𝑁𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝐸𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒

Chapter 12 |Tutoring Day|

Tuesday came faster than I knew possible. River should be getting here soon. She texted me not too long ago that she was leaving her dorm.

I sit on my bed, trying to finish up this book while waiting for River. I had seen her reading it last week and decided to see what it was about and I may or may not have heard her talking to Nora about it.

I hear a knock on my door making me jump. "Yeah?" I ask while I slowly get up off my bed and look around to where I can hide the book.

"It's me," River says on the other side of the door.

"Give me a second!" I shove the book on top of my other ones on my small shelf. She shouldn't be able to see it because of the shadow that glazed over them.

I walk towards the door and open it. River stands on the other side, she is leaning on the wall with her arms crossed.

She was dressed in cropped white shirt that says '𝖦𝗈𝗋𝗀𝖾𝗈𝗎𝗌 𝖶𝗈𝗆𝖺𝗇' with a pair of loose fitted joggers. Her hair was thrown in a ponytail, she had her bag hanging off her shoulder. Two textbooks are already in her hands.

"Come in," I say as I move out of the way for her to walk in. She takes off her shoes and drops her bag next to them near the door.

I walk over to my desk and grab my math and English textbook before taking a seat in the rolling chair that is there. "Which one do you want to start with?" River asks me as she sits down on my bed with her legs crossed.

"We can start with math," I reply as I start to tell her what I need help with and what I understand.

~~~~~

It's been almost 3 hours since we started. We decided to have a 5 minute break every hour. "Hungry?" I ask River as I get up to go downstairs to the kitchen.

"Not really, but I can take water," She tells me. I nod and tell her I'll be right back before leaving to get some food and her water.

When I enter the kitchen I see Leo and Roman talking in the kitchen. They turn their heads at me when they hear me walk in.

"River here?" Leo is the first to speak.

"Yeah for tutoring." I reply as I open the pantry door to grab a bag of popcorn.

"Is she the one that has you smitten?" Roman ask while smirking.

I roll my eyes at him. Just because I like her a little doesn't mean I'm smitten. Once I find the popcorn I place it onto the counter so I can go to the fridge to grab a cold water for River.

"River prefers cold water, right? Or should I get her room temperature instead?" I ask. I turn around to face Leo with a confused look on my face.

"Cold" Leo answers. He raises his eyebrow at me with a small smile.

"Fucking smitten," Roman says into a fake cough at me. He tries to hide his smile while rubbing his lips with his thumb. Leo chuckles at him.

"I'm not smitten. It was an honest question! Like how would you feel if you liked one type of water and I got you the other type! You wouldn't like that would you?" I say glaring at Roman as I rant.

Leo's smile only gets bigger. Roman mumbles something to Leo that I almost miss. "Not smitten my ass." I roll my eyes at them again before leaving to go back to my room and River.

When I open the door to my room I see River standing near my bookshelf. I forgot all about the book until I saw her turn around with it.

She had a huge ass grin on her face as she stared at me. My heart starts to beat faster than I think a human's heart can beat. My eyes widen as embarrassment heats my neck and cheeks.

"Want to tell me why you have a copy of the same book I was reading last week?" She asks me.

"I-uhm, I saw you reading it last week and well you kept saying how good it was to Nora so I decided to pick it up," I rushed out.

Her smile only gets bigger. As I looked at her I forgot about why my cheeks were red. I didn't care about the embarrassment anymore, I didn't care if she saw a book with a half naked man on my shelf. All I cared about was the smile that lit up her face.

"You are also annotating it?" She asks me. I just nod my head, not trusting myself to speak right now.

"You're cute, when your like this," she states as she puts the book back where it was before.

"Like what?" I question

"Embarrassed,"

"I'm not embarrassed," I try to say but my voice gives me away as it cracks. I only blush harder and River only smiles bigger at me. I see a tiny dimple on one side of her cheek.

"Let's get back to tutoring, I have to leave before it gets too late." She tells me to let me off the hook.
I gave her a questioning look as to why she had to leave early today.

"Girls movie night." She tells me while shrugging her shoulders before taking the cold water out of my hand and going to sit down on my bed.

I nod at her before grabbing my books and joining her on the bed. She's on her stomach while I sit near her closer to my pillows.

~~~~~

It was finally time for River to leave. I watched as she stuffed her textbooks into her bag before going to get her shoes on. I wouldn't lie and say that I didn't care if she left because I cared a fucking lot.

Would I tell her that? Fuck no. I already embarrassed myself enough today. I didn't want to be seen as a clingy....friend? I didn't even know what we were at this point.

We slept together and made out twice. Friends don't do that. But then we hung out and had a lot of things in common. Friends do that.

"I'll see you Thursday?" River asks to draw me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, The guys and I have a game that day so it might be late. If you want you can come so that I can just bring you back here because the guys will most likely go to a party after." I say trying to subtly ask her to come to my game.

"Uh-Yeah I guess I can come to the game." She says kinda unsure about it.

"You don't have to if you don't feel comfortable!" I say hurriedly. I didn't want to make it seem like I was forcing her and I didn't want her to go if she would feel uncomfortable.

"No, I promise it's fine. I'll be there." She tells me with a reassuring smile on her face. A small smile forms on my face before I can stop it.

"See you Thursday then." I told her.

"See ya," She says back as she opens and closes my door leaving.

She would look cute as fuck in my jersey.