I knew he noticed when the corners of his lips curled, ever so slightly. He caught them almost immediately: expression back to normal. Cold. Stoic.

“Hey, listen—”

“Look—”

We started simultaneously, cutting the other off. A nervous laugh rippled through my throat, and I wondered what the fuck was going on with me and since when I nervously giggled. Because of a man, of all things.

“That… thing on Friday,” he started again, a little hesitant. I wanted to laugh because he called it a thing and I called it an incident and I was just about to bring up the same topic.

He tried to gauge a reaction, any reaction, when a beat of silence followed his words. His brow furrowed, but I stayed quiet, just nodded.

“Big mistake, right?” His tone took on a casual note. He even tried to force a laugh I could see right through. And it hit me like lightning. He was nervous, too. Dylan McCarthy Williams, the picture of irritating nonchalance: nervous . I never thought I’d see the day.

That alone was enough to keep my spirits lifted despite the nature of this conversation. After all, he was right.

“A huge one,” I assured him. Because apparently it made me nervously laugh and care when he cancelled. I couldn’t have that.

“And it can’t happen again,” he continued, brown eyes finally on me again. They travelled up and down my body once, making him swallow thickly. “Right?”

I shook my head. “Never.”

My chest rose and fell heavily underneath my top, and there was a twitch in his stoic expression. His eyes roamed my face, restlessly taking me in until they connected with mine again.

He didn’t say a thing. Just looked at me.

And then, it happened again.

One hand curled around my waist while the other cupped my cheek so lightly, hesitantly, you wouldn’t think his lips were exploring mine the way they were––his tongue begging for entrance the way it was. A rough groan slipped past his lips as mine parted, and the sound alone seemed to make it all worth it.

In one swift motion, McCarthy turned our intertwined bodies, my legs pressing into the desk he’d been leaning against. When I scrambled on top of it, our lips barely disconnected, and he was standing between my thighs mere seconds later, pulling me closer, all heavy breathing and scorching touches.

My hands found themselves in his hair. He stifled a groan when I pulled it.

I felt like I was on fire—maybe like I’d already burned to the ground. Every lingering touch, every trace of his finger, every sound he groaned into my mouth made me burn. For him. With him.

And every time his breath fell against my lips, every time he pressed his lips against mine when I was about to pull away, showed me how much he wanted this, and how little truth there’d been to his earlier suggestion.

It can’t happen again. What a liar.

When he pulled away, that same need for more I felt low in my belly played in his eyes.

“I signed a contract,” he panted against my lips—like he was trying to remind himself of the fact. Of every reason why we’d put ‘No Sex’ in capital letters on the damn thing. “So have you.” His hands cupped the back of my head, thumbs still on my cheeks. He swallowed hard, like it took everything out of him not to connect our lips. He kept me in place so I couldn’t either. “Do you tend not to honor what you sign, Pressley?”

No , I thought. I can’t find it in me to care, when all I can think about is you .

But if he wanted to play it this way, we could. If he really intended to honor that part of our agreement, the least I could do was make it as hard for him as possible. Make him break before I could.

I snickered against him, bringing much-needed distance between us that I didn’t like, regardless. My lips curved. “Are you sure this is a game you want to start, McCarthy?”

Somehow, he knew exactly what I meant. “Playing it with you would be an honor.”