The Deal (Off-Campus, #1)(22)

I follow Garrett up the narrow staircase to the second floor. His room is at the end of the hall, and from the sheer size of it and the private bath, it must be the master bedroom.

“You mind if I change out of this uniform?” I ask awkwardly. “I’ve got my street clothes in my bag.”

He flops on the edge of the monstrous bed and leans back on his elbows. “Go right ahead. I’ll sit here and enjoy the show.”

I clench my teeth. “I meant in the washroom.”

“That’s no fun.”

“Nothing about this is fun,” I mutter.

The bathroom is a lot cleaner than I expect, and the faint traces of woodsy aftershave hang in the air. I quickly change into yoga pants and a black sweater, tie my hair into a ponytail, and shove my uniform in my bag.

Garrett is still on the bed when I return. He’s engrossed with his phone, doesn’t even glance up when I dump an armful of books on his bed.

“To quote your annoying self, are you ready to do this shit?” I say sarcastically.

He speaks in an absent-minded tone. “Yeah. One sec.” His long fingers tap out a message, and then he drops the phone on the mattress. “Sorry. I’m paying attention now.”

My seating options are limited. There’s a desk under the window but only one chair, which is buried under a mountain of clothes. Same goes for the armchair in the corner of the room. The floor is hardwood and looks uncomfortable.

The bed, it is.

I reluctantly sit cross-legged on the mattress. “Okay, so I think we should run through all the theories first. Make sure you know the important points of each one, and then we can start applying them to the list of conflicts and moral dilemmas.”

“Sounds good.”

“Let’s start with Kant. His ethics are pretty straightforward.”

I open the binder of readings Tolbert handed out at the start of the year and flip through the pages until I find all the material on Immanuel Kant. Garrett slides his big body to top of the bed and rests his head on the wooden frame, letting out a heavy sigh as I plop the readings in his lap.

“Read,” I order.

“Out loud?”

“Yep. And once you’re done, I want you to summarize what you just read. Think you can handle that?”

There’s a beat, and then his bottom lip quivers. “This might be the wrong time to tell you, but…I can’t read.”

My jaw falls open. Holy shit. He can’t be seri—

Garrett barks out a laugh. “Relax, I’m f*cking around with you.” Then he scowls at me. “You actually thought I couldn’t read? Jesus Christ, Wellsy.”

I offer a sweet smile. “Wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest.”

Except Garrett does end up surprising me. Not only does he read the material in a smooth, articulate voice, he proceeds to summarize Kant’s Categorical Imperative almost word-for-word.

“Do you have a photographic memory or something?” I demand.

“Nope. I’m good with facts.” He shrugs. “I just have a tough time applying the theories to the moral situations.”

I cut him some slack. “It’s total bullshit, if you ask me. How can we be sure what these philosophers—who are all long dead—would think about Tolbert’s hypotheticals? For all we know, they’d evaluate it on a case-by-case basis. Right and wrong isn’t black and white. It’s more complex than—”

Garrett’s phone buzzes.

“Shit, one sec.” He glances at the screen, frowns, and sends another text. “Sorry, you were saying?”

We spend the next twenty minutes going over the finer points of Kant’s ethical views.

Garrett sends about five more texts during that time.

“Oh my God,” I burst out. “Am I going to have to confiscate that thing?”

“Sorry,” he says for the zillionth time. “I’ll put it on silent.”

Which achieves nothing because he leaves the phone on his binder and the damn thing lights up every time a new message comes in.

“So basically, logic is the backbone of Kantian ethics—” I halt when the phone screen flashes again. “This is ridiculous. Who keeps texting you?”

“Nobody.”

Nobody, my ass. I grab the phone and click on the message icon. There’s no name, just a number, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the messages are from a female. Unless there’s some guy out there who wants to “lick Garrett all over.”

“You’re sexting during a tutoring session? What is wrong with you?”

He sighs. “I’m not sexting. She’s sexting.”

“Uh-huh. Let’s blame her, shall we?”

“Read my responses,” he insists. “I keep telling her I’m busy. It’s not my fault she can’t take the hint.”

I scroll through the conversation and discover he’s telling the truth. All the messages he’s sent in the past thirty minutes have involved the words busy and studying and talk later.

Sighing, I bring up the touch keyboard and start typing. Garrett protests and tries to seize the phone from my hand, but he’s too late. I’ve already pressed send.

“There,” I announce. “All taken care of.”