Chapter 2 The tiny thing

Max's pov

Let me be very clear before we start: I am not stupid.

I'm a business major. I can read a balance sheet, close a sponsorship deal, and tell you within four seconds whether a restaurant will be out of business by spring. What I cannot do is Microbiology 201, because Microbiology 201 is a trash course.

I only took it because Northgate makes every business major complete one science credit, and some advisor with a lanyard told me biology "wasn't that bad." For six weeks, it wasn't. Because Dr. Adams was a saint. She drew cartoon bacteria on the whiteboard, spoke slowly, and once told me, "Max, you're doing wonderfully. I mean, I wasn't understanding a lot there, but at least I was making efforts; I even answered 'bacteria' to a question about viruses.

Then she went on maternity leave, which is wonderful for her and a tragedy for me, and Northgate replaced her with Dr. Victor Crane.

Dr. Crane is six-five, bald, built like a vending machine, and wears a gold chain over his lab coat. He walks into the lecture hall like a man entering a prison yard. On day one, he said, "I'm not here to be your professor. I'm here to humble you," and then waited, very still, for applause. Nobody clapped. He wrote it on the board anyway. He calls us "recruits." He raises one eyebrow before every sentence. I'm convinced he practices in the mirror and thinks he's The Rock.

Today is midterm return day.

"90% of you failed," Dr. Crane announces, flinging the booklets across the room like frisbees. "That's not a me problem. That's a you problem."

Mine lands on my desk face down. I flip it.

38.

There's a frowny face next to it. He drew a frowny face on my booklet.

I stare at the number. I've survived worse. I once survived a broken wrist, bad food, and a three-day flu in the same week. But I have never survived Dean Hollis, who is the reason this 38 matters.

Hollis has hated me since I parked a Zamboni on the quad freshman year, which I stand behind as art. Last month he announced a "new academic standard" for varsity athletes: anything below a C in any course, and you sit out the season. Totally unrelated to me. Just a coincidence that it was announced two days after I got named captain of the Northgate Knights.

Captain. Of the Knights. At 21. I cried in my truck, a little.

Which means: a C in Microbiology, or no hockey. No hockey, no captaincy. No captaincy, and the new transfer kid, Luke or whatever his name is, with his quiet hoodie and his stupid polite smile, gets my "CAPTAIN" title on his jersey, and I have to watch him score my goals with his stupid good manners. NEVER.

Honestly? I'd rather eat the textbook.

I hope he failed this course too, cause i am not letting anyone take my title from me. He is already doing too much on the ice.

I open the class group chat, Micro 201 Survivors, two hundred and twelve members. The top message says Does ANYONE understand anything with forty-seven crying emojis. Someone posted a meme of a man sobbing into a pillow. Someone else wrote: I failed too. We're all gonna die.

So that's my pool of tutors: two hundred and eleven people exactly as dumb as I am. Great. Fantastic. Excellent.

Dr. Crane dismisses us with a flourish of his gold chain. I spend the next twenty-five minutes at his podium begging for extra credit, a curve, a retake, an interpretive dance. He gives me one raised eyebrow and a pamphlet about "personal accountability." I leave with nothing but the pamphlet.

There will be no hockey if I don't bring up these grades.

I'm thumbing through the chat for any sign of human intelligence when something collides with my stomach.

Not hard. More like a bird hitting a window.

I look up. Nothing.

I look down.

At first, all I see is the top of a head. Dark hair parted down the middle, tiny at the end of a cheap hoodie. Under it, a hand holding a coffee cup, attached to an arm, attached to nothing else I can see. The rest of the person is hidden by sleeves.

My first thought: Do they let high schoolers in now? Is this a campus tour?

"Watch where you're going," a voice mutters, and the head tips up.

Oh. She's real. A full-grown human, with a pissed-off face and a blotchy nose, glaring at me as if I personally ran over her cat. I know her from somewhere. Back row of Crane's class, always eating a granola bar, always writing like her pen is on fire. T-something. Tania? Tasha? Tomato?

I'm sure it starts with a T.

I let her pass the aisle before I stepped behind her to check out her ass and if she was worth chasing.

Only then did I realise how small she is. Pretty face. Skinny jeans. Shit, I have never noticed anyone as small as her before.

I followed her up to the exit, admiring her little ass and damm this shawty is tiny but cute tho, bruh. I am two steps behind her, and yet I can see the top of her head.

Just as I was about to overtake her, she turned around, then we stumbled into each other, and the books in her hands clattered on the floor

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't see you."

"Obviously." She dropped to her knees to pick up her books.

Well, I can be a gentleman some days, and today is one of those days. I went on my knees also to help her gather her books.

Watch where you are going next time she said angrily.

"Okay, I mean, I literally didn't see you. You're, like, four inches tall. She didn't respond to me.

My hands were already connected with her midterm booklet, and my jaw dropped when I saw it

The number on the cover is circled in red, so big it takes up half the page. Next to it, in Dr. Crane's slashy handwriting: Excellent. Rare.

98.

Dr. Crane gave someone a 98.

Dr. Crane gave someone the word excellent.

"Holy fuuuuuck," I say.

"Hello?" The girl snatches her booklet off the floor and shakes coffee off it. "Language, please? We're in a hallway."

"You got a ninety-eight?"

"Is that surprising?"

"It's a miracle." I point at the booklet like it's a UFO. "Is that yours? That's yours? You aced Crane's midterm?"

She straightens, crosses her arms, and lifts her chin like she's running for office. "Hell yeah."

Okay. There is a person in this world who can read Dr. Crane's evil handwriting, and she is standing at my knee level.

I soften my voice. Warm, persuasive. The one I use on sponsors.

Please, can I read your answers? Her brows quirk up. I am not in the mood. She replied in an angry tone.

Ooh, baby girl, I am not asking you to have sex with me or allow me to suck your titties just to read your answers, baby

She looked up at me; I could tell her neck was about to break because of the height difference. That is way too forward and brave of you, baby? Really?

Would you rather I call you ma'am or Ms., maybe?

She sighs.

"Wow. Nice to meet you. My name is Max, and you just got yourself a student, baby."

"Excuse you?"

"Tutor me. I'll make it worth it."

"Hell no." She steps around me. "And for the record, I have a name."

"I would have used it if I knew it, my love."

She stops mid-step. I swear her eye twitches. She's already furious about something. I can tell, because she isn't looking at me like I'm a person. She's looking at me like a traffic cone that said something rude. Whatever happened to her today, it's been a day.

"Max Dalton," she says, flat. "I know exactly who you are."

"Everyone does. Of course I am popular. Northgate chris brown.

"That's not the compliment you think it is."

Tiny and harsh. I like her already.

"Look," she says, hitching her bag onto her shoulder, "if you really want to improve your grade, the class group chat runs study sessions every night. Join it."

"I'm in it. Everyone in it failed. I'm not getting tutored by people as dumb as I am."

"Wow. What a touching story." She turns her whole body away. "I'm so sorry for your loss, but I have to get home. I have a 3.9 GPA to protect, and I'm not about to babysit a loud, rich kid who thinks he can charm his way through a semester."

"I'll pay you."

"No."

"Whatever you want."

"Still no."

"And not just that," I add, lowering my voice a notch and flashing the dimple, the one that has ended wars, "I'll fuck your brains out. I will make you scream my name for three hours. I'm very good in bed. It's a known fact. Ask around."

For a moment she just looks at me. She looks at me the way you would look at a dog that has just recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

"You," she says, "does that really work? The whole sex little horny groans talk...does it help you get your way.....

Always, I answered without hesitation.

I could see the disgust in her face. Look, I'm sorry, but I really do not have time. I am already juggling school, work, and a heartbreak. I do not have time for this.

I held up my hand and did puppy-dog eyes. Maybe it will change her mind.

I am a business major who chose a science course to complete requirements. If I don't pass that course, I won't play hockey. Hockey is more important to me than this business course. I have to pass; I have always wanted to be on the ice since I was six. I can't let go of that dream just because of a course. Please, baby, help me make my childhood dream come to pass.

First of all, it's Tessie. My name is Tessie. And secondly, I am so sorry that you are about to fail your course, but there is nothing I can do to help. And besides, I don't even know how I got an A. All I did was fill up my booklet with some bullshit answers. It's a miracle that--

Then I need your miracle. Please, master, teach me how to write bullshit and pass Dr Crane course. I was two seconds from dropping to my knees.

She moves to the edge of the door. Sorry, there is nothing I can do for you. Good luck on your make-up test, Mr hockey player.

Then she walks away, five feet of fury in a hoodie, her notebook dripping coffee onto Northgate's pristine marble. I watch her all the way down the hall, around the corner, and out of sight.

Leaving me staring in frustration and confusion, my phone buzzes.

It's the college gossip page, @NUTea, which I follow purely to know who's talking about me. I'm about to swipe it away when I see the caption.

Snack bar girl just got benched by Luke Reed. "Too tiny." RIP SCHOLARSHIP GIRL.

I tap the video.

Thirty-one seconds. A small girl in an oversized hoodie, holding out a cup to a guy in a gray hoodie I'd recognize anywhere. I can hear him say it. You're too tiny for me.

Same girl. Same dark hair. Same coffee-spill glare.

The top comment reads: not Tessie from the snack bar getting rejected like that 😭

T.

Tess. I lower the phone very slowly.

Luke Reed. The quiet, polite, perfect transfer student trying to steal my captaincy just humiliated the one person on this campus who aced Dr. Crane's midterm.

For the first time all day, I smile. "Oh," I say to the empty hallway. "Tiny Tess. We are not done."

Let's get started.