The Scarlets by Madeleine Roux Page A

sickness in his stomach calmed. Roger was just trying to rile him up, get a reaction, and he wouldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let that happen. “Did you like take a seminar on being a total dickhead, or does it just come naturally?”
    He expected the anger, but he didn’t see the slap coming. It hit and hit hard, and Cal felt his teeth slice open the inside of his cheek.
    His father had been handsome once. His father had been an athlete once. His father had probably been human once, too.
    Bastard.
    “You will get a tutor,” Roger repeated, wringing out his hand. “And you will sober up.”
    “And if I don’t?”
    His father stood and shimmied his belt again, staring down at Cal with cool, empty eyes. “I don’t like making contingencies, Cal. Tutor. Sober. We won’t be having this conversation a second time.”

T he words on the page blurred. Something behind his right eye felt like it was broken, like part of his eyeball had snapped off, leaving behind a blinding throb that wouldn’t quit. He drummed his fingers on the desk, trying to disguise the tremor in his hand.
    Less than four hours after his argument with Roger, here he was doing the tutor thing. The sober thing? Well, there was only so much a guy could tackle at once.
    There were words in front of him on the desk and words ringing in his ears, but try as he might, Cal couldn’t make heads or tails of their meaning or how they could possibly be relevant to him and his raging hangover, which hadn’t gotten better even after all the aspirin he’d taken.
    “Do you have any beer?”
    Blinking, swallowing a yawn, his tutor stared back at him. She was cute, sort of, in the way only a quiet book nerd could be cute. She had tawny skin and shapeless, curly dark hair. Her teal eyes were the most conventionally attractive thing about her.
    Those teal eyes were still staring at him. Right. Fallon. That was her name.
    “You know drinking more won’t really cure your hangover, right?” Fallon asked, scratching at her cheek with the eraser on her pencil.
    “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Cal stretched, then thought better of it. Hunching over the desk seemed to be the only position that didn’t rile his headache. “I just know that I want a beer right now, an ice-cold one, and that I want to know the bare minimum to write this paper on Wide Sargasso Seat .”
    “ Sea. ”
    “Whatever. This book is basically fan fiction for another, more famous book. Why are we even tested on this garbage?”
    “Definitely don’t put that in the paper,” Fallon muttered, rolling her eyes. But she stood and shuffled over to the mini-fridge next to her bed and crouched, rummaging until she came up with a can of Bud Light. Maybe she wasn’t such a nerd after all. “Here.”
    She put the can down harder than she had to on the desk, punctuating that one huffy word.
    Cal managed a weak chuckle and cracked open the tab top. “On a diet?”
    “Remind me to charge extra for this tutoring session. Sorry, charge your dad .” Not one for the jokes, then. That figured. Roger would’ve made sure whatever tutor he picked was totally humorless.
    Just like Roger.
    “What’s he like anyway?” Fallon asked, so softly and casually that Cal wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
    “Who?”
    “Your dad. I’ve seen him a few times on campus, but I was surprised when he called me.” Fallon was watching him intently. Too intently for his liking. “I’m not an English major, and I’ve definitely never taken psych. Seems like there are better tutors for you on campus.”
    “Maybe you’re the cheapest,” Cal suggested.
    “Right, like that’s a big concern for your family.” Rolling her eyes, she watched him fiddle with the icy beer can and seemed to interpret his silence as disagreement. “I thought you guys were loaded. And he’s the dean. I hear he’s got everyone in this place in his pocket—faculty, staff. . . .”
    “Who told you that?” Cal asked,