Getting Schooled (The Wright Brothers Book 1) (2 page)

I smiled. “As compelling as your argument is,” I said, stopping at a crosswalk to let a car finish passing before I continued, “it’s still a no. Grayson already says he wants to do something quiet, just me and him. I don’t think he’d be too enthused if I tried to drag him out there. Maybe next time.”

Olivia groaned. “Okaaay, Have fun with your boo.”

“I definitely plan to.”

We split up and went our separate ways, and in my car, I stifled a yawn.

Truthfully, part of my reluctance to go to Refill tonight was rooted in the fact that I was straight up tired
.
Between the coursework to finish my MFA, and my responsibilities as a grad assistant, I was a busy girl. I cherished the time I had to chill and kick it with my friends, but I was glad for an opportunity to be laid up in manly arms, and have my booty rubbed until I fell asleep early.

I pulled up to the duplex I called home about twenty minutes later, and dragged myself and my bag out of the car. I plopped down on the couch to take off my shoes and then sat back, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to stay there long.

This was one of few weekends that I
didn’t have any assignments due when classes resumed on Monday. Still, it would be a good idea to get ahead, since I wasn’t planning to go out anyway, and it would be a few hours before Grayson arrived.

My cell phone let out a melodic chime, and I reached for it, taking it out of my bag. I grinned when I saw the message from Devyn, the woman who owned the title of “best friend” in my life.

“Grayson is still a ‘thing’ around these parts? Ew. – Devyn.”

Shaking my head, I thought about what I wanted to type back. Her ill feelings toward Grayson were firmly rooted in a conversation we’d had after his first
month of scarcity. She’d gotten this weird look on her face when she asked me if I missed him and my answer was no, but it wasn’t that big of a deal to me.

I’d never been the girl to be stuck under a man, vacuuming up his time. If he wanted to chill, fine. If not, I wasn’t that pressed. Obviously, there were some boundaries and specific criteria to that, but in general, I wasn’t too bothered about Grayson’s absence. He was busy, I was busy. Shit happened when you were our age, finishing grad degrees, and starting careers.

Devyn wasn’t convinced, but that was okay. Bestie or not, I didn’t need her approval to continue a relationship with Gray. We talked, texted, grabbed lunch or dinner where we could, but between case filings, legal briefs, and traveling back and forth between here and Seattle to mollify some big shot client, his time was limited. Which was totally okay, cause I didn’t have time for him to always be sniffing behind me either.

“Yes, Gray is still a thing, smart ass. I need SOMEBODY to stroke this kitty.”

I preemptively chuckled, imagining her response, and then tapped on the blinking email notification at the top of my screen. Some of the messages were from classmates, exchanging notes, asking about assignments. I responded where necessary to those, and then moved to the ones from the program BSU used to allow professors to give feedback on student-submitted papers.

Because I was my mother’s grad assistant, and had the responsibility of providing the critique for her Modern Black Literature course, any correspondence was first routed to me – not that the students knew that. I’d had to stop myself from bursting into laughter in the middle of her lecture more than once, reading some of the asinine excuses some people gave for late, or bombed assignments. And then I handed them their asses, because that’s exactly what mama – ahem.
Professor Bryant
– would do.

One message in particular stood out, at least to my eyes.

“J. Wright” had responded to my feedback from earlier, and for some reason, I felt a little giddy as I clicked to open the message.

“I’d like to contest the assertion that my paper goes outside of the scope of the assignment. The
book
goes outside of the scope of the assignment, because this isn’t literature. It’s presented as literary fiction, but it’s a badly written hood novel with a heaping dose of magical realism,
at best.
It could be in the “black” section at the bookstore, with the title in blinged-out font and a half-naked woman (with green eyes, long hair, and light skin) holding a gun. It would be a much better fit there.”

My eyes went wide, and a blinked a few times, reading the message again before a smile spread over my face, and I shook my head. Instead of replying from my phone, I pulled out my laptop and laid the phone down at my side. It took a few minutes to load my email up, but once I did, I quickly typed out a response.

“The assignment was not to analyze whether or not Mr. Jefferson’s work was suitable reading material for the class. It was to provide a critical analysis of said work. If you want to make the claim that
City of Dreams
is not fit to be called literature, you can certainly do so. In your paper.”

I sat back, deciding to wait a few minutes to see if
J. Wright
was going to respond right away. Apparently, he wasn’t drinking the Cory Jefferson Kool-Aid, and neither was I. He was being hailed – by “liberal” white people, grossly misogynist “enlightened” men, and the silly women who pandered to both – as some kind of literary messiah, but fuck that. I’d actually personally side-eyed my mother about this book choice, and gotten a laugh in response.

Every year, in the midst of the actually good books she required the class to read, she would throw in a choice that made my damned teeth itch. According to her, the goal was to help her students discern what was good literature and what wasn’t. She’d assured me that
City of Dreams
was this year’s “wasn’t”, and I was incredibly pleased to see that she’d taken my suggestion of doing a couple of her lectures on romance-centered novels.

But back to Corey Jefferson – I wasn’t sure if his inclusion was having the desired effect, so far. It had been hard as hell for me to read some of those papers and not give the feedback that the student needed to jump off a cliff into a sea of dicks. Some of these kids actually agreed with Corey Jefferson’s bullshit, and it made my head hurt.

My computer pinged, letting me know I had a new message, and my heart started beating a little faster when I saw
J. Wright
in the “from” box.

“
Hey, my bad Professor B. I didn’t mean to imply that you’d made a mistake in choosing the book. It’s definitely an eye-opener, even if I’d rather keep mine closed on this one. Still, message received.

In any case, I
do
want to contest the assertion that my social commentary isn’t suitable here.
City of Dreams
is a very, very widely read bestseller, with a huge marketing push of movies, merchandising, etc behind it. People are buying into these words like they’re some type of law. This book, and the ideas and ideals it presents, absolutely have a social impact. I think exploring that as part of critiquing the overall work is valid.
”

I had to walk away from the laptop on that one. I considered calling “Professor B” to see what she thought, but I didn’t want her peering at me over those glasses of hers, not saying anything, but questioning my competence anyway. On the other side of that,
she
would provide the final grade on the paper, with my notes and scoring provided as suggestions. Even if said I was accepting it, there was no guarantee she would agree.

But on the other side – yes, I was up to a thought triangle now – she rarely went against me. She actually tended to score things higher than me, so maybe I was worried for nothing.

I walked around my space, straightening up for Gray’s arrival later, and then climbed into the shower. Now that my apartment and I were clean, I felt better, and I sat down in front of the laptop again, staring at my fingers as I considered my response. Finally, I typed something out.

“Cite your sources. Use direct quotes. Provide examples. Show context.”

If J. Wright was so adamant, I’d give him the chance to make his case. Crush-worthy social and literary views or not… his ass had better write to impress if he wanted to earn a better grade.

two.

“Cite your sources. Use direct quotes. Provide examples. Show context.”

I pushed out a heavy, relieved breath as I sat back in my chair, letting it swivel back and forth as I re-read the message on the screen. Those ten words had just saved me from having to cut a crazy amount of work from a paper that was due on Monday. Yeah, I had some work to do to address the other things the professor had pointed out, but those were no big deal. I could make those adjustment tonight when I got home, have my Saturday off to my damned self, and read over the paper again on Sunday.

“Hey, where are you? Jay?”

Shit.

I closed out my email and slipped my phone back into my pocket as I hopped up from the chair. There was just enough time for me to look like I’d already been on my way out when my father, Joseph Wright Sr., rounded the corner.

“What are you doing back here in the break room?” he asked, wearing a little frown as he looked me over. “And why aren’t you in the polo with the company logo?”

Because that shit looks wack,
I thought, but didn’t say. Instead, I just kind of shrugged as I slipped past him, and headed back to the glass-walled cubicle right up front that my father referred to as my “office”, but felt more like a cage.

“Hold up,” he called after me, and I stopped, pushing my hands into my pockets as I turned in his direction. “It’s your lucky day… we had a mechanic call out, so—”

“Yes!”

I didn’t even really need to hear the rest of what he said. I was already headed toward the back, toward the service center where I really wanted to be in the first place.

“
Slow down, son
.”

Again, I stopped. Turned to look my father in the eyes, because I already knew what was coming. “What, you don’t even have two words to spare for your old man today?”

Oh.

Wait.

I wasn’t expecting
that
.

Joseph Wright had never been a lovey-dovey guy, not with me or my brothers. He saved the mushy stuff for our mother – turned into a smooth-talking teddy bear when he interacted with her. For us boys though, it was always toughen up, less emotion, work harder, sweat more, better grades – normal shit, honestly. Looking back, I could see that he was careful not to talk down to us though, not to be too harsh, leading by example. He was raising men, not assholes, he said at least once a week, usually directed at me.

He swore up and down, backwards and forward that he’d been me, exactly, growing up. That my “candor” as my mother referred to it, had come to me honest, passed down from him. That the sheer potency – his word choice – of my mother, once they met, had polished away the sharpest of the edges on his personality, made him a little easier, a little more smooth.

“I can’t wait for you to meet your sandpaper, little boy,”
my mother, Priscilla, had dryly muttered to me one day, long past the time I was actually a little boy. I was home on leave, and she insisted I take one of her friend’s daughter out.

I suffered through the date, with a girl whose jaw was stronger than mine and couldn’t keep her clammy-ass hands to herself. I was nice-ish. I was polite to this girl. I drop her off, walk her to her door… and she snatches me by the collar, trying to get a kiss.

I got the whole fuck outta there, and I don’t know what she told
her
mom, but her mom called
my
mom, and Priscilla Wright called me into her sewing room and just looked at me, with that quiet disappointment that stung a helluva lot more than anything my father ever said.

But, back to my point.

My father wasn’t some talkative, sentimental guy. We often communicated in little more than a series of grunts that we each inexplicably understood.

When he stopped me, I was expecting to be admonished because I was wearing a mechanic’s shirt, instead of the wack-ass white polo with the royal blue J&P AUTO SALES logo embroidered on. He was always on me about presenting myself like a salesman, even at my blunt insistence that it wasn’t what I wanted to do. But, it paid the bills and kept me out of my savings while I attended school, and he was generous enough to give me flexible hours.

What I hadn’t expected was to look into my father’s eyes and see genuine concern over my lack of communication today.

“Sorry Pops,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “School on my mind. You good?”

“Are
you
good?” he countered back, not releasing me from his penetrating stare. “Ever since you’ve been back, you’ve been—”

“
Fine.
I’m fine, Pops. Okay?”

“You don’t
seem
fine. I’m worried about you, son.”

“Worried about who?”

I groaned at the sound of the voice behind us.

Here we fucking go…

“Why’re you worried about Jay, Pops? What’s going on? Jay, you good? You need me to look at—”

“
Nah
,” I insisted, turning to face my older brother, Joseph Jr. “I don’t need you to look at anything, Dr. Wright.”

Joseph gave me a dry smile. “Ha ha. Funny. Are you sure—”

“
Yes
. Can I get out to the service center now?” I asked, addressing both men with the question. They exchanged a look, and Joseph Jr. gave Joseph Sr. a slight head nod that I guess they thought I couldn’t see.

“Yeah, son. Go ahead,” my father agreed, and I didn’t waste any time taking advantage of the out, leaving them to discuss my demeanor. There was nothing to discuss though. I
wasn’t different,
they
were.

I’d only been home a few months, since right before the semester started, and had noticed it more and more in the time I’d been back. My family tiptoed around me in a way they hadn’t before, always watching me, asking me how I was, like they expected any little thing to set me off into a panic attack or something.

I knew what they were worried about. PTSD, flashbacks, nightmares of kids with bombs strapped to their backs. All the shit American movie magic shoved down our throats as the reality of what deployment looked like, when the truth wasn’t nearly as depressing or tragic, but somehow, simultaneously worse. I didn’t know how to explain it, but the point was that none of that was happening with me. I was
good.

I just needed my well-meaning family to realize that, and lay off, damn.

As soon as I stepped into the part of the dealership that housed the service center, I breathed in a deep sigh. The cloying smells of engine grease, brake dust, rubber, gasoline, and motor oil would send most people into a gagging, coughing fit, but it smelled like home back here to me.

The little BSU princess from earlier would probably die of shock.

A twinge of annoyance settled into my shoulders, remembering the way she’d recoiled at the sight of my mechanic’s shirt. I wore it to class with some regularity, because it saved me time from going all the way home on the days I worked at the dealership. My clothes were clean though, because my mama raised me right. No, I wasn’t on campus dressed to impress like the pretty boys she probably preferred, but that was the thing – I wasn’t a boy. I was twenty-eight years old, just trying to take advantage of the military’s generosity and get my damned degree so I could get the fuck out of there. I was surrounded by teenagers, and kids so barely into their twenties that they may as well be teenagers too.

But not the princess.

No, as annoyed as I’d been by that little accidental exchange in the classroom door, I couldn’t deny that unexpected softness of her body against mine had felt good. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her – she was always in the lecture hall on Fridays, sitting at the table next to Professor Bryant, looking good as hell.

Pretty copper-brown skin, big brown eyes, and a sexy ass mouth. She had her hair done in thick, jet-black braids that hung past her waist, grazing the soft curves of her hips. The obvious hint that she was older than the girls of campus lied in the fact that she was a grad assistant. She had to have at least graduated with a bachelor’s to be in the position she was, which meant at least twenty-one, twenty-two, but I suspected even older than that. Something in her vibe – easy, breezy, bougie as hell – spoke to a level of confidence the younger women didn’t seem to have.

Not to mention, I’d heard the little smartass remark she hurled at my back after we bumped into each other. Even though I hadn’t responded, only a self-assured woman fired back like that, despite the fact that she was clearly the one at fault.

Aiight.

So… maybe that’s not completely accurate.

Maybe she was too busy looking at her phone to watch where she was going.

Maybe
I
was too busy looking at her ass, too distracted by the sliver of brown skin between the top of her jeans and the hem of her shirt – she had those little dimples, the thumb placement guides, you know? – to watch where
I
was going.

So maybe it was both of our fault.

But the princess didn’t have to act like I was covered in grease and grime either, so there was that. She wasn’t into men who got their hands dirty, and I wasn’t into stuck up women.

The end.

I finished up my shift at the service center, and went home, dodging my father and brother on the way out. There, I pulled out some leftover chicken and rice, and stuck it in the oven to heat while I got in the shower.

Afterwards, I set up my laptop at my desk, and sat in front of the computer with my dinner while I worked on my paper.

While I
aced
my paper.

- & -

What the fuck is this?!

I sat back from my computer screen in disbelief, staring at the score at the bottom of my paper for Modern Black Lit. I blinked, looked at it again, and then looked around me, searching for someone to confirm whether or not I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.

82.5%

Yeah, yeah, that was a passing score. A lot of people would have been fine with that, but I wasn’t, because for one – I wrote the shit out of that paper. Two – a “B” was aiight in passing, but the final grade for the course was based on a cumulative score, not weighed by the letter grade. It was too early in the semester to be dragging my score down. And three…
I wrote the shit out of that paper.

Wearing a scowl, I scrolled furiously through the paper, reading the comments. I was in the library, studying fucking thermodynamics for a test later in the week. But nah, I heard the little ping from the email, and had to check it. Now, I was pissed off and worried about my GPA over a class that didn’t have shit to do with the degree I was seeking.

I wanted to get a little bit pissed at my advisor, but it wasn’t his fault I was one of the last students to register. I was lucky to get into
any
classes, let alone the ones I actually needed, that weren’t just filling out my electives. I was known to pick up a book or two in my spare time, so the last-minute opening in Modern Black Lit worked for me. Added bonus: Professor Bryant was grown-woman
fine, which made it easy as hell to pay attention in class. Things were good.

Until now
.

My eyes narrowed as I read over the comments.
Underdeveloped thesis, rambling paragraphs, how does this connect to your (underdeveloped) thesis? Citation needed, blah, blah.
Ultimately, she left a nice little note at the end about how this was a strong effort, but “Strong Effort” and “82.5%” didn’t compute. At least not to me.

Since I was already in the building, I packed up my stuff, printed a copy of the paper, and went upstairs to Professor Bryant’s office. I didn’t know her schedule, if she had office hours or was in class, but if I could catch her, I wanted to talk in person about the paper.

The door was already open when I got there, so I stuck my head in and looked around. Professor Bryant’s office was large, enough to comfortably fit two desks and still look spacious.  The larger desk, undoubtedly hers, was unoccupied.

The princess sat behind the other one.