The receptionist positioned at the front of the tutoring center glanced up at him over horn-rimmed glasses when he leaned against her desk. "Can I help you with something honey?" she asked politely.

He nodded, staring at the faces of the tutors on the wall behind her. "Yeah, I'm supposed to meet with someone for my Spanish class," he said uncomfortably. "My name is Jacob Prescott."

The older woman's fingernails clacked against her keyboard as she typed his name in. She hummed some tune that Jake couldn't quite remember the name to as she waited for the computer to bring up the proper results, then loudly clicked a few more times. After a few more moments of silence, she glanced up at him over the plaque on her desk that read Deloris and asked, "You're a Senior, ain't you?"

"I sure hope so," he said, flashing his best 'what a charming young man' grin at her. Deloris just nodded and turned back to her computer.

Almost a full minute passed before Deloris looked back up. "What are you still doing here?" she asked sharply. "Maria's waiting for you. Table Twelve." She rolled her eyes as though he were the one wasting her time.

Jake decided that it wasn't worth his time to try to correct her, and with a polite smile he stepped through the doorway to find his tutor.

It was strange, finding a place on campus that he was so unfamiliar with even though he'd been attending classes at UNSC for more than three years. He should have become familiar with the tutoring center back when he was going through his accounting classes, but his pride and hatred of the subject kept him away.

It was almost funny that now, after having struggled his way through the most difficult classes of his major, he was having to forgo his pride and ask for help with an elective credit. The truth was that while a 100-level Spanish class seemed like a great idea at the time that he was registering for it, Jake Prescott eventually had to admit to himself that he didn't know any Spanish - and if he didn't ask for some outside help, he wasn't likely to pass the class.

He scanned over the tables, passing them row by row as the number posted on them rose one at a time. He kept hoping to recognize somebody here - any of his friends, someone from his class, anybody. No dice. With increasing embarrassment, he continued his search.

When he finally found the number 12, Jake tugged the chair away from the table and settled heavily into it without so much as glancing at the tutor sitting across from him. When he looked around and saw only people younger than him, his embarrassment worsened.

"Hola," a friendly voice said from across the table, drawing him out of his cocoon of shame. "Me llamo Maria."

He raised his eyes enough to take her in, and suddenly couldn't remember what he was so worried about being here for. The girl sitting across from him had curly brown hair so dark it was almost black. Her eyes were wide and open, looking like pools of melted chocolate he found himself tempted to dive into head-first. Her smile was so dazzling he forgot to listen to the words she said, opting instead to only pay attention to the way her lips formed them

He finally registered that she was speaking when she repeated herself. "¿Cómo te llamas?" she asked with a friendly smile.

Faced with such a beauty as sat before him now, Jake realized that he found himself in a pivotal moment. First impressions stuck, after all, and if he ever wanted a chance to see Maria outside of the tutoring center, he knew this was a make-or-break kind of moment.

Reaching deep within himself and drawing on every ounce of charm and social grace bestowed upon him by his parents and his upbringing in rural Idaho, he said, "Uh . . . Jake."

Not a good start.

Maria simply nodded, saying, "Encantado de conocerte, Jake. ¿En qué trabajaremos hoy?"

The only thing he understood from the entire phrase was his name. "I don't think I follow," he said with a bashful grin.

Maria cocked her head to the side quizzically.

"Do you think we could just try to . . . ease into it?" Jake asked hopefully.

Maria's expression softened slightly. "Lo siento," she said sympathetically. "No hablo inglés."

A pit formed in Jake's stomach. 'No hablo ingles' - those were three words he did understand. With a tired sigh, Jake pulled his Spanish-101 textbook from his backpack and dropped it on the table between them with a thud.

It was going to be a long few weeks.

It was just two meetings into their regular sessions that he casually let slip that she might be the most beautiful girl he'd ever met.

He had grown accustomed to simply speaking his mind throughout their appointments, pausing infrequently to muscle his way through a poorly-structured question in Spanish. She watched him like a hawk throughout, helping him by pointing out conjugation or grammar errors wherever she found them or helping him with his pronunciation.

When the unbidden compliment managed to worm its way from his lips - in the midst of a story about his ex-girlfriend he accidentally said, "She couldn't hold a candle to you, though. Not sure anyone could." - he stared at her in shock and terror for several long seconds, waiting for her to react adversely to what he had said.

When she just evenly met his gaze, then finally reached for her phone to use the front-facing camera to make sure there wasn't something on her face as he continued to stare at her, his heart slowed back to its usual rate and he was able to move on.

They fell into a routine. Maria continued to help him through his homework in whatever way she could, and Jake continued to talk to her in English as he worked. It was almost therapeutic, cathartic even, to talk about the ridiculous crush he had for her and know that he was safe from her ever actually knowing what he said.

Maria had even taken to casually speaking her mind aloud to him in Spanish - at times it was like they were carrying on full conversations without ever understanding a word the other said.

It seemed odd to him that a student would be working as a tutor on campus without a working English vocabulary, but he supposed stranger things had happened. A large portion of UNSC's students were Hispanic, after all. Maybe she was just accustomed to working with people who were native Spanish speakers - or at least students from higher-level classes on the subject.

Still, he did make an effort to speak the language as much as he could. Partly because he really did want to learn the language, and partly because it was practically intoxicating watching Maria's eyes light up when he stumbled his way through trying to describe steer wrestling to her in Spanish.

Over the weeks Jake's internal filter became progressively weaker. During just one session he casually told Maria that she had the prettiest voice he'd ever heard, that he sometimes wished he could swim laps in her eyes, and that he was suspicious there was some sort of love potion in her shampoo.

Of course, she hadn't understood a single word he said - which was a-okay by him. The whole scenario would have been downright pathetic otherwise.

Jake nervously ran his hand through his hair, gnawing viciously on the gum in his mouth. He took a detour on the way to the tutoring center to splash some cold water on his face and check himself over in the mirror once more.

Today's the day.

He had found out pretty early on that the University of Northern South Carolina had a strict no-dating rule between tutors and the students they tutored - it was about keeping relationship drama out of the academics, or something like that.

But today was the last day of the semester. After today, Maria wouldn't be his tutor anymore. That changed things.

The boys had been helping him study up and practice what he was going to say to her for days now. They even rounded up some native Spanish speakers to help him with his pronunciation - as best they could, anyway. When Jake woke up that morning he felt confident, and ready to take on whatever answer Maria could give him.

Now, sitting across the table from her and doing his best not to squint in the light of her dazzling smile, he felt anything but confident.

Still. He had to do this. If he didn't ask her now, then he'd never forgive himself for missing the chance.

Their allotted hour was drawing to a close. Maria was in the middle of telling him a story that he didn't understand - though he was getting better, catching a word or phrase here and there as she spoke - when she paused to give him that same quizzical look and cock her head to one side. "¿Qué te pasa, Jake?" she asked, "Pareces distraído."

Jake took several deep breaths, retrieving the small sticky note he'd placed in his breast pocket that morning. He consulted the neon yellow paper for a moment before looking back up at Maria.

"¿Te gustaría tener una cita conmigo?" he finally choked out. He could feel his face turn red with embarrassment. He tried to resist the urge to get up and run away from her, steeling himself for whatever answer she would have for him.

Maria's eyes widened in some surprise, though honestly not as much as Jake would have expected. Then her face split into a pearl-white smile and she laughed - one of the most wonderful sounds he'd ever heard, though given the circumstances he was more likely to use the word horrible. She didn't say anything for a long, long, minute. Finally her phone buzzed, signaling that it was now 2:00 p.m., and their appointment was over.

Jake picked up his backpack, trying his best not to let his shattered heart show on his face. He was turning to leave when he felt a hand land on his forearm.

"Jake," Maria said, her smile as blinding as ever, "I would love to go on a date with you."

Jake's mouth dropped open. "I thought you didn't . . ." he trailed off, all words failing him now as he thought of all of the time he'd spent thinking she didn't understand a word he said. "Does that mean you understood everything I've been telling you this semester?" He winced, thinking back to all of the heart-eyed compliments he had paid her under the security blanket of a language barrier.

"Every word," Maria said with a smirk. "Pretending to only speak Spanish is just a strategy I like to use with students to make you work harder on the language. Of course, typically I only let students sweat it out for one or two appointments before letting them know - but I just had too much fun listening to you."

She rose on her tiptoes to get closer to his ear. "And between you and me? Maybe I did put a love potion in my hair," she whispered, leaning back to give him a wink.

Jake was still staring, slack-jawed and stock-still - no doubt appearing to all the world like a wax model from the campus museum's neanderthal exhibit that someone put in a button-up shirt and a pair of Ariat cowboots - when Maria took the yellow sticky note from his hand and wrote something down on it.

"I have other students, cowboy," she said with another smile, turning him toward the door with a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I'll talk to you later."

Then he was out the door, standing still enough in front of Deloris's desk that one would be forgiven for assuming he'd been cemented there. Finally, he looked down at the slip of paper in his hand.

On it was written a phone number and the message, Salgo a las seis, with a tiny heart dotting the 'i.'

His mind finally coming to terms with what had transpired, a toothy grin wedged its way onto Jake's face. He thrust both hands into the air triumphantly and let out a sound suspiciously close to a 'yeehaw.'

Jake vowed to himself that from that day forward he would be spending a lot of time in the tutoring center.