Ethan dropped into his seat and shoved his bag into the desk hole in one move.
Mia was already there, flipping through her notes, and she glanced over the second he sat down. "You've got like thirty seconds before Henderson comes back around and you almost walked into him in the hallway."
"I know, I saw him." Ethan pulled out his English textbook and yawned so hard his jaw cracked. "Don't say it."
"You look rough."
"Thank you."
"Like actually rough. Dark circles and everything." She tapped the desk twice with her pen — that thing she did when she was making a point she considered settled. "You need to fix your sleep schedule before finals. I'm being serious right now."
"I know."
"You literally cannot test well on four hours."
"It was more than four."
"How much more."
"...Some more."
She pointed her pen at him, decided this wasn't a battle worth fighting, and went back to her notes.
Up at the front, the morning reading rep had already pulled up the projector — some AP Lit passage — and the whole class settled into that low collective sound of everyone reading at slightly different speeds. Ethan mouthed along with it and thought about his lunch break instead.
He had stuff to pick up. Index cards, a couple of folders, a new notebook. If the tutoring operation was actually launching this week he needed to look like he knew what he was doing, which mostly meant having organized materials and not showing up with loose paper.
Morning reading wrapped up.
Ethan stretched, stood up, and Jake materialized instantly at his elbow. "Bathroom. Let's go."
They were literally one step out the classroom door when they almost walked into Mr. Henderson coming the other way down the corridor, thermos in hand, moving at the comfortable pace of a man who owned the hallway.
Henderson looked at both of them.
"Ethan. Jake. My office, please."
He didn't stop walking.
The classroom behind them went very quiet for about two seconds and then immediately erupted in whispers.
Ethan and Jake looked at each other.
"What did we do," Jake said, very quietly.
"I genuinely don't know."
"Was it the early arrival thing? Did that somehow backfire—"
"Just walk," Ethan said.
Ashley caught Ethan's eye from the front row as he turned around to grab his stuff. She made a face that very clearly said good luck with that and went back to her book.
Mia watched him go with a slightly worried expression, her fingers hovering over the page without turning it.
They followed Henderson down the corridor to his office — a small room at the end of the faculty wing that smelled like old coffee and dry-erase markers and had approximately forty-seven years of student photos tacked to the corkboard.
Henderson sat down behind the desk, opened his drawer, and produced two granola bars and two bottles of water, which he set on the desk in front of them.
"Sit down, eat something, and listen."
They sat.
Henderson leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers together, and looked at Ethan first.
"Your mock scores came back fully processed this morning. I want you to know that your improvement has been the main topic in the faculty meeting today." He paused. "The math and science department heads specifically asked me to pass that along. Your scores in those two sections are at the top of the entire senior class."
Ethan took a drink of water. "That's good to hear."
"It's more than good." Henderson studied him. "Your English comp is the one area with room to grow. Mrs. Patterson flagged it specifically — the ideas are there, the structure needs tightening. Work on that and your actual exam score could be genuinely remarkable."
"I'll focus on it," Ethan said. "I want to bring something back for Jefferson."
Henderson raised an eyebrow.
"Top score in the state," Ethan said simply. "Why not aim for it."
Henderson was quiet for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth moved — that almost-smile. "Then I'll make you a deal. You pull that off, dinner's on me. Anywhere you want. No ceiling."
"I'll hold you to that."
"I know you will." Henderson turned to Jake. "Jake. You have the ability to hit a solid score on this exam. I've watched you for three years and I know what you're capable of. You're in the right place right now — don't waste the next three weeks." He pointed at Ethan. "You've got the best possible resource sitting next to you in every class. Use it."
Jake nodded, surprisingly serious. "Yeah. I'm on it."
"Good." Henderson waved a hand at the door. "Go back to class. And Jake — tuck your shirt in."
Jake looked down. His shirt was completely tucked in.
Henderson had already turned back to his papers.
They got into the hallway and Jake exhaled like he'd been holding it since the corridor.
"I thought we were cooked," he said.
"Same."
"When he said office I genuinely thought about what excuse I was going to give my mom."
"What excuse were you going to give?"
"I had nothing. I was going to cry and hope for the best."
Ethan laughed — actually laughed, the kind that came out before you could stop it. Jake grinned.
They slipped back into the classroom just as first period was starting. Ashley glanced up. Ethan gave a small shrug that meant all good. She looked mildly relieved, which was interesting, and went back to her notes.
Mia leaned over. "Well?"
"He gave us granola bars and told us to study harder."
She stared at him. "That's it?"
"That's it."
"I was literally worried for ten minutes."
"Sorry."
She sat back. "Unbelievable."
Morning classes moved at the standard pre-finals pace — dense, a little relentless, the kind of day where every teacher seemed to have silently agreed to cover as much ground as possible before the clock ran out.
When the bell rang for lunch Ethan was already packing up. He turned to Mia and Sophie. "You two eating on campus?"
Sophie was stacking her notes into a folder with surgical precision. "We were going to figure it out."
"There's a place called Dragon Wok two blocks from the front gate. Good food, cheap, fast."
Mia looked at Sophie. Sophie looked at Mia.
"We're in," Mia said.
The four of them — Ethan, Jake, Mia, Sophie — walked out through the front gate and down the block, through the little stretch of restaurants and food trucks that set up near Jefferson every lunch hour. The smell of about six different things hit them at once — burgers, Thai, something with garlic that was working hard.
Dragon Wok was a small Chinese-American place with eight tables, a hand-written specials board, and a rotating fan in the corner doing its best. The kind of spot that had been there forever and would probably be there forever because the food was genuinely good and the prices had apparently not changed since 2008.
"Four," Ethan told the woman at the counter, who pointed them at the window table without looking up.
He slid the menus across to Mia and Sophie. "You guys pick."
Sophie was already reading the menu like she was going to be tested on it. Mia was leaning over to look at the same one.
They went back and forth for about two minutes and landed on: beef and broccoli, garlic chicken, fried rice, and a soup.
"Good choices," Ethan said.
"I know," Sophie said.
The food came out fast. Ethan and Jake went at it immediately and without ceremony, the way you eat when you're actually hungry. Mia and Sophie ate at a more civilized pace and pretended not to notice.
Fifteen minutes in, Ethan pushed back slightly from the table and said, "You guys head back when you're ready — Jake and I have to make a stop."
Jake looked up with rice on his chin. "We do?"
"Yeah."
"What stop."
"I'll explain on the way."
Mia looked at him. "What are you up to."
"Nothing shady."
"That's exactly what someone doing something shady would say."
"Fair. It's not shady though." He stood up and dropped cash on the table for all four of them before anyone could move. "Come on."
Sophie opened her mouth.
"Don't," Ethan said.
She closed it. "You're doing that thing again."
"What thing."
"The thing where you pay before anyone can argue."
"It's efficient."
"It's annoying," she said, but she was already gathering her stuff, which meant she didn't actually mind.
Sophie and Mia headed back toward school. Ethan and Jake went the other way.
They'd been walking for about thirty seconds when Jake said, "Okay so where are we actually going."
"Office supply place on Kenmore."
"...Why."
"I need notebooks and index cards and a couple of folders."
Jake stared at him. "You dragged me away from lunch for stationery."
"You finished your lunch."
"That's not the point—"
"I need the stuff for the tutoring sessions," Ethan said. "I'm starting this week. Three confirmed already."
Jake processed this. "Three people are paying you thirty-five dollars a session."
"Each."
"Each." Jake did the math while walking. His eyebrows went up. "That's like — that's real money."
"That's the idea."
"Dude." Jake shook his head slowly. "You just decided to do this like two days ago."
"The exam is three weeks out and everyone's panicking. The timing was always going to be right, I just had to move fast." Ethan stopped at the crosswalk. "You could be a fourth client."
"I'm not paying you thirty-five dollars."
"I'll give you the friends discount."
"What's the friends discount."
"Free, obviously."
Jake thought about this for half a block. "...Fine. But you can't make me do more than two hours a day. I have a life."
"You spent six hours in LAN Zone last Saturday."
"That is my life."
Ethan shook his head and pushed open the door to the office supply store.
Jake followed him in, looked around at the rows of notebooks and folders and pens, and said, with genuine bewilderment: "I can't believe this is what we're doing at lunch."
Ethan was already picking up a pack of index cards. "Get me one of those black gel pens from that rack."
"I'm not your assistant."
"Jake."
"Fine." Jake grabbed the pen. Then grabbed a second one. "In case you lose it."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. This is still a weird lunch."
They got back to Jefferson with four minutes to spare before afternoon classes.
Jake immediately clocked Sophie at her locker, went over, and said something that made her look in Ethan's direction with the specific expression of someone revising an opinion.
Ethan went to his own locker, swapped his books out, and leaned against the cool metal for a second.
Three tutoring clients confirmed. Fourth incoming probably.
There are some advance chapters ahead in my Patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
patreon.com/B_A_3439