A/N: Story really picks up this chapter :)

With her lips pressed neatly together as she chewed on her third mini chocolate-frosted donut, Jo absentmindedly scribbled another "100%" on top of the paper she was currently grading and filed it away in her "already checked" pile. She licked a stray crumb of chocolate off her lip and routinely began scanning across the paper for a wrong answer. She had already checked enough papers that the wrong answers always seemed to just jump out at her. She had also checked enough papers to have a preference, a notion that made her want to laugh when she thought about it. She wasn't even a teacher and she had a preference. She hated checking short answer questions because the majority of her peers had chicken scratch handwriting, and she loved checking matching questions because she could make words out of the letters, which made for easier checking.

Underneath his desk, Alex's foot tapped in tune to the beat of the song playing on his iHome speaker as sifted through piles of checked papers and typed the grades into his electronic gradebook. He paused for a moment, dug his hand back into the bag of chocolate donuts that was sitting equidistant between him and Jo, and shoved one into his mouth. The silence between the two of them was apparent, but it wasn't awkward. Jo was busy grading papers and he was busy updating grades, and there was just no need to talk amongst themselves. It was actually quite nice.

He hadn't specifically asked her to grade his papers today, but when she sat down, she took it upon herself to situate the pile in front of her and take a red pen from the cup on his desk. She didn't have to grade papers if she didn't want to but it seemed like she did and he didn't quite understand why.

Jo moved onto another paper. Admittedly, grading Alex's papers wasn't her most favorite thing to do. She'd rather just sit and relax and eat donuts and drink orange juice with Alex, but in a sense, she felt like she had to. They were friends, as far as she knew. But she didn't think they were the kind of friends to hang out for no reason at all. The reason she came down here in the first place was to help him grade papers, so that's what she should do...right? She scribbled a "90%" on top of the paper she was grading and moved on.

If this whole doctor thing doesn't work out, I'd make one hell of a teacher. She smirked to herself at her thoughts and wrapped her hand around the dark blue cap that was fastened on top of the small bottle of orange juice. She twisted until she heard it snap off and brought it up to her lips to take a sip.

Alex glanced over for a moment, then back at his computer screen. Was she smiling? Subtly, his eyes were drawn back across the desk and he looked at her. The corners of her mouth were turned up just slightly and her cheeks had creases in them. She was smiling. But what for?

"You sure there isn't anything you'd rather be doing?" he asked.

"You mean besides chillin' in a basement eating donuts?" Jo put her pen down and slid her hand down into the donut bag. "I think this is as good as it gets."

"Oh?" Alex raised his eyebrow. Her mouth now full, Jo just nodded her head and chewed. Alex shook his head at her, smirked and went back to looking at his gradebook. "...You know you don't have to grade those, right?"

"I figured…I mean…," Jo shrugged her shoulders. "Why not?"

"Suit yourself," Alex shrugged back.

Jo licked her lips again and took the moment to look around the room for the billionth time since she first stepped foot inside it. The cinder block walls were painted white, he had a few pictures taped to them, a few motivational posters and a calendar. It looked like exactly what it was. Like a basement. She glanced over at the clock that hung above the filing cabinet in the corner and felt her shoulders droop. It was 10:26. She'd have to leave soon, because even though her class was only up on the third floor of this building, she always tried to be early. She didn't want to go to class at all today, though.

She sheepishly picked her pen back up and drummed it along the desk, unable to concentrate on the papers again. Maybe he won't show up for class today. She sighed because well… She knew that was hardly possible. He was always in class. He was a lot of things, but a bad student wasn't one of them. She put the pen down once again and this time, busied herself by twisting a silky lock of her hair around her finger.

"...How long do you sit down here for?" she asked Alex, her tone heightening with inquisition. "When is your next class?"

"I don't gotta be anywhere until one," he mumbled, seemingly distracted. "Leeds' next Histology class isn't 'til one."

"So you just sit down here until one? By yourself?"

"That's usually the case." He wrinkled his eyebrows and got a little closer to his computer screen.

"...Do you… Mind if I… Sit with you? For a little while longer?" she asked, apprehension laced in her voice. She couldn't even look at him when she asked. Instead, she continued to twirl her lock of hair around her finger and look down at the pale white skin of her kneecap, which was exposed through one of the rips in her jeans. She winced when she heard him begin to answer.

"Don't you have class at eleven?" Alex looked away from his computer and at her with a confused look on his face. She wasn't looking at him though. Instead, her head was geared towards the ground and she seemed to be picking at her split ends.

"I do, but…," Jo dropped the lock of hair that she was focusing on and moved onto another. "I think I'm gonna skip today. I'm kind of tired."

"So why don't you go back to your dorm and take a nap?"

Jo hesitated. Because I'm avoiding my roommate. Stephanie didn't have class again until 12:00 so if Jo went back now, she would have to be holed up in the room with Steph and that was something she truly didn't want. She'd rather go to class and face the possibility of seeing Mike than be alone in a room with Stephanie right now. She swallowed and sighed.

"Because I… Don't have my key and I have to wait for my roommate to get out of class at twelve," the lie rolled smoothly off her tongue. "But if you'd rather be down here alone, it's seriously okay. I can leave at eleven like I planned to. It's really fine."

"No, you can stay," Alex exited out of his grade book and faced forward. "I don't care if you stay."

"Thanks," Jo breathed, feeling relief wash over her body the way water would if she had been standing in a shower. "I just...really don't want to be in class today."

"Avoiding something?" Alex stuck another donut into his mouth and chewed it rather obnoxiously. Politely, Jo shook her head. "Avoiding someone?"

"No, I woke up at 6:00 this morning and I couldn't get back to sleep so I'm just pretty tired and my grade in that class is pretty good so I think I can…," she stopped when she noticed his unamused, unfazed raised eyebrows. She sighed hard. "...Is it that obvious?"

Alex sat back in his swivel chair and swayed from side to side, his hands folded neatly in his lap and his eyes all of a sudden avoiding hers. It wasn't obvious… but he kind of noticed everything about her. Even the things he didn't want to notice, he did. He didn't want to notice the way she usually had jokes to crack, the way she was usually bubbly and the way all of that seemed to disappear as soon as her eyes met the clock a few moments ago. He didn't know why he noticed everything about Jo and well...he wished it would go away.

"You just seem kinda sad today, I guess," he shrugged his shoulders to play it off. "But whatever. You can stay. You just seem sad."

"Well so do you," she countered with lightning-like speed. "But you don't hear me commenting on it," she murmured.

"Yeah but I'm not asking you give me a place to hide out," Alex matched her tone out of instinct, but he didn't mean to come off so cold.

Admittedly, he too wasn't in the greatest of moods today, but couldn't help but wonder if his was so painstakingly obvious. Jo wasn't herself and it was clear… Was his just as clear? He couldn't help why Jo was in such a bad mood and now avoiding classes. He wondered about her and he'd probably be wondering about her for the rest of the day. But he didn't think they were close enough for him to ask. After all, it was only the third time the two of them had been alone together.

"Whatever it is… Or whoever it is that you're avoiding isn't gonna go away just because you're hiding out in a basement stuffing donuts down your throat," he mumbled under his breath.

Her jaw hung open before he even finished the sentence. Did he really say that? Her eyebrows involuntarily wrinkled and her eyes narrowed. She took her bottom lip between her top teeth and bit down hard, her vision blurring over with unshed tears. Shaking her head, she bent down and gathered her backpack in her hands and slid out from her chair.

"Jo," he sucked his teeth and tried to stop her but she was adamant. "Jo… Come on, stop. Come on. I said you could stay…"

Jo shook her head violently and hoisted her backpack onto her shoulder. "I don't want to."

He stood up and tilted his head to the side. "Come on…. I'm-I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have-"

Jo whipped around, her face blotchy and flushed bright red and tears still collecting in the rims of her eyes. She was fuming mad and though she wanted to restrain herself, she couldn't. She hoped the basement was at least soundproof.

"You have NO idea what you're talking about! You don't know a damn thing about me and if me sitting down here stuffing donuts down my throat is such an inconvenience to you then maybe you should've just-"

"I'm sorry," he interrupted her and looked away. "Sit down, okay? You don't have to go to class if you don't want to. It's not my business why you're skipping. Just sit down. I won't say anything else."

Jo pursed her lips and clenched her jaw, willing the tears to stay in her eyes. She didn't know much about Alex, but she did know that she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She didn't want him to think that he held that over her, even though he truly did. He made her cry. He made tears well up in her eyes, he made her get up and he brought her so far out of her character that she yelled at an authority figure. And he did all of that with just one snide comment.

Her jaw still hardened and in tact, she looked at him and studied his expression. She studied the way his jaw was squared away and rounded to the tip of his chin. She studied the way his lips twitched a little and the way his eyes seemed glossed over with genuine sorrow. The way his eyebrows, bushy and unruly, were contorted whenever he frowned and the way that his forehead garnered lines in the middle of it even though he wasn't looking straight at her.

He really did seem sorry. She didn't know enough about him to tell for sure, but she was fairly good at reading expressions and gathering intentions and he did. He seemed apologetic. But she wasn't quite ready to forgive him just yet. She wasn't ready to let go of the anger she felt whenever he insinuated, without even knowing her, that she was someone that ran from her problems. Maybe she was. Maybe running was the way she coped. But he had no business commenting on it.

She was still angry but somehow, she found herself shrugging her backpack off her shoulder again and depositing it back down on the floor where it was in the first place. She sat back down in the metal chair he provided for her and crossed her legs, looking down at the ground and not at him.

Alex sat back down too. Secretly, he was glad that she didn't leave but he was also a bit bummed at that fact too. He was glad because he genuinely did enjoy Jo's company, but he was bummed too because well… Now it meant that he would have to sit in awkward tension because he had hurt her feelings. He didn't know her. He didn't know anything about the girl that sat across from him and ate donuts and drank orange juice. He didn't know if she liked pepperoni on her pizza, if her favorite color was red, or if "Jo" was short for something like "Joanne". All he knew was that she liked chocolate frosted donuts, orange juice and bad 80s music. There wasn't much about her that he knew, but he hurt her feelings. That much, he did know.

He opened up the web browser on his computer again and pretended to be busy with something, even though he was just googling what time the hockey game came on tonight. He didn't know anything about the girl that sat across from him...and he wanted to. Again, he didn't know why. It was the same as why he couldn't quite explain why he noticed everything about her. He couldn't even begin to explain it. But it felt…biological, in a way. Like the need to breathe or the will to blink. He didn't know her, but he wanted to. And for that reason...he was glad she didn't leave.

Mindlessly, he clicked around on a few local news websites in search of the game times, too distracted to even notice that every site he'd clicked on displayed the times at the top. He seemed focused and concentrated, just the way he wanted to appear. In the back of his mind though, that thought sat and it marinated until it manifested into a full-blown obsession. He didn't know her, but he wanted to.

What did he know about Jo?

He knew that she was smart. She was an Ivy League student, she seemed hardworking and that one time, she was the only person in her entire class that didn't miss a single question on her very tough homework assignment. He never really paid much attention to her assignments in particular when he graded them, but he made a mental note to be sure to from now on.

She's smart, he noted.

He knew that she was responsible; or at least, he could deduce that. She'd only been down here in his office a total of two times but both times, he didn't have to remind her what time it was. She seemed to keep track of that herself and last time, she noticed that it was almost 11:00 and she got up on her own to make it to class in time. Plus, she was punctual to that one tutoring session.

She's responsible.

"...I had a fight with my roommate," Jo finally spoke up after several moments of uninterrupted silence, the tone of her voice clearly offering a truce with the man sitting across the desk from her. Alex raised his eyebrows and finally stopped pretending to be interested in his computer screen. He wasn't quite ready to give up on listing all the things he knew about Jo, but he figured his list could wait. Possibly until the drive home from work today or even until he laid in bed tonight. "I'm avoiding her...and her boyfriend."

"...You try talking to her about it?"

Jo shook her head. "I had something to tell her...but now I don't think I can."

"You guys friends?"

"Mhm," she nodded this time. "Best friends. Inseparable."

"Well…" Alex shrugged his shoulders. Admittedly, he was pretty horrible at offering any kind of advice. He was bad with words, too. The majority of the time, that was why he and Lucy argued. "If you guys are really friends, you'll work it out. Why didn't you tell her in the first place?"

Jo sighed. "...I got scared. And the longer I wait to tell her… The more pointless it seems, I guess," she sighed again and tucked her hair behind her ears. "So um…" she began, her voice lighter this time around. "Is this really a job for you? Like is this your 9 to 5?" She swiftly changed the topic of conversation.

He made a mental note to add that to his list. She doesn't like talking about her feelings. He could tell that by the way she so fluidly switched tactics.

"Yeah," he replied. "This is what I get up to come to and go home from. This is my job."

"You get paid well?" Jo asked and immediately regretted it. "You don't have to answer that. Sorry, inappropriate."

Alex snickered and picked up his bottle of orange juice. "It pays the bills." He took a sip, swallowed and licked his lips. "Me and my girlfriend go half on the bills."

"Didn't you say she's an intern?" she wondered and Alex nodded. "Obstetrics, right?" he nodded again. "So...she gonna be your… Sugar Mama? If that's a thing…"

Alex laughed, genuinely this time and shook his head at her. She was funny...add that to his list of things he knew about her.

"Sorry to burst your little bubble there, but neither one of us make much," he screwed the cap back onto his orange juice bottle and sat back in his chair. "Not yet at least. Sorry to crush your assumptions."

"I wasn't," Jo shook her head and said earnestly. The air between the two of them was lighthearted and their demeanor was playful but she was serious all of a sudden. Not that she wasn't one to joke around and play, but she thought that he should know that she wasn't assuming. That was something she took seriously. "I wasn't assuming or judging, I promise." Alex wrinkled his brow. Why was she so serious all of a sudden? Jo's lips twitched and she licked them. She didn't know why, but something about Alex was just… Natural. He had a natural aura about him that was just so easy to trust. She knew he wouldn't tell anybody. She couldn't explain how she knew, she just did. She had a feeling he was loyal. "...I live in a car," she shrugged her shoulders to downplay it. Alex's eyes widened a bit. "On breaks and stuff and during the summer...I live in a car. I wouldn't judge you for not making a lot of money. I don't really… Assume things about people. Especially when it comes to money."

Alex looked at her face and pondered it for a bit. She seemed embarrassed by it so he figured that maybe he shouldn't make a big deal out of it. But damn, she lived in a car?

"So do you um… Is it… S'it because you're too cheap to pay your own bills? Or what?"

Jo's serious expression wavered and gave way to a lighthearted giggle and she smiled at him. "I have a job, jerk. It just doesn't pay much." She didn't feel the need to shrug this time. She felt much more comfortable. "Been living in it since I was sixteen so you know… Why part with it now?"

"Sixteen?"

"Yep."

"Like… Sophomore in high school sixteen?"

"Sophomore in high school sixteen," she sighed.

"What, did your mom and dad sleep in the trunk?"

He wondered aloud with crassness laced deep in his tone. Jo somehow managed to not take offense. She was starting to learn him, she felt like. Maybe sarcasm was just how he communicated. Maybe he was just naturally a jerk. Instead of roaring at him the way she had done several moments ago when he made a sarcastic, snarky comment, an easy smile lined her face and she was able to be light about it.

"I don't have a mom and dad. I just have me."

Alex tilted his head back as if he had gained new perspective and raised his eyebrows. He couldn't explain why, but something within his conscience felt drawn to her. Willed, even. Just compelled to open up the gate that guarded him and let her inside because that was something they shared. It was a connection that he never had to anyone else in his life. Not Lucy, not Jackson, not anybody.

"Yeah… a car's probably a lot nicer than foster homes," he mumbled.

Jo narrowed her eyes. Okay, she was getting better at decoding his blunt dry humor but that wasn't funny. "Bite me."

"Nah, I'm serious… It was probably better sleeping in a car than in a home," he defended.

Jo's eyes narrowed even more and she blew air out of her nostrils. She leaned against the desk and got a little closer to him. He was clearly mocking her and well...she didn't appreciate it.

"How many foster homes did you get thrown out of?" she pressed him. "How many times did you get settled in one place just to be kicked out and bumped around to the next until you got tired of it?"

"Seventeen," he mumbled again.

"Stop making fun of me!"

"I'm not," he shook his head. "Seventeen in a matter of a few years," he looked down at his desk and sighed. "I didn't live in no car, but Juvi wasn't really all that great either."

"...You're screwing with me."

"Am not."

"Hand to God?"

"Hand to God." He looked her dead in her eyes and lifted his right hand up. "Muh got locked up in an institution, Dad took off when I was young. He was a junkie anyway, but still…," he sighed. "Haven't seen my folks in ages."

"...I'm sorry," Jo whispered. "...If it makes you feel any better, my mom left me in a stroller outside a fire station, so," she shrugged her shoulders and cracked a smile.

Alex snickered and cracked a genuine crooked smile. There wasn't anything funny about their conversation. Nothing about foster kids being dealt the worst hands at life was funny. Nothing about a sixteen-year-old living in a car was funny. Nothing about a kid going to juvenile for stealing food for his kid brother and baby sister was funny. But somehow, Jo managed to make light of it. Somehow, joking about it with her was okay.

"Alright, you win. Your life sucks worse."

Jo nodded her head. "Told ya so."

The foam from his beer tingled when it slithered down his throat, and he belched. Nothing beat sitting on the couch with his feet kicked up, ice cold beer in one hand with the remote in the other after a long day of work. The hockey game was playing on the flat screen TV in front of him and as long as it was playing, he could forget about the rumbling sensation in the pit of his stomach that wouldn't be satisfied until Lucy came through the door and fixed dinner.

"You never did tell me about that brunette," Jackson slurped a sip of his beer and kept his eyes focused on the game. "What was her name?"

"What brunette?" Alex asked, a bit preoccupied with watching the game.

"The one you texted me about."

"Oh," he murmured. "Jo… Yeah she's pretty cool."

"Yeah? She hot?"

"Something like that. She's just cool, really. We hang out. She's more like a buddy…" He clenched his hands into fists and banged on the couch cushions at the way the puck seemed to always miss the goal. "We hung out today."

"She just comes and sits down in your office?" Jackson raised an eyebrow.

"For the most part. Why?"

"Didn't you say your office was in the basement?" he chuckled. "Basement's a good place. Won't hear anything if you make her scream."

"It's not like that," Alex mumbled for the sake of getting his friend to shut up. "If it was, I would've been bent her over the desk."

"Thought you said she was hot."

"She is. Not that kind of hot though."

"What kind of hot then?"

When the game faded to a commercial, Alex turned toward his friend and shook his head. "She ain't that kind of girl. Even if I wanted to, I don't think she would. She seems way too...studious, I guess. Like she wouldn't do it just 'cause I'm me. She seems to care about the grade."

"Think she'd do it if you gave her an F?" Jackson pressed and Alex narrowed his eyes. "I'm just saying. If you slapped an F at the top of her paper, you think she'd do it to change her grade?"

"Probably not. She doesn't seem like the type. Besides… I wouldn't do that to her. She's cool. She's hot but… It's the type of hot that you just kind of admire from a distance. The kind of hot that you don't really act on. She's like… Nerdy hot. Funny, shy loner type. Bookworm-y, anti-social, "She's All That" kind. You know… That type. I'd sleep with her if the chance came up but I'm not gonna go out of my way to. I don't really look at her that way."

"Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting you're not really into brunettes. You like blondes."

"Not true."

"So true. You only ever go after the blondes. First with Iz, now with Cruella…"

"Iz don't count. That was first year. I was young and you see how bad that turned out…she turned out to be a bitch. She doesn't count."

"Don't get so defensive. I'm just saying you clearly have a type," Jackson popped a handful of peanut M&Ms into his mouth. "And the brunette doesn't stand a chance."

"She does too," Alex mumbled. "She's a hot brunette. I'd screw her if I could but… It's the whole cheating thing that's really throwing me off. I'd have to happen in like… That heat of the moment kinda thing. I'm not gonna plan to cheat."

"Yeah, I get that. You don't really wanna cheat on Cruella."

"Not with a student, at least. I could lose my job, get kicked outta school…"

"Only if you get caught."

Inside the room, it was quiet with the only noise coming from the fan that was oscillating around the room. Stephanie was quiet and asleep, the way she had been since Jo decided that it was a decent time to come home from the library at 10:00 before it closed at 10:30. She had successfully gone the entire day without coming face to face with Steph. She wondered if she could do it again tomorrow.

The room was pitch dark, too. Every single light was turned out and the darkness was overwhelming. It was exactly the kind of environment that she and Stephanie liked to sleep in, though. But Jo wasn't doing much sleeping. Her mind had been racing ever since she left his office hours ago.

She wondered what he was doing. He was probably at home in bed with his girlfriend. She was skinny and beautiful and blonde. She was perfect for him. They probably cuddled at night. He probably wrapped his big, muscly arms around her and she probably kissed his toned, firm chest.

At least that's what she'd do if she was his girlfriend.

"Kiss me, Jo," he says and she does. She throws herself in his arms, wraps them around his neck and presses her lips to his. He's a good kisser. His tongue is soft when it explores every inch of her mouth and his hands around her waist are strong.

An entire swarm of butterflies sashayed across her stomach and for the first time in a long time, a dazed, infatuated grin splices her lips in half. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt butterflies. Hell, she couldn't even remember the last time she had a crush. Probably in middle school, it was. But here she was… Lying in bed, staring up at a dark ceiling, letting her mind run wild with crazy fantasies. Unlike her last crush in middle school… She knew about the darker side of fantasies. She knew beyond the ones of her crush kissing her and walking her down the aisle as people threw rice at them and cheered. She knew about the ones that involved her legs shaking. The ones that involved her sweating. The ones that she was starting to have as her eyes drifted close...

"Alex…," she pants his name, wild and out of breath, and stares up at the ceiling as her head rests against the soft pillow. Her fingers are tangled in his hair, her toes curled under and her breath escaping in the form of moans when she lets it out. He's good with his mouth, oh god he is.

She opened her eyes and met the dark ceiling once again, her cheeks hot and flushed with embarrassment. What the hell is wrong with me?! She blows a harsh breath out of her nose and rolls over on her side. But he's so cute. His eyes and his hair and that little smirk… Another goofy grin cracked across her face when she thought about him. She reached over on her nightstand and pulled her phone off the charger.

She opened up her Google app and tapped on the search bar. Her thumbs hesitated and lingered, hovered over the keyboard before she finally took a deep breath and allowed herself to type.

Is it illegal to have an aff…

She tapped on the third result that came up and stared at the results. Is it illegal to have an affair with a teacher.

Get a grip, Jo.

She sighed again and exited out of her app without even reading the results of the question she wanted to know the answer to. She plugged her phone back into the charger, fluffed her pillows and finally gave herself to sleep.