Aiden's POV 

It was the end of the last lecture and now I had to attend detention, and boy was I excited. Thinking of how I could start a conversation with Nick I walked to the detention room. A copious amount of conversation starters ran through my mind.

"Hey! How was your day?" 

He would probably just nod. 

"What are you reading today?" 

He would simply show me the cover of the book. 

"You look cute today," 

Ehh, that was way too forward. 

"Do you sing in the shower?" 

He wouldn't even reply. 

When I reached the detention room, it was empty. I saw him leave the class earlier than usual so I thought he would have been here already.

"Maybe he'll come here in some time," I said to myself hopefully scratching my chin. 

Or was he supervising just for a day? My eyes widening at the thought, I held my face in my palms when the strong wave of realisation hit me. I probably lost the only chance to strike a conversation with my crush. I felt moronic. 

I took a deep breath and slouched on the desk with a long sigh. We had an assignment to be submitted tomorrow and instead of just copying I decided to do it myself. My grades were the worst in Math out of all subjects. Of course doing the assignment a day prior was not a smart decision but at least it was something and I anyways needed a distraction from the pain of missing a golden opportunity. 

"If I can't do this on my own, I'll just copy it from someone tomorrow." I shrugged and dived into my assignment. 

I started working on assignment and a look at my wrist watch told me it was 20 minutes already but my notebook told me that hadn't solved a single question completely yet. Also Nick was still not here. His absence was frustrating and so was the assignment. Perhaps he was here just for a day, I got my hopes high for no reason. Nick and detention in the same sentence made no sense any ways.

"Can I borrow a pen from you?" 

The sound came from somewhere behind me, I could recognise this voice even in my sleep. I moved my neck to see Nick looking down at me. His eyes which looked extra sparkly without the specs were fixated on me. I bite my inner cheeks to stop my stupid self from blushing. I couldn't afford to make a fool out of myself. At least not in front of him. 

"Let me find it," I said as I rummaged through my bag. 

He just gave a nod in response. Like always he didn't speak much. Also weren't nerds suppose to have like three million pens in their bag? Was he just pretending to be a nerd? The thought made me chuckle. I handed him a pen that I stole from one of our classmates with a soft smile. I wanted to give him a bright toothy smile but that would be creepy. 

Nick walked to the supervisor's chair after taking it and my eyes followed his every move. Later we both just got engrossed in doing our own stuff, and I was clearly failing at this assignment. I remembered solving the equation last semester but then I forgot how to proceed after a few steps. So I checked a reference book which made me even more confused. I just couldn't understand the point of these books, these were supposed to help us and make studies easier but they did the exact opposite. The mere thought was exasperating. 

"Are you doing the calculus assignment?" He suddenly asked. 

I looked up to see Nick gazing at me with his sparkly brown eyes but this time with his glasses on. 

"Y... yes," I stuttered.

What? I couldn't even utter a single word without getting flustered. I face-palmed myself subconsciously. 

"Mind if we do it together?" 

Huh? 

Was I hearing things? 

Was he kidding? 

Nick himself starting a conversation and wanting to help without asking, is this the real world? 

"I'm not good at calculus, I don't want to bother you," I replied scratching my head. 

"You are obviously struggling and I have no problem explaining it to you." 

Without waiting for my reply, he got up from his chair and walked towards my desk. As he sat beside me, all I could do was gawk at him. I quickly pulled my myself together when I realised how stupid I would have looked in his eyes. But no one could blame me for looking idiotic, my crush was sitting right next to me and we were about to share a book. This was definitely an alternate universe. 

We didn't talk afterwards, he was very focused on the assignment. I always thought he would be the type of nerd who would do assignment on the day it was given. I guess I didn't know him well. Who was I kidding? I knew nothing about him except the fact that he didn't like talking. And that was a lot of information. 

"You are supposed to differentiate at step four not three," 

"Are you peeking into my assignment?" I said suggestively raising my eyebrows and dramatically hiding the notebook. 

"You would have known if you weren't day dreaming,"

This smart dog. 

"Do you want me to explain it?" he asked. 

"You would?" 

He just shrugged his shoulders in response. 

"Alright then, explain it to me." 

Nick moved towards me, closing the already small distance between us. How was I supposed to concentrate on calculus in this situation? Staring at his face I noticed that he was very determined to teach me the derivation. This was the closest we had been and I could smell a faint musky fragrance, it was probably his body wash. The sudden closeness between us was very tempting and I was fighting the urge to crash my lips on his while writing a pesky calculus expression. I shook my head to get rid of the thought of grabbing him by collar and having a hot makeout session in the classroom. But somehow the thought kept coming back. 

"You don't look well," Nick stated

Was my romantic and sexual frustration this obvious? 

"I'm fine just tired," I replied. 

"Okay, let's get this done quickly," he suggested to which I gave an approving nod. 

He explained me the numericals  very calmly like a good teacher and a good friend. I had been making some silly mistakes which he pointed out without making fun of me or getting annoyed. I was a slow and lazy learner and people often got overwhelmed by him. I really liked how calm and supportive Nick was while explaining. I now had another reason to like him. 

I might just seriously start studying for him.