Just Consider It

Now that the semi-easy part of getting Niall to be my tutor was over, I just had the hard part left: telling my parents. If my mom and dad found out that their genius daughter was getting tutored by a boyband member, all hell would break loose. Avery, who was happy to finally not be the only dumb Bronwyn, (even though I told her repeatedly that having a tutor in an idiotic subject like psychology did not make me dumb) kept pressuring me to tell them by sending me obnoxious texts like, Just tell them, Hero!!!, Do it for Mason!!!!, and PLEASE?????

It was the third or fourth time I’d gone over to Niall’s to study, and it was the third or fourth time Tyler hadn’t been there. I was irritated because I couldn’t understand what he was talking about and Avery had been texting me little frowny faces for the past three hours. Finally, I wrote back, I’ll call them if you shut your damn mouth and stop bothering me.

Deal.

Sighing, I said, “I need to make a call really quick.” Niall looked up, annoyed, but nodded. I dialed my house number and listened to it ring, praying that nobody would answer.

Unfortunately, I was out of luck. “Hello?” my mother’s crisp, clipped voice filled my ear.

“Hello, Mother.” Niall glanced over at me with renewed interest, but I glared at him so he respectfully turned back to the book. We were going over a homework assignment I hadn’t done so well on.

“Oh, Hero, darling! I was just wondering the other day how you were. How is everything at school?”

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about . . .” I figured there was no point in beating around the bush.

“What? What happened?”

“I . . . kind of have a tutor,” I mumbled.

There was silence. “You’re tutoring someone? It’s only October. Really, Hero, I don’t think this is the best thing for you, you’ll be busy with classes and you know homework has to be your first and top priority, so maybe you could —”

“Mom, that’s not what I meant,” I interrupted. “I meant that somebody is tutoring . . . me.”

Another silence. Then, she demanded, “In what subject? What is this person’s name? How old are they?”

“Psychology. His name is Niall. And he’s nineteen.” Niall was staring straight at me now; I could see him out of the corner of my eye. I stood up and crossed the room, standing over by Tyler’s bed with my back to him.

“Hero, I sincerely hope you are joking right now.”

“I’m not,” I practically whispered. The only two things I was afraid of in life (besides crowds and dogs) were my parents when they were angry.

“Oh, look, here’s your father right now. Steve, Steve, come over here.”

I heard my dad’s voice in the background and I cringed. “What? Who are you speaking to?”

“It’s Hero.”

“Oh, hello Hero,” my dad said affably. “How’s school?”

“That’s precisely it.” I could picture my mother’s eyes flashing in the dangerous way. “Apparently your daughter has acquired herself a tutor.” She said the words like one might say pit of pythons or Niall Horan.

“You what?” Now both of my parents were snarling at me like vicious animals. “Hero Bronwyn, what is the meaning of this? What subject could you possibly need a tutor in?”

“Psychology,” my mom hissed. “And her tutor is some boy named Niall.”

“Hero,” my dad said, and I could hear him gritting his teeth. “This is unacceptable and offensive to our family. If you don’t get your grades up then we will have no choice but to pull you out of that college and bring you home.”

“What? No!” I shouted, right as the door opened and . . . Tyler walked in. Of course. He looked at me, confused and bewildered.

“Is everything —” he started to ask, but Niall shushed him, shaking his head. I smiled weakly and waggled my fingers before pushing past him and going into the hallway. “You can’t pull me out. You can’t.”

“We can do anything we want, young lady,” my mother said. “We are paying a lot of money for you to go to that college in London, and we can just as easily stop paying it.”

“What about Avery? And Mason?” Okay, my sister was an over-affectionate pain in my ass, and Mason smelled half the time, but I was grasping at straws here. I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t leave Tyler or my family. That would be like giving up. And Hero Bronwyn did not give up.

“Avery has her job now, and Mason can start daycare,” my mom dismissed it. “They’ll be fine. You need to worry about yourself, what with all the trouble you’re getting yourself into.”

“Hero,” my dad said in his father-knows-best voice, “you have until Christmas to get rid of this tutor. If you don’t, then we’re pulling you out. Is that clear?”

“But Dad —”

“No buts. This is no one else’s fault but your own, dear, and you need to accept the consequences. Did you really think this would be okay with your mother and me?”

“I know.” I could hear my voice start to crack, so I said, “I need to go. Love you.”

“Get them up,” were my mother’s last parting words as she hung up the phone.

I took a deep breath in, one-two-three, and exhaled it before opening the door and going back into Niall and Tyler’s room. The two of them were sitting there, looking at me cautiously, like I was a ticking time bomb about to explode. I knew that they’d heard my entire conversation.

“Well . . .” Tyler looked awkward. “Sorry, Hero.” His sympathy made me want to cry, but I didn’t. I couldn’t afford to look weak in front of him.

“Thanks,” I managed a smile.

“I just came to grab my gym bag, so I’d better be going. Maybe we could hang out sometime?” Tyler offered.

Was he actually suggesting what I thought he was? I nodded. “I’d like that, yeah.” Okay, so my day had been shitty so far, but perhaps things would start to look up. Tyler grinned at me, nodded to Niall, and left, patting me on the shoulder as he did.

I stood there for a few seconds before the Irish one called, “Horan to Bronwyn, do you read me, over?”

I blinked. “Yeah. I’m here.” I sat down next to him and pulled my book and my homework onto my lap. Even though Tyler’s kindness cheered me up, I could still feel that hot, embarrassing shame that engulfed me from the inside out.

“Hero,” Niall said. His voice was gentle. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

“I need to know if you’re gonna be okay.” Niall put a hand on my shoulder, but I jerked it off.

“I said I’m fine,” I snapped. “Can we please just finish this?”

He sighed. “Fine.” But I noticed that he didn’t start talking again until after I had secretly stopped drying my eyes.

* * *

Tyler Jennings asked me out on Tuesday, October 16th, at 7:32 PM. Not that I was paying attention to the clock or anything like that, I just happened to know.

Niall and I were sitting there, in our usual spot on the floor. I was frustrated because I couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong on our latest homework assignment, which never happened to me before. To Niall’s credit, he was patiently explaining it to me over and over, but I just couldn’t get it. I couldn’t get psychology, period.

Tyler came back from the gym, his faced flushed and sweaty and his t-shirt a little damp. He smelled sort of like sour cream and onion potato chips, but I ignored it. His face alone made up for it.

“Hey, Hero,” he said, flashing me that gorgeous smile. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” I said, witty as ever. “Uh, just studying.”

“Are you getting tired of Nialler yet?” he asked jokingly.

“How could you get tired of this face?” Niall looked up and crossed his eyes. I rolled my eyes at him and turned back to Tyler.

“Well, I’m gonna go hit the shower,” he said, grabbing a towel and a change of clothes. “See you later.”

The first thought that went through my head was I need to see Tyler when he comes back from the shower. I instantly felt disgusted with myself for thinking like that and bit down on my lip.

“Hello?” Niall waved a hand in front of my face. “Do you get it now, Hero?”

“Um, can we go over the whole chapter again, actually?” I asked. It was a stretch, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend my evening studying with Niall, but drastic times called for drastic measures.

He sighed. “The whole chapter, really?”

“Just because you’re some kind of genius doesn’t mean the rest of us are,” I snapped.

“Don’t say that. You’re smarter than me and you know it.”

I did know it, actually, but I wasn’t going to go into that. “Can we just go over it?”

“Okay, okay.” Niall flipped back the book pages and said, “Which part do you not get?”

“Um . . . all of it.”

“You just want to see Tyler in nothing but a towel, don’t you?” He raised his eyebrows at me.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Fine, maybe a little.”

Niall sniggered. “Wow, I never expected you to think like that, Hero. I was so sure your brain was full of nothing but math equations.”

“Shut up, Shamrock Boy.”

“I’m going to ignore that last comment and agree to pretend to study with you so you can try and get a sneak peek at my roommate’s junk, okay? But,” Niall lowered his voice, “just so you know, mine’s better.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tyler hasn’t got a lot of packaging down in the . . . lower region.”

“You’re fucking sick,” I hissed as he started to laugh. “You think you’re so damn funny, don’t you?”

“I know I’m funny.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really.”

I couldn’t really counter that, so I just glared at him, slammed my book, stood up, and sat down in his desk chair, trying to get as far away from him as possible so the smell of him wouldn’t rub off on me.

“Excuse me, but that’s my chair,” Niall said cheerfully.

“Well, it’s mine now.”

“Is your name on it?”

I looked around his desk, picked up a black Sharpie, and wrote HERO on the arm of it. “There. It is now.” I smirked.

Niall came over to me, took the Sharpie, and wrote NIALL on the other arm. “There, now we share it, since I bought it myself. But just because my mother taught me to be nice, which is more than I can say for yours, I’ll let you sit in it.” He patted my head and smiled like he was doing me some big favor.

“Whatever.”

Thankfully, the door opened and Tyler came in wearing only a towel, his chest and hair still damp. “Oh,” he said, surprised. “Hero, you’re still here?”

“Yep,” I smiled as attractively as I could. Feel free to change in front of me if you want.

He looked from me to Niall before shrugging and dropping the towel. Before I could react, Niall dove forward and put a hand over my eyes. “I don’t want you to get emotionally scarred,” he explained. “Plus, there’s really nothing to see, anyways.”

“Niall, stop! I’m eighteen, I don’t need you supervising what I can and can’t see.” I struggled to pry his fingers off my face, but he refused to budge. What a little bastard.

“It’s for your own good, Hero! I swear . . . okay, he’s done.” Niall removed his hand and I socked him in the stomach, just for good measure, and he gasped. “You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t say thank you.”

Tyler laughed, and I turned and looked at him, having forgotten he was there. He was wearing jeans and a blue shirt now, but his dark hair was still tousled and damp. “You’re one cool chick, Miss Hero Bronwyn,” he complimented me.

“Thanks,” I tried to be modest.

“Would you maybe want to grab a cup of coffee Friday afternoon?” he asked, so nonchalantly you would’ve thought we were discussing the weather.

I almost fell out of my seat. Niall, who was lying in the fetal position on his bed, rubbing his stomach, looked up. What do I say? Yes? No? Maybe? Play hard to get? Make up an excuse? Thank him? Say I have to check my schedule? If only I had a portable Maggie to carry with me. I’d have all the answers. On the downside, she’d never shut up.

So since I was on my own, I settled with, “Uh . . . yeah, sure, that sounds fun.”

“Cool. We can meet up around, say, five-thirty?”

“Five-thirty. Yup, that sounds like a plan,” I nodded and flashed the thumbs up.

“Cool.” Tyler grinned at me before patting his pockets. “Shit. I forgot my cell phone at the showers. Well, when I get back, maybe you could give me your number?”

“Okay,” I agreed, watching him leave.

“You never offered me your number,” Niall said, sounding wounded.

“That’s because a) I don’t like you, and b) please refer to a.” The chances of Niall getting my number were about as slim as the chances of Avery becoming the next Albert Einstein.

“Seriously Hero, you’re really gonna go out with him?”

“Yes, I am. And you’re my tutor, not my love guru, so it’s really not up to you whether I go out with him or not.”

“I’m just saying . . . he’s got a bit of a reputation.” Niall looked at me seriously. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, all right?” His cheeks turned a little red.

I rolled my eyes. “I think I can manage.” Tyler came back with his phone at that moment, and as he programmed my number into it, I thought with satisfaction, Oh, yeah. I can manage just fine.