When the Uber driver stopped the car in the middle of the bad pocket that was between Baldwin Park and East Colonial, and took a look around at the houses that had seen better days maybe a few decades back, at the neighbors with suspicion in their eyes and the yellowing vegetation, he asked me if this was really the place I was supposed to go. He did this by giving me a quick scan that read: you look too preppy for these parts.

"Yes, thank you," I told him, smiling so he wouldn't see how annoyed that made me. I might have been born American, but my parents had made sure to teach Toni and I about the Venezuelan survival skills. And besides, it was not the first time I was here and considering what I was about to get on, it was not going to be the last.

I got out of the car. I walked down the run down front yard and stopped by the front door, taking a deep breath and had a last second's worth of panic before knocking. It was Saturday morning and I'd been at the car shop with my homework, staking out the mechanics for any sightings of Sawyer. But he never showed up. When Manny told me that his buddy had requested the day off—with no pay, of course—I figured he must have guessed my plan. Which meant it was time to take the plan straight to his residence.

After two minutes of no sound of activity, I knocked again. Louder. The next door neighbor came out, sour looking as though he'd just woken up. It was already 10am and basically half of the day was already gone, geez.

"Sorry," I told him when it was clear he wanted to rip me a new one. I had to repeat the word for good measure since he kept glaring. I turned to knock on the door again when it opened.

I should have listened to the Uber driver and turned back around. I was so not ready for this, just the same as I wasn't ready for responsibility of having a car and driving myself around town like a grownup the way Toni did. I was either stuck here until I gathered my nerve to do this, or until a new Uber driver arrived to pick me up.

Not one to waste money, I decided to just get on with the program.

I had contemplated the possibility that Jack Logan would open the door. If that happened, I'd told myself, I was going to be polite and brief. He had always unsettled me, with his light blue eyes that seemed to cut at a glance and a certain nervous energy about him that made people think he was on the verge of some sort of breakdown. The good thing was that maybe because I was the boss's daughter he'd never treated me with anything but respect, so at least I had that going for me. I didn't think Jack would chuck that respect out the window even after papa had fired him.

But I needn't have worried. The one who opened the door was not Jack. It was the son. Hair mussed with sleep, shirt off and showing a whole lot of muscle that I didn't know he had. A whole lot of muscle that almost distracted me from the things that were really important. Mainly the massive bruise that had bloomed on his ribs and the fact that his split lip seemed recently re-split, which was strange considering that at this point he should've had a few days of healing.

He squinted against the sun. His eyes shone almost white as he zeroed in on me and asked, "Princess? What the fuck are you doing here?"

I folded my arms. "That's probably what I should be asking you, sans the f bomb. Why aren't you at work?"

Sawyer leaned against the door frame, unable to hide the fact that this caused him pain. I immediately looked back down at the bruise, and he folded his arms to try to hide it.

"Aww, don't tell me you actually care."

I rolled my eyes, just so he'd know I was not going to fall into his trap of goading me to distraction.

"Are you going to keep me waiting outside?" I asked him instead.

He tilted his head. "Are you planning on being long?"

I sucked in a deep breath through my teeth.

Yes, however long it takes.

But of course I didn't say this to him. He was a constant flight risk.

I took a bold step forward, looked up at him and I shouldered past him. The pained groan that came out of him made me pause. His hand was on the bruise and I had the feeling that it wasn't just because he was trying to hide it.

"How did you get that?" I asked him, dropping my bag full of books on the floor even though it probably hadn't been cleaned in decades. I moved closer so that I could see it, but he kept his hand pressed firmly against it. "Let me see."

"Why?" he rasped out. "What can you do about it?"

I looked up and met his intent eyes. It was almost as though he, for once, was serious about something. This threw me for a loop and I didn't know how to answer. I also didn't know how to react at the fact that we were close enough to share breath. And he was warm and smelled really good, even though I wanted him to smell like a pigsty because that was the way he appeared in my eyes. Messy and as though he couldn't be bother with trying to put his best face forward. Like he didn't give a hoot what anyone thought of him.

I had to focus.

I looked back down and leaned lower, prying his fingers away until I was able to see the splotch of purple, yellow and green. It looked incredibly painful and large enough that it almost looked as if he'd caught a bowling ball on his side.

"Can you breathe normally or do you think you might have a broken rib?"

"I can breathe," was all he said, but that didn't really answer the question.

I made the mistake of glancing back up at him. I knew it was a mistake because the second our eyes connected I felt a bolt of electricity go through me. It froze me, even though I desperately wanted to get away from his pheromones.

There was a good reason why Sawyer had the reputation he had at school. The objective side of me could admit that he was beautiful. Tall, lean and with classical features that were enhanced by the promise of trouble in his eyes. It was a heady combination that was hard to take for any red blooded seventeen year old girl with an inclination for boys.

I was not immune. I stopped being when we turned 14 and something changed. He grew larger, leaner and less like a boy. He stopped pretending to play by the rules. I went the other way entirely, but he still made my eyes stray. Which was exactly why I stayed away from him. There was no point in becoming one more of his statistics, when I had a much more promising future ahead of me.

I had to remember why I was doing all of this. It wasn't for him, it was for me.

So I leaned back down and asked, "Did Taylor do this to you that day?"

"No," he said, and I felt the brush of his breath on the back of my neck, exposed by my pony tail.

That was as good timing as any to take a step back. So I did, and put my hands on my hips. "Did you seriously get into a second fight this week? Didn't the first one give you enough trouble. Look at that lip."

He licked said lip and shrugged. "I didn't get into a second fight."

"Oh yeah? Then how do you explain this?" My eyebrows creased. "You stumbled and fell, somehow re-splitting your lip and nearly breaking your ribs?"

"No, that'd be stupid," he said with a short laugh.

"So what happened?"

"Why are you here?" he asked instead, running a hand through messy hair that fell around his jaw. The flexing of his arm muscles did things to me that scrambled my brains. I reset myself with a deep breath.

"Well, first I'm going to take care of your injuries like you should have before, and then I'm going to tutor you."

"No," Sawyer said as he turned away. I followed after him, but where he turned to his room I turned to the bathroom. I ignored the mess, opening the crumbling cabinets until I found something that looked like a first aid kit. I wondered if any of this stuff was still any good, but it had to be better than nothing. I found him stretched on his bed, one arm covering his eyes from the sunlight that was filtering through the holes in his bedroom's curtain.

"Perfect," I said. "Stay still."

This made him jump. "I thought you'd left."

Pff, I was on a mission here. If he knew that he'd know that I was not leaving until he agreed to be helped by me. If he knew that he'd be running away right now.

I plopped on his bed, trying not to think about when he last washed the sheets or what had transpired between them. I opened the first aid kit and found some rubbing alcohol and other essentials that I was sure were going to do him some good.

"Let me clean that cut first," I said, motioning him to sit up. He did and I busied myself with dabbing a cotton wad with rubbing alcohol. "This is going to sting."

I cleared my throat and looked up. I'd never seen the expression that fell on his face.

"What?" I asked, feeling a flash of hot and cold travel through me.

Sawyer swallowed. "Nothing."

I leaned closer, my eyes straying to his like the traitors they were. This felt far more intimate than I'd intended and I was running out of breath. I focused on the task and softly dabbed at his lip, flinching as I imagined the flare of pain he must be feeling.

But he didn't even react. Weird.

I cleaned his lip as best as I could. It was a pretty gory mess and I wondered if it'd leave a scar. If so it would probably make him look even more attractive. I picked up a tub of antiseptic ointment and opened the cap.

"Um, maybe you should put this on yourself," I said.

He blinked slowly. "But you're doing such a good job."

I shoved it into his chest, but he didn't lift a hand to pick it up.

"Go to your bathroom mirror."

His nose scrunched up. "It hurts to move."

I rolled my eyes. "You freaking baby."

I squeezed some ointment onto my finger and then gasped. "Oh, no. I didn't wash my hands."

He grabbed my hand and pulled it towards his face. "It's okay."

"You could get an infection." I tried to pull. Sawyer just tilted his face forward until my finger touched his lip. I sighed and decided to just finish up. "I won't be responsible if you do."

"I trust you," he murmured.

That shook me. Every time he saw me he made a point of mocking me, calling me princess and referring to me as though I was some sort of prude that made him laugh. I hated him for it, he made me feel lesser even though I knew I was so much better than him. Glimpses of this Sawyer sometimes came to light and they terrified me. They threatened to upend the normal state of how we interacted.

I pulled my hand away and rummaged through the kit, trying to find something for the bruise. But everything in there was for minor cuts and things like that. Ice could help, though.

"Do you have ice in the fridge?" I stood up. His hand wrapped around my wrist stopped me.

"Princess," he said, his tone of voice now a warning. "Answer my question."

I looked down at his bigger hand, firm in its grasp but soft in a way that Taylor Banks' hadn't been. Then at his eyes, dark and probing. As though he really couldn't fathom why I was there. After all, the last time I'd been over, the words exchanged between our dads had not been pleasant. After that I hadn't seen the need to ever come back. But if he was my ticket to college I was going to have to start being nicer to him.

I took a deep breath.

"Listen," I said as I wiggled my wrist free. "I know life's tough, but you shouldn't just refuse help when it's so blatantly offered to you." I made a strategic pause to peel my eyes wide at him. "You know, either here or at school."

Understanding dawned on him. "Ah. The tutoring thing."

I nodded, "Exactly-"

"I'm afraid that's still a hard pass."

"You don't understand," I said, biting my lip. I didn't know if I was supposed to share this but, here went nothing. "You're in more trouble than you realize. You won't be able to graduate if you don't let me help you."

His shoulder lifted just a tad. "Not the end of the world."

That did it. I played dirty right there. "Doesn't Jack want you to graduate? Didn't he use to talk about how much he regretted not finishing school?"

Sawyer's eyes narrowed to slits in a way that told me, yeah, he was angry, but that the feeling went a lot deeper than I intended. I took a discrete step back.

"You need to at least try," I whispered. "If only because there are people who are willing to give you another chance, like Mr. Davies."

"And you?" he asked, tucking his tongue against his canine. It made him look like a predator.

"Me?" I swallowed.

"Are you one of those people?"

No.

"Yes," I said, looking him dead in the eye.

After a beat he sighed and dropped his head. His hair fanned out, obscuring his face. "Fine," he said.

I froze.

"So you agree to be tutored?"

"Whatever."

I could barely contain my glee. With a grin I asked, "So is there ice or not?"

He waved a hand and lied back down with a groan. As I skipped to the kitchen I curled my hand into a fist and pumped it in the air.

Victory was mine.

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