Just Consider It

It took a lot of wheedling and whining, but in the end Maggie managed to convince me to talk to Niall about the whole tutoring thing. Basically, she said, “Listen, Hero, you need to suck it up and put your pride on hold, because if you don’t do this he’ll just keep beating you and pretty soon you’ll have no pride left to put on hold, you hear?”

I loved Maggie, but sometimes I just wanted to grab her by her pretty little neck and strangle the life out of her. Especially when she was right. “Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll go tomorrow.”

Unfortunately, Avery decided to call me up that night and ask me to watch Mason again, because she had a meeting to go to at work (she did end up getting the job by some miracle). Ever since she’d been hired it was like I automatically assumed the spot of Mason’s nanny, which I most definitely wasn’t. I liked my nephew just fine, but I didn’t want to be carting around a baby everywhere I went.

“Maybe I should just go the next day,” I said to Maggie after I hung up with my sister.

“Oh, no,” she scolded. “You’re going tomorrow. I’ll even go with you and take Mason off your hands while you talk to Niall, if you want.”

“Why can’t you just stay here with him?”

“Because I want to meet Niall,” Maggie’s cheeks turned a little red. “But you’re going, Hero Bronwyn, even if it kills you.”

That was the problem: it just might kill me. I never liked asking for help for anything. In middle school, if we ever got the choice to work with a partner or alone, I always chose to work alone. If I was assigned a partner? Great. Go get me these books, I’ll do the research and the project and write your name on the paper. Just stay out of my way. Usually, my partner was more than happy to obey.

Even when I was stuck on a question on my schoolwork, I refused to raise my hand, instead preferring to work it out myself, sometimes spending almost half an hour on a single problem.

Call it the “love of learning” if you want.

So, the next morning, I found myself making the dreaded walk across campus with Mason in my arms and Maggie trailing behind as we headed towards Niall’s dorm.

“I don’t want to do this,” I told her.

“I know. But you’re going to.”

“But Margaret —”

“Call me Margaret one more time and you’ll find your throat being ripped out.”

I smirked. Sometimes, pushing Maggie’s buttons was all I needed to put me in a better mood. The good vibes vanished, however, when we approached Niall’s door. I took a deep breath, one-two-three, exhaled, and, cringing a little, knocked on the door.

A few seconds passed and, just as I was about to knock again, Niall opened the door. He was shirtless, wearing only plaid boxers, and his hair was sticking up like he’d just been sleeping. He blinked at me for a second before his eyes widened.

“Oh . . . hi, Hero.”

“Hi,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. It must’ve been quite a sight: the girl who hates you standing at your door with a squirming baby in her arms and another girl hovering behind her. Wait a second. Why was I embarrassed? Screw Niall. I didn’t care what he thought.

“What’s er, going on?”

“I need to talk to you.” I pulled out the manila envelope and showed it to him. He looked at it for a second before nodding.

“Okay. Well, you wanna come in?”

“Um, sure.” I turned and passed Mason to Maggie. “Thanks, Maggie.”

“No problem,” Maggie pushed forward and offered her hand to Niall. “Hi, I’m Maggie Halper, Hero’s roommate.” She smiled sweetly. Maggie had always been a huge One Direction fan. I was surprised she wasn’t pooping her pants right then and there.

“Hi,” Niall shook her hand politely. “Nice to meet you.” He turned to me. “You coming?”

“Yup.” I shot her a look before following Niall in his room and closing the door.

“Bloody hell, you’re roommate’s a mature lass,” was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

I couldn’t help myself: I snorted a little. “I know.” Maggie was always complaining about why boys were always calling her hot, but we all knew she was just pretending to be ignorant to the fact that she couldn’t look down at the ground without her chin resting on her boobs.

Niall’s dorm was double: two beds, two chest of drawers, two desks, and two nightstands. On one side, clothes were strewn everywhere and someone had tacked up a shamrock and the Irish flag on the wall. The other side was perfectly neat; it was almost a little creepy. Niall led me over to the messy side and pulled out the chair at his desk, offering it to me. I sat down and looked around. There were some schoolbooks, pencils, pens, highlighters, and erasers. The bulletin board that hung above his desk was covered with pictures: a few of Niall with some other boys I didn’t recognize, probably his friends; others of Niall and his mom and brother.

“That’s a lot of pictures,” I noted.

He followed my gaze. “Oh, yeah. That’s my Picture Wall of Fame. You’d be lucky to get your picture up on there.”

“I see.”

“So,” He stretched out on his bed, folding his arms behind his head and raising his eyebrows at me. “What can I do for you?”

I wished he would put a shirt on. God. With great difficulty, I said, “I need you to tutor me.” I handed him the manila envelope that Professor Keen had given me.

He opened the envelope and pulled out a few papers, scanning them quickly. A grin spread across his face after a few seconds. “I’m a people person, huh?”

“According to Professor Keen.”

“Do you think I’m a people person?” Niall asked, still grinning.

“No,” I said curtly. “I don’t. I don’t like you, and believe me, you’re the last person I’d want to be tutored by. But I need to ace that class, and you’re the only one smarter than me in it besides the teacher. So will you do it?”

Niall surveyed me, all the humor gone from his eyes. Good, now he knew that I wasn’t bullshitting around. I wasn’t asking him to tutor me so we could “become friends.” I wanted an A in that damn class, and I was going to get it.

“I’ll pay you,” I continued, but he interrupted me.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t have to pay me,” he said seriously. “I don’t want your money, Hero. You can just come over here two, maybe three nights a week and I’ll help you study. But you’re not paying me.”

I squinted at him. He stared back, unblinking. Hm. This seemed like a fair deal. “All right,” I agreed finally. “When should we start?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Fine.” We glared at each other for a minute before there was a knock on the door.

“Nialler, you in there?” a deep voice called.

“Yeah, it’s open,” Niall said back, running a hand through his brown-blond hair. “My roommate,” he told me. I was tempted to say, Did I ask? but held my tongue.

The door opened and a boy walked in and I nearly died and went to heaven. Niall’s roommate was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt that clung nicely to all the muscles in his arms and chest, and sneakers. He had long black hair and sea-green eyes and pearly white teeth that shone against his tan skin. He was possibly the most beautiful boy I had ever seen.

The boy stopped short when he saw me sitting in there. I did my best to wipe up my drool and straighten up, trying to look presentable. “Hey,” the boy nodded at me. “How’s it going?”

“Hi,” I managed to squeak out. Real smooth, Hero.

“Hero, this is my roommate, Tyler,” Niall explained, sounding a little distracted. “Tyler, this is Hero Bronwyn. I’m tutoring her.”

I slowly turned and shot him the death look. Great, now Tyler probably thought I was some sort of ditzy blonde whose greatest achievement in high school was finding all her classrooms without fault. I silently cursed both stupid Niall and the fact that I was blonde and not a pretty brunette like Maggie.

“What subject?” Tyler asked.

“Psychology,” I beat Niall to the answer, offering my best smile.

“Cool.” He grinned back before moving forward and holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Hero. I guess I’ll be seeing you more often now that you’ll be coming over here, right?”

“Yeah,” I shook his hand as his words dawned on me. As long as I timed it correctly, hopefully Tyler would be there when I went to study with Niall. Yes! Maybe being tutored wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

“C’mon, Niall, mate, put a shirt on,” Tyler complained. I jumped. I had forgotten the leprechaun was still in the room.

Niall rolled his eyes put picked up a blue t-shirt off the floor and pulled it over his head. “Happy?”

“You’re disgusting,” Tyler shook his head. Finally, someone else who saw it, too! Poor Tyler. It must’ve been horrible having to room with someone like Niall Horan.

“I should get going,” I announced, standing up.

“Bye,” Tyler called over his shoulder as he flopped down on his perfectly made bed. I tried not to melt in a little brainy puddle all over the floor as I slowly made my way across the room.

Niall held open the door for me. “See you tomorrow, Hero. Stop by whenever you want.”

“Yup,” I said without enthusiasm as I started down the hall, wanting to get out of that dorm as fast as I could.

* * *

Thank God the next day was Saturday. I had a couple hours to figure out what I would do when I went over to Niall’s.

“What if Tyler’s there?” I asked Maggie. Ever since I moved to London, no boys had really caught my eye, so I was a bit out of touch. “What do I do? What do I say? What do I wear?”

My roommate was sitting at her vanity, testing out various shades of lip glosses she’d bought at Sephora the day before. Maggie’s vanity was covered in makeup, hairspray, brushes, and nail polish. There were lights around the mirrors and a pink boa was draped around it. Mine, on the other hand, had a few pictures of me and her, me and Avery, and me and some of my friends back home; some books; my medium sized makeup case; some nail polish bottles (all in various shades of blue and green), and my hair brush.

“First of all,” said Maggie, turning around and facing me, “is that what you’re going to wear?”

“What?” I looked down at myself. I had on jeans and a black t-shirt that used to belong to Avery. It said The Clash: London Calling on the front in old white lettering. Apparently they were some British band from “back in the day” that Avery loved. My hair was up in a messy bun and I had on no makeup.

Maggie sighed. “Honestly, Hero, you look like a dyke.”

“Aw, thanks. I was totally going for that type of image.”

She rolled her eyes before standing up and going over to my closet, rummaging through it until she found a blue MTV sweatshirt. “Take off that shirt.”

I obeyed, pulling it over my head and standing there shivering in my bra. Maggie tossed a tank top at me and then the sweatshirt. “Put these on.”

The second I pulled the hoodie on, Maggie dove at me and sat me down in her vanity chair, studying me in the mirror. She tugged at the elastic until my bun fell out, cascading around my shoulders, before grabbing her brush and yanking it through my hair, causing me to yelp in pain.

“You’re brushing my hair, not pulling weeds!”

“It’s close enough,” she muttered, combing out the snarls and tangles in it until it was finally smooth. Then, Maggie divided my hair into three parts and slowly began to braid it, leaving out my bangs.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked.

“Hush.” She finally finished, leaving me with a cute side braid. She sprayed it a bit with hairspray so it wouldn’t come loose and then brushed out my bangs. Then, she opened a tube of mascara and began to put it on my eyelashes, her hand fixed hard on my shoulder as I squirmed. Next, she lined my eyelids with some midnight black eyeliner and forced some pink lip gloss on me. “Done.”

I opened my eyes and blinked at myself. I had to admit, even though makeup wasn’t my style of expertise, I actually liked the way I looked.

“Here,” Maggie tossed a pair of her UGG boots at me; they were the same color as my sweatshirt. “Wear these. It’s chilly out.”

Slipping them on, I grabbed my bag and did a full-body twirl. “Thanks, Mags. How do I look?”

“You’ll do,” she sighed. “Now go. Tell me all about it when you get home?”

“Yep.” I waved to her before leaving my room and walking out the dorm building. Occasionally, I would pass some girls in the hallway who would stare at me, whispering, “Is that Hero Bronwyn?” Yes, bitches, it was!

I skipped across the campus despite myself, entering Niall and Tyler’s dorm and feeling pleased when a few boys’ eyes widened as I walked by. I had the brains, I finally had the looks, now all I had to do was get the boy. (The boy being Tyler, not Niall.)

I knocked on their door and bounced on my toes impatiently, waiting for someone to answer. A few seconds later, it opened and I came face-to-face with Niall. His blue eyes widened a little. “Uh . . . hi.”

“I’m here,” I announced, which was pretty stupid considering I was standing right in front of him.

“I see that,” he said, smirking, standing aside to let me in. “Come on in.” I walked past him and looked around, hoping to see Tyler, but unfortunately he was nowhere to be found. Hopefully he would show up soon; I didn’t want Niall thinking I dressed up like that for him.

“You look nice,” he noted. “What’s the occasion?”

“Are you saying I usually look ugly?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“No.”

“Well, it sounded like it.”

“Okay, let me rephrase it: you look nicer than usual.”

“That still implies that I’m ugly everywhere else.”

He sighed. “Hero, you haven’t even been here a full minute and you’re already trying to fight with me.”

“It’s not my fault you chose to word it like that. And besides, what did you expect?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe we could finally become friends?”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Apparently he still didn’t get it. “Look,” I said, putting down my bag. “I don’t want to be here at all. If I had it my way, I wouldn’t have to come in contact with you, period. But Professor Keen wants you to tutor me, and since this isn’t my strongest subject, I agreed. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to be besties, nor does it mean I’m going to dislike you any less. You want the truth? I hate you with every fiber in my being.” Harsh, maybe, but he needed to be set straight.

Niall stared at me for a second before he said, “Fine.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look,” he mimicked me, and I resisted the urge to rip his hair out, “I was hoping that we could put aside our differences and become friends. But obviously I don’t know you that well, Hero.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know . . . you’re the cold, bitchy type.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but then thought better of it. “Fine, fine, I’m a cold, cruel bitch who’s gonna die alone. Can we just study now?”

He smirked. “So I’m right again?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He rolled his eyes but sat down on the floor, his back against the bed. I hesitated before sliding down next to him, making sure our shoulders and legs didn’t touch. We opened our books to the chapter the class was on and Niall started explaining it to me. I half-listened, mostly preferring to look around the room at Tyler’s things. Where was he? Did he have a girlfriend?

“Are you following me so far?” he asked, snapping me back into reality. This was strange. I never zoned out during studying before. Then again, I usually studied by myself.

“I have one question.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Is your roommate around?”

Niall raised his eyebrows at me. “He’s at the gym right now. Why, you like him?”

“No,” I snapped. “I was just wondering. And anyway, it’s none of your business if I like him or not.”

“Wow, Hero Bronwyn is capable of loving? That’s news to me,” Niall said in mock surprise. “Someone pinch me.”

“I would, but I don’t want to get your Irish all over me.”

“You haven’t got any Irish in you?”

“No.”

“Hm. You think maybe we could change that?”

I gaped at him. What kind of disgusting, dirty-minded jerk said something like that to a girl? Poor Tyler. “You’re sick,” I sputtered finally.

“And smarter than you,” he reminded me in sing-song. “Feel free to ask out Tyler, however. It’s all on you.”

“Maybe I will,” I snipped. “What goes on in my personal life is not up to you, if I recall correctly. I also recall coming here to get tutored, not to discuss the twisted fantasy of you putting your shamrock in me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that, babe,” Niall told me, flashing me his signature grin. “Now, where were we?”

Why, oh why did this boy have to be smarter than me?