Tutor Girl

On Saturday morning, Lux woke up to voices in her house. Being it was just her father and her living in the house alone, it was quite uncommon to hear another voice besides theirs in it – especially at such an early hour. At first she thought maybe her father was just watching TV, but the voices were much too in-person to be television dialog.

Confusion turned quickly in to curiosity. Pulling her long brown hair up into a messy bun atop her head, Lux walked out of her bedroom to see who the mystery guest was who her father was so animatedly talking to at nine o’clock in the morning.

The smell of breakfast food was wafting all around the house and Lux could hear her dad going on about how he always wanted to go backpacking in Europe in his younger days and how he almost convince her mother to go with him after they finished college, but it never panned out.

Lux wondered who he would be talking to about such a thing, just before she turned the corner into the kitchen to find her dad flailing around a spatula as he spoke to Louis, who was sitting at the center island counter contently listening to his crazy stories.

Oh, god.

“What…” Lux gasped out in confusion, shell-shocked in place.

What on earth was Louis doing at her house at nine o’clock in the morning? And why was her father cooking him breakfast?

“Luxy! Hey! Look who stopped by,” her dad said, smiling as Louis turned to see her. A smile spread across his face immediately as their eyes met.

“I can see that,” Lux said, watching as Louis’ eyes dipped down her long lean frame, giving her the full body once over.

The night before, she was rather warm while going to bed, so she opted for a pair of shorts and a camisole. So there she was showing more skin than Louis or anyone for that matter had ever seen, stuck in an awkward stance bright and early in the morning. Suddenly she felt more naked than ever.

“What are you doing here, Louis?” Lux croaked out, crossing her arms over her chest, more so to try covering as much of herself as she could in the moment.

“I, uh… I finished my essay… for English. Uh… I was wondering if you would… check it out— uh, look over it for me,” Louis stammered rather awkwardly, looking as though he was really trying to be respectful by keeping his eyes glued to hers rather than looking elsewhere… again.

“So you decided to come over at nine o’clock in the morning?” Lux asked, feeling the all-too-familiar feeling of being shanghaied in Louis’ presence.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, giving her a look of apology.

“Luxy, stop being rude,” her dad scolded, pointing his spatula at her.

“I wasn’t,” Lux said, still staring at Louis.

“I told Louis he could stay for breakfast,” her dad told her.

Lux finally looked up at her father whose smile was beaming ear-to-ear at her as he bounced his eyebrows in a suggestive manner, before jerking his head toward Louis few times, trying to get her – without words – to ‘give him a chance’. Louis was none the wiser of her father’s actions because he was still staring at her, but it took all she had not to widen her eyes at her father out of sheer embarrassment.

“Uh… okay. I’m gonna… I’m gonna go get dressed,” Lux said before immediately exiting the kitchen, wishing it wouldn’t be awkward to cover up her butt with her hands to keep Louis from seeing her in the shorty shorts she was wearing.

Lux dashed to her room and shut the door as a slight panic attack washed over her. Fucking shit. Did he really just see her half naked? It wasn’t about her appearance – she couldn’t care less about that. If someone couldn’t appreciate her in all her glory, then they weren’t worth her time. It was the shear fact that he saw her half-naked which threw her for a loop. Her body was a private thing. Nobody saw her naked since she was in diapers. And she certainly didn’t go around flaunting her shit like a lot of girls. She kind of felt violated that Louis saw her that way and it didn’t sit right with her.

Lux tried her best to shrug it off as she dressed in jeans and an old high school choir t-shirt from freshman year. She kept her hair up in a ponytail, though she combed a brush through it before throwing it back up. She didn’t bother with make up after she washed her face and brushed her teeth. Au natural. It was a thing of beauty.

When she came back out to the kitchen, Louis and her father were just sitting down at the table for breakfast. She sat down in the place which was set for her across from Louis, and couldn’t help but try to sneak a glance up at him. When their eyes connected immediately she felt awkward, but then Louis smiled at her and it seemed to set her right, causing a riotous amount of butterflies to take flight in her stomach.

“Thanks for breakfast, Mr. Carver,” Louis said, smiling politely over at Lux’s dad.

“Call me Chuck,” her dad told him, smiling back at Louis.

“Chuck,” Louis repeated, nodding his head.

Lux looked between her father and Louis a few times trying to decipher the relationship the two of them somehow seemed to automatically form. It baffled her, really. The only explanation was her father was utterly determined to somehow get Louis to want to date her – which seriously, was not going to happen no matter how hard he tried. And she didn’t think even if he did, that she would want that.

And with Louis, she figured it was just his natural instinct of treating adults with respect that shone through in his efforts. Not to say they didn’t bond at least a little over their mutual love of sports, but it was just a guy thing, she figured.

Louis sent Lux a few smirks across the table throughout breakfast, but Lux had no emotion to send back to him but bare-faced confusion. The situation she was in was so foreign to her, that she just didn’t even know how to handle it. What was Louis to her? She couldn’t explain it.

After breakfast, Lux offered to clean up, since her dad went out of his way to make breakfast for them, but he insisted she get a jumpstart on looking over Louis’ essay.

Louis and Lux went to the living room – which was quite a contrast to where they usually worked on schoolwork. She flopped down on the couch and Louis took the cue to do the same, sitting rather close to her, which made her face redden almost instantly.

“So…” Lux said impatiently, feeling more awkward than she probably should have.

“Oh! Here,” he said, pulling out his essay from his backpack. He handed it to Lux and she immediately began reading.

Louis watched her contently as she read over the English assignment and it only worsened her comfort level. He had a thing for staring, she figured.

“It’s good,” she said finally as her gaze tentatively met his.

“That’s it?” He asked, quirking his eyebrow at her in question.

“Well, there are a few grammatical errors, but overall it was good,” Lux told him with a light shrug.

“It’s good?” He questioned as a smile formed on him face.

“Yeah. It is,” Lux said, giving it to him straight. He let out a little sigh, letting himself relax a little before he looked back over at her.

“You’re not just saying that?” He asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

“What kind of tutor would I be if I lied to you about something like this?” Lux asked with a smirk on her lips.

“You’re my math tutor. There’s a right and a wrong answer in math. In English, there’s a whole bunch of gray area,” Louis told her.

“I’m not lying,” Lux told him firmly, trying to stifle her smile so he knew she was serious.

“Could you… could you help me with the grammar stuff?” He asked.

“A lot of it is punctuation. Having the right kind of punctuation is key when writing. It can make a big difference sometimes – well, most of the time,” Lux told him and he nodded, taking in her words.

“The spelling is good,” she told him as her eyes skimmed over the document again.

“I used spellcheck,” Louis said sheepishly.

“That’s okay. That’s what it’s there for,” she told him with a sideways smile.

“Hey, uh. I’ve got to run out for a bit. I’ve got to meet up with a client. Will you two be okay here?” Her dad informed them as he peeked into the living room.

“We’ll be okay,” Lux nodded, feeling a little squeamish that they would be left alone. But she was also excited too, because there was a chance that maybe Louis would kiss her again.

“Good. I’ll see you in a little while,” Chuck said with a smile.

“See ya, Mister— uh, Chuck,” Louis said, correcting his slip-up.

“Good man!” Dad said enthusiastically, smiling at him, which made Louis chuckle.

“Bye, Daddy,” Lux said, rolling her eyes at the two of them.

“See ya!” He said with a wave and was out the door moments later.

Poor naïve, father. If he only knew the kinds of things that happened there when he wasn’t around. Well, not to say it would happen again. Lux wasn’t so conceited to automatically think things with Louis were going continue. But she was certain she wouldn’t be pushing him away if they did.

“I really like your dad. You’re lucky,” Louis said to her.

“He’s a good guy,” she agreed, nodding her head.

“I’m jealous,” Louis said, catching her off guard.

“I’m sure your dad is a good guy,” Lux said quietly.

“He is. But, uh… he’s actually not even my real father,” Louis said sheepishly.

Lux didn’t know how to respond. She just stared back at him, trying to gauge whether or not she should say anything.

“He’s not?” Lux finally said after a beat too long.

“Nah. He’s my sister’s dad – all of my sisters, but not mine. That’s why I’m so much older than all of them. My mum was married before,” he confessed, and all Lux could do was listen and try not to gape at him as he explained.

“Wow,” she breathed.

“I don’t know my real dad. He left when I was really young,” he continued, and she couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge of pain in her heart.

She imagined a young Louis standing at his front door, possibly still in England just waiting for his daddy to come home, and it sent her down a spiral of sadness.

“My mum re-married Mark not long after and had my sister’s. But he never treated me like I was his – because I wasn’t. And it was more apparent as my sister’s grew up. I just wasn’t his. And as I got older I could feel my mum distance herself from me as well. It was always Lottie, and Fizzy, and the twins taking up her time. I don’t know. Maybe it was because I was a boy. Maybe she thought I didn’t need her like my sister’s did, but everyone needs their mum—” He said, just as his eyes widened, and he realized what his last words would mean to her – she didn’t have a mom.

“I’m sorry,” Louis breathed quietly.

“It’s okay,” she told him, waving it off.

“I just – I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laying this all on you,” he said, acting bashfully.

“Really, it’s okay,” Lux told him, hoping he would continue talking. It really seemed like it was therapeutic for him.

Lux had an inkling that his home life left a lot to be desired, but she was never good at giving advice or being a shoulder that someone could cry on. That just wasn’t her. But for some reason, it didn’t feel so difficult for her to be someone there for him to talk to.

“Nah, I just… I just came over here for… for the essay,” he said, smiling uncomfortably, nodding toward the papers that were still in her hand.

“Oh, uh… let me grab a pen and I’ll show you the correct punctuations,” Lux said, getting up from the couch.

“I’ve got one,” Louis said and she stopped in her tracks.

He pulled out a pen from his backpack and handed it to her and she resituated herself back on the couch. Louis quickly scooted over even closer to her so he could see the corrections she was making.

“I never understood the whole semi-colon garbage,” Louis commented randomly.

“Do you want me to give you a lesson on semi-colons?” Lux asked, looking over at him.

“No,” he said flat out and it made her chuckle. Then soon they were both laughing, and it made her relax a lot with him.

Lux finished correcting his essay, giving him little grammatical pointers as they went and by the end, he had a properly worded, properly punctuated essay. Mrs. Mackey should be impressed.

“Thank you, Lux. Really,” Louis said as he replaced the essay back into his bag.

“You’re welcome,” Lux told him.

“You know I appreciate it, right? That I appreciate you taking your time out to study with me and to… well, teach me. I learn more from you then I do at school,” Louis chuckled nervously. Lux nodded, feeling the weight of his words.

She could tell he really did appreciate it. She could see it in his eyes. But she appreciated what he was doing for her too. He wasn’t the only one learning. She was learning from him as well. But it wasn’t schoolwork she was learning. She was learning how to be a normal teenager – how to have normal teenage problems and normal teenage feelings. It was the first time in her life where she didn’t feel like an outcast. She wasn’t the girl with the gay best friend, or the weird girl with no mother. She was Lux, a normal teenage girl. And Louis was the one to make her feel that way.

“Louis…” Lux breathed, her voice quivering with nervousness

“Yeah,” he said, looking into her eyes.

“I-I… I like it when you kiss me,” she told him truthfully.

His eyes stared back into hers contently as a wide smile turned up his lips.

“I like kissing you,” he told her, making the butterflies in her stomach come back with a vengeance.

And right before he moved in to show her how much he liked it, her breathing hitched and she couldn’t help the whimper that escaped her throat as his lips met hers. It was nearly perfect.

Notes