Hooped #4 (The Hooped Interracial Romance Series, Book #4) (4 page)

“So go ahead, tell me what you’re going to tell me.”
Devon chuckled softly.

“Let’s sit down first, it’s not going to be like a
two-minute conversation.” I took a deep breath and nodded. Devon led me towards
the picnic
tables,
and I sat down,
looking around, unable to quite escape the creepiness of the entire place.

“This is kind of a weird spot to come clean, or
whatever you’re planning on doing.” Devon shrugged.

“I’m suspended, so most places on campus…” he shrugged
again. “And I wanted our conversation to be completely private. I didn’t want
to have it in the frat house, because we might be overheard, and because I
doubt you want to be up in my room right now.” I had to smile at the truth of
that.

“So tell me what you were going to tell me. This place
is creepy as hell at night.” Devon glanced around and nodded his agreement. He
took a deep breath.

“I know you’re mad at me, and I’m mad at me too,”
Devon said slowly. “What I did was stupid as shit. I really don’t deserve to be
here.”

“I like where this is going,” I said, smiling slightly
in spite of myself. Devon mirrored my grin wryly.

“It’s a stupid excuse, but the reason that I did
it—the reason I cheated—was because I didn’t think I was smart enough to pass
the test on my own.” I raised an eyebrow at that.

“You’re not a stupid guy, Dev.” Devon shrugged.

“I’d always done great in sports, but never really
thought much of myself as a student.” Devon made a face. “When I was getting
ready to start thinking of college, there were a bunch of schools that wanted
me—but I wanted to come here in particular.” I nodded; the school was a good
one, even with its reputation as something of a party campus.

“If you had gotten caught back then you’d never have
gotten in.” Devon nodded.

“But if I bombed the test, then I wouldn’t get the
scholarship they were offering. No school at all would want me. So it was a
risk
,
but it seemed like less of a risk
to cheat than to bomb.” I worried at my bottom lip. It made
sense, but
it still didn’t redeem him.

“But now you’re thinking differently.” I had told
myself I wouldn’t just take his words at face value, but I wanted to believe
him so badly. Devon nodded.

“I’ve been in college for a while, now—so I know I’m
not as stupid as I thought I was. I could have passed the test. I could pass it
now…if I took the time and effort to prepare.” I took a deep breath. “I would
hate to lose everything I’ve gained, but being in school and playing at this
level… it’s given me a kind of confidence that I never had before. And I know I
can do this. I just want a little bit of help. That’s all I’m asking for—not
for you to do anything for me, just to help me get that little edge.”

“What kind of edge?” Devon smiled slightly.

“I just need to know what parts to study harder for,
how to study better. You’re the smartest girl I know on campus, and I know you
can help me.” I took another deep breath. Devon reached across the table and
took my hands in his. “Please, Jenn. I’ve never given you any reason not to
have faith in me.” I had to admit he was right; he had been honest with me,
every step of the way, ever since the first night I had met him. He could have
lied about having cheated—but he hadn’t. And he seemed genuinely sincere about
changing his life.

“Okay,” I said. I exhaled slowly. “I will help you
out. You’re right; you’re not stupid. You’re a smart guy. I think…as long as
you just want help studying, I’d be happy to work with you.” Devon gave my
hands a squeeze. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine.

“When do we start?” I shook my head, laughing.

“No time like the present, right?” Devon grinned.

“I knew you were the perfect person to help me.”

Chapter
Five

Devon drove me back to the frat house and showed me
the books he had gotten to study for the ACT, still in the bag in his car. “How
much money did you spend on books?” I asked, grinning as I flipped through the
pages.

“I couldn’t decide which one would be the best, so I
decided to buy all three, and let you judge.”

“You must have been pretty sure I was going to help
you,” I said, feeling a trickle of suspicion.

“Well, if you had really been dead-set against helping
me, I’d have gotten one of the guys in Beta Chi to help me out,” Devon said
with a little smile. I rolled my eyes.

“
No
, you’d have
just kept coming and talking to me until I gave
in,
like you did with dating me.” Devon laughed.

“I’m not that terrible,” he protested. “If you really,
really hated my guts and thought that I was a horrible person who deserved to
swing in the wind, I would have left you alone as soon as you heard me out.”

“I’m so sure of that,” I said sarcastically, although
I was still smiling.

I was surprised to find that as soon as we were in the
frat house, Devon brushed aside his brothers’ invitation to watch the game and
led me straight up to his room, books in hand. I had a sneaking suspicion that
he would try and put the moves on me as soon as we were alone, but instead
Devon told me to look through the books while he grabbed us some coffee from
downstairs. One of the books was a newer edition of the very one I’d used to
prep for my own ACT; one of the others was just as good, with a slightly
different emphasis. All of them had practice tests for taking before, during,
and after the exam prep.

When Devon came back with coffee enough for both of
us, I handed him my preferred book, turned to the page with the practice test.
“Okay, take this one first, and we’ll see where you are and what you need to
work on.” Devon looked at the practice test form in the book doubtfully, but he
settled at his desk while I flipped through one of the other books, sipping the
coffee he’d made me—exactly the way I liked it, which made me smile again.

I spent the time he did the test reading through the
sections that I knew I was weaker on.
The
goal isn’t to get him to a perfect score,
I reminded myself.
It’s to get him to where he can get a high
enough score to justify his scholarship.
“Do you mind if I put some music
on?” Devon asked me. I shrugged.

“You’re not going to be able to listen to music during
the test—in fact, they won’t even let you use your phone at all. But for right
now it doesn’t really matter.” Devon put on The Strokes and finished the last
twenty questions while I perused the third book he’d bought, trying to decide
if it was worth taking anything from.

I flipped to the back of the book I liked the best,
the one that Devon had used for his practice
test,
and graded his answer sheet. He had done okay—not great, and I could tell
quickly that his hard spots would be the Math and the English sections. At
least, I thought, he had a pretty good grasp of the questions in the science
section—and he was solid on the reading part. Without any studying at all, he’d
scrape by through the test with what would amount to a “passing” score—not
quite enough for his scholarship, but respectable for a guy who hadn’t done any
prep at all.

“Okay,” I said, setting the book down and going over
the scores on the different sections with Devon. “We’re going to shoot for a
composite score of 30—it’s a little high, but if that’s what we aim for you’ll
probably get at least a 25, which is enough to justify the scholarship you got,
and clear your name. You’re already pretty good on the reading and science
sections—you got 25 each in those—but you only got a fifteen in English, and a
nineteen in math. If we can get your reading up to thirty, and your other
scores up over twenty-five, then you can probably do it.”

“Do you really think I can score that high?” I
grinned.

“Dev, baby, I scored a 32 out of 36—with high scores
in Reading, English, and Math. If anyone can get you over the hump, it’s me.”
Devon gave me a quick kiss—which I almost hoped would lead to more—and pulled
back, setting the three books in front of him.

“So how do we do this?” I considered the question.

“How much time have you got to study?” Devon laughed.

“Way more time than you do,” he pointed out. “I don’t
want you pulling yourself down to help me. But I trust you’re not going to do
that.” Devon tousled my hair. “So you just tell me how we’re going to work my
brain, and I’ll commit to it.”

“Let’s start with English. We’ll do two hours a night
until
the test, broken up between mostly
English, Math, and Reading. You can study the science stuff on your own.” I
flipped to the English
section,
and we
started working, sipping at the coffee and going over the different kinds of
questions. Devon was not stupid; he was quick on the uptake, he just hadn’t had
much chance in high school to study, since he was so good at basketball. So we
went over the different concepts that were on the test, and I quizzed him,
marking his answers on a sheet of paper.

We moved onto Math; Devon was even quicker at picking
it up, especially geometry—since he had to use it so much, instinctively, in
sports. We worked through problems together, me helping him out
whenever
he got stuck, filling in the blanks
that his education had left behind. He knew a lot more than he realized he
knew; I figured out pretty quickly that the biggest problem Devon had
was thinking
that he was something of a dumb
jock. Once he got over the idea that all he’d ever really been good at was
basketball, he was picking up the tricks I showed him right and left. He
laughed at my mnemonic devices, but as I quizzed him again and again, he
remembered them
—
and remembered what they
represented, how they worked.

We went back to English for a while; he knew enough
about reading, but the finer points of grammar and things like that, structural
things, he wasn’t as strong on, and I knew that if he could just understand
those things, he’d be much better on the test. Devon was focused, just like he
was on the court, and while part of me wished that he might have used the
excuse of being alone in his bedroom together to put the moves on me, I was
glad to see that at least for the night, he was serious about using my help the
best possible way. He really seemed to want to get better at the subjects, to
really prove that he was able to make the cut on the test itself.

We moved
onto
reading after the English refresher, and as I found myself getting a little
tired, my own brain kind of scrambled from trying to think ahead and around
what Devon already knew, we both started winding down for the night. “I’m so
glad I have you,” Devon told me, pulling me close.

“Yeah, well, while we’re getting you up to snuff,
you’re going to hate me,” I told him with a grin. “I won’t tolerate any fooling
around during study hours.” Devon laughed.

“That’s just what I need. You can be my academic
coach—just like my basketball coach. Push me.” He kissed me lightly
on
the
temple,
and we dove into the science section for a cool-down on the studying. It was
his strongest
subject,
and I decided as
we were working on it that we’d end all of our sessions with a few minutes on
the science section, just to give Devon more confidence. He was able to handle
the difficult questions and the easy ones; it was the ‘middle’
difficulty
questions that he had trouble
with—he either over-thought them or under-thought them. We joked and laughed,
and gradually any hesitation I had over whether it was the right thing to do
went away from me.

As the study session wound down for the night, both of
us brain-tired in spite of the coffee, Devon went downstairs and retrieved a
bottle of wine along with two glasses. “I would not have expected this frat
house to have anything
so
classy as this,” I said as
Devon opened the bottle and poured us both a glass.

“Hey, we’re plenty classy here…just not usually when
we’re in the public,” Devon told me with a grin. “I actually got this when I
went to buy the books, hoping you’d agree. To celebrate our first session
together.” I rolled my eyes.

“You know, one of these days, you are going to push me
too far.” Devon shook his head, his expression almost comically solemn.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Whenever you tell me to stop,
and really mean it, I will stop. Always. Believe it, Jenny.” I cuffed his
shoulder.

“I keep telling you not to call me that, and you keep
doing it.” Devon grinned again.

“I keep doing it because I know you secretly like it a
little bit that I do it in spite of you telling me not to,” he told me. He
handed me a glass of
wine
and I sipped it
slowly. I have never been much of a connoisseur, but it tasted good: crisp and
clean and sweet.

“Like I said,” I told him, wagging a finger in pretend
warning. “One of these days. You are just going to push me too far.” Devon took
a sip of his wine and set the glass down, climbing onto the bed next to me. He
leaned in and kissed me lightly on the lips.