Maya sat alone in Jake's room, still in the chair he'd given her.
Her gaze moved around the room. In a team photo, she noticed a scar above his left eyebrow— she'd never noticed that before. His football jersey hung over the chair nearby, the fabric still holding the shape of his shoulders. A corkboard of snapshots: Jake with teammates, Jake grinning with a trophy, Jake sunburned at some beach tournament.
She knew she should probably get up and leave. This was bordering on weird.
But she didn't move.
Instead, curiosity got the better of her. She got up and walked towards his bookshelf. It held mostly what she'd expect from a pre-med student. Organic Chemistry. Anatomy. Rows of dense textbooks.
But wedged between the science texts were a few unexpected titles.A battered copy of The Great Gatsby. Friday Night Lights. A thin, worn Hemingway collection.
Maya's fingers hovered near the shelf.
That… she hadn't expected.
She pulled the Hemingway free. The pages fell open to underlined passages in cramped, uneven scrawl. Nothing about football or pre-med.
Maya sank onto the edge of his bed and kept reading.
Next to a line about courage, he'd written:
Sometimes courage is just showing up when you want to run.
Her chest ached for him.
Beside a passage about a man drowning, three words were pressed hard enough to dent the page:
This is it.
She slid the Hemingway back into place, her fingers lingering a second too long.
On the nightstand, a small amber bottle caught her eye. Melatonin. Beside it was a prescription vial.
Anxiety medication.
Footsteps echoed in the hall, and Maya scrambled back to the desk chair, pulling her phone out just as the door opened. Jake looked drained. "Coach wanted to drill Saturday's plays again. Sorry that took so long."
"It's fine," Maya said, a little too quickly. "But we're way over the hour. I should probably head out."
Jake pulled out his wallet and handed her a fifty. The bill was still warm from his pocket.
"Same time next week?" he asked. "Here? Or back to the library?"
Maya hesitated.
The library would be safer. It was a public space and professional than his room.
But the thought of going back there made something in her resist.
"Here," she said. "If you're okay with it."
Jake's mouth tipped slightly.
"I'm very okay with it."
They stood there in silence for a moment.
Maya looked up. Up close, he still looked fresh from drills — hair damp at the temples, a faint sheen of sweat along his forehead, his T-shirt clinging slightly at the collar.
Jake's eyes darkened.
His gaze dipped to her mouth before lifting back to her eyes.
The room felt hot. Smaller. She needed to leave. She didn't move.
She wanted to kiss him.
The realization hit hard enough to rattle her.
Jake Thompson. The guy she was supposed to keep strictly professional relationship with.
Her fingers tightened — and that was when she felt the fifty in her hand. It was a reminder that this was a transaction. She was here because he paid her to be.
Maya pulled back like he'd burnt her. "I should go."
Jake blinked, the moment breaking off. "Yeah. Right. I'll walk you to the elevator."
They walked to the elevator. Neither spoke.
When the doors slid open, Maya stepped in then turned.
"Thanks for tonight," Jake said, his voice quiet. "For listening. I don't usually do that"
"It's okay, Jake."
"It's not," he said. "No one's ever... done this for me. I just wanted to say thank you."
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. The doors began to close. She put her hand out, stopping them. "See you Thursday."
"See you Thursday, Alvarez." She let go.
The doors shut.
Maya walked back to Spruce Hall, the cold night air doing nothing to clear her head.
Her thoughts kept circling back to the last two hours. The conversation that had gone deeper than it should have. The brief brush of his skin against hers. The way he'd looked at her just before the elevator doors slid shut.
And worst of all—
She'd wanted him to close that last inch and kiss her.
She let herself into her room, the familiar smell of Elena's floral perfume hitting her. Elena was at her desk, one earbud in, hunched over a textbook. She looked up, squinting through her glasses.
"Hey. How'd the session go?"
"Fine," Maya said, dropping her backpack with a heavy thud. "It was fine."
"Just fine? You're late."
"Yeah. Just more material to cover than I thought."
Elena gave her a long, searching look but eventually just shrugged and popped her earbud back in.
Maya collapsed onto her bed. The room looked exactly the same—neat, warm, and comforting.
And yet she felt strangely out of place in it.
She pulled the fifty-dollar bill from her pocket. The price for her time. The only thing that was supposed to matter.
Except the arrangement didn't feel that simple anymore.
Somewhere between the study sessions, the lines had started to blur.
Jake wasn't just a paycheck now. He was a person she actually liked.
And that was dangerous.
She couldn't afford to let her guard down. Definitely couldn't afford to fall for a guy whose world had been set apart from hers since birth.
But lying there in the dark, the bill clenched tight in her fist, Maya knew the truth.
The lines had already been crossed.
And she was the only one left standing on the wrong side of it.