Charlie and Teresa hadn't let her have a moment of peace since Sunday morning. The second they caught wind of her date with Bear, they were buzzing with questions. Charlie was focused entirely on encouraging her to 'just sleep with him already', while Teresa kept her comments going in a different direction. 

"How much money do you think he would spend on you? Like would he buy you a car if you asked?" she queried in the halls.

"I'm not asking him for a car." Skylar pursed her lips. They entered Mr. Collins classroom together and took their usual seats in the back. 

"Ask him for his dick," Charlie whispered when the teacher walked in.

"No!" Skylar griped. Mr. Collins gave her look before addressing the class.

"I'm sure all of you are relieved to be finished with our section on limits," a chorus of whines, "but we'll be tackling the fundamental theorems of calculus for the next month and a half." More mumbled protests rose up.

"Shit," Skylar dropped her pencil. 

"What?" Teresa peered over at her.

"I didn't do my homework over the weekend. I forgot all about it." The three pages on limits was still untouched on her nightstand next to an empty bottle of water.

"Something to add, Miss Carrow?" Mr. Collins called her out.

Her cheeks blazed. "No, sorry," she cleared her throat. 

"Perhaps you'd like to be the first one to come up to the board and solve the problem?" He phrased it like a question, but there was no room for argument. The green dry erase marker wagged in his hand.

"Sure," she said, rising from her desk.

"Ooh," Dana quipped from the back of class. Mr. Collins shot her a look and gestured for her to settle down.

Skylar was good at math--great, even. The question was off her homework, she knew that much, but she hadn't done a single problem from the assignment. Her hair was already pulled out of her face in a bun atop her head. Chocolate tendrils framed her petite face, deep in thought.

"We're waiting," he hurried her along. 

Skylar flushed once more, wishing all eyes were not boring into the back of her skull. She didn't like attention. Some thrived on it, but not her. She wished she'd worn something different that day. Something like a bulky sweatshirt to hide in, but she hadn't. Tiring of changing everytime she walked through the doors of Bear's company, she started dressing nicer on workdays. Thanks to a spur of the moment shopping trip from her mother, she now owned plenty of acceptable work attire.

She kept a pair of red Converse on her feet, but the rest of her was ready for business. Taking a page from Bear's book, she chose a pair of black, form fitting pants and a matching blazer that she had to admit looked great on her. Her shoes matched the crimson blouse tucked into her belt and showed off an inch or so of her hard earned cleavage. It had taken a good bra to achieve it.

"The limit does not exist," she stated nervously.

Mr. Collins narrowed his eyes. "Oh? Care to explain to the class?"

Skylar cleared her throat again, wanting to dissappear. "Well, you can see from the graph that the values of y approach three from the left. But here," she underlined part of the expression with the marker, "they approach one as x approaches two from the right." Mr. Collins didn't speak. "Therefore," she neatly rewrote the expression, turning it into an equation that was easily solved, "since the left and right limits are different, the limit does not exist."

Silence, and then, "Nerd." It was Dana. The entire class erupted with laughter. Skylar wanted to hide in the back.

"Enough, Miss Curry." Mr. Collins jutted his chin towards her seat. "Thank you, Miss Carrow. She's right, you know," he said louder to the rest of the class.

The lecture went on for the remainder of class until the bell rang. "Miss Carrow?"

Charlie and Teresa looked to her. "I'll meet you guys after school. Can you still give me a ride?" Teresa nodded. "Thanks," she said as they left.

She approached Mr. Collins warily as the students flooded out of the door. "You've excelled on every assignment I've given you," he said in a deceptively irritated tone. She didn't reply. "Except this one. You're homework is missing from my stack." As if to drive his point home, he thumbed each paper to illustrate her missing work.

"I'm sorry. I had a busy weekend and I spaced--"

"I know. Word travels fast in this town, especially when it pertains to the Cruors." She flinched. "I'm willing to make a deal with you, Skylar. You're a bright, promising student. How would you like to tutor math?"

"Tutor? I already have a job as an assistant at the CDC."

An impressed look took over his face. "Really? Well, this would be just on the weekends. And I'm willing to give you extra credit for your time. My daughter," he frowned, "has been failing algebra and my plate is already full with grading papers and planning that I just don't have the time to help."

Skylar took a breath. "That's very nice of you, Mr. Collins, but I'm already really busy with--"

He stood up from his desk. He wasn't nearly as tall as Bear, but he was tall and broad enough to intimidate her. His blue eyes twinkled under the fluorescents as he moved around his desk to where she stood frozen. "It wasn't a question," he informed her. His hand raised to brush a few baby hairs away from her forehead and lingered far too long on her skin. "Saturdays and Sundays from noon to two should be good. I'd hate to see your grades start to slip."

The threat was heard loud and clear. "You can't do that," she hissed and stumbled back from his touch.

He didn't appear phased by her rejection. "You know, tutoring looks really good on a college application. Pair that with a glowing letter of recommendation from an advanced calculus teacher and you're looking at a green light for your dream school."

She clenched her jaw, glowering at the audacity he had. "Sunday only. I have a life."

"Sunday it is," he agreed happily. Going back to his seat he punched in a few things on his computer before spinning it around to show her. "There," he said, pointing to her name in his gradebook, "a perfect score on last night's homework."