Sweet Romance11 min read
The Math Demon, the Wrong Guy, and My Stolen Weekend
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I stretched a hand out for my phone and my fingers closed on something soft and warm instead.
"Hey—" I froze.
A man’s breath tightened, then a voice murmured, "Let go."
I jerked upright, heart slamming against my ribs, and stared at the stranger beside me on the bed.
"Who are you?" I blurted, cheeks burning. My hand had been on his shoulder a second ago and his skin was warm and there was a patch of red on his left shoulder like a bruise.
"You tell me," he said through clenched teeth.
He was handsome in a sharp, pale way. For a second my brain scrambled and only a name bubbled up—my brother, Fleming Doyle.
"Fleming—" I stopped myself. I remembered now. Fleming had promised to introduce me to one of his classmates—a supposedly extremely handsome guy who also failed calculus. Fleming had begged me to pose as a parent for a professor who wanted a home visit. I had said yes because Fleming had promised that help would be returned. I had not imagined any of this.
"Reminder, Iris," he said.
I blinked.
"Iris?" His voice softened for a beat and then clipped back. "Iris, you—"
"Pardon me," I said, cheeks flaming. "I thought—"
I thought of excuses that were useless. Last night I’d gone out dancing, drunk enough to be bold. Fleming had called me, breathless and weird, and I remembered one sentence: "He’s on his way over."
A memory hit like lightning. In the dim hotel lobby I had dragged a very wrong person back to a room. I had teased him, pinched, kissed, and whispered stupid things—things I had no memory of until now.
"You remember?" he asked quietly.
"Yes." I nodded and ducked my head, choosing the classic ostrich strategy.
The hotel room hummed. He sat there, composed. I fidgeted with my feet.
"Don't worry," I said, trying to sound confident. "I'll handle the calculus demon. I’ll make him listen. That mean old professor—he's clearly not a good man."
He blinked. Confusion, anger, then something unreadable flashed across his face.
"My mistake," I thought. I’d been drunk and stupid and had grabbed the wrong person. Now I had to fix it.
"Fleming told you to come here?" he asked.
"Yes." I tried to smile.
He was silent for a long time. "Fleming didn't tell me to come to your place."
Wait. What?
"No, he did." My voice cracked. "He said it would help with the home visit."
He looked at me slowly. "Fleming didn't say anything about introducing me."
I felt ice under my feet. Fleming had lied to me and to this man.
"But I—" My face flamed. "I already—"
My throat closed. I had already— God, I swallowed.
He rose and moved toward me.
"Fleming set this up?" he repeated.
I panicked. My back hit the wall. He closed the space between us until I couldn't step back any more.
"Wake up and take responsibility?" he said softly, pressing the edge of his voice like an accusation.
I felt my scalp prickle with embarrassment. I had said and done things I could not remember clearly. I wanted to apologize, but a thousand humiliations rushed in with every memory: the way I teased him in the bar, the ridiculous lines I had delivered, the way I had pinched and kissed him. I wanted the ground to open.
He stared at me.
"What is your name?" I blurted, a ridiculous attempt to redirect.
His jaw tightened. "Iris, you've done a lot. You know my name," he said. "You're the one who acted."
I grimaced. My brain offered one dumb defense: "Fleming is the one who said he would introduce me to a friend. He said it would be okay."
He inhaled sharply. "My name is Ellis Cherry."
"Ellis." I tasted the name on my tongue. Ellis Cherry, the calculus demon at the university. Twenty-eight, brilliant, fearless, rumored to break students in two. I had called him many worse things that morning.
"What do you plan to do about what you did?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" My voice came out thin.
He bent close and pinched my cheek just like I had pinched his. "Make amends."
I was so embarrassed I wanted to cry. For a second it seemed like he might be furious—then he smiled, dangerously calm.
"You came here because of Fleming?" he said.
"Yes." I nodded.
"Fleming is a handful," he said. "He'll be fine, but things won't be fixed unless someone takes responsibility."
"Responsibility?" I repeated.
He got up, smoothed his sleeve, and said, "I can’t change your past, Iris. But I can offer one thing: I will teach your brother and his friend calculus before the makeup exam."
"Really?" I said, relief flooding stupidly across my face.
"But," he added, eyes glittering with mischief, "you must be present the whole time."
I blinked. "Present?"
"Yes," he said. "You have to sit there every session. No leaving."
I breathed out. That was a small price for saving Fleming’s degree. I agreed.
"Good," he said. Then, as if remembering the earlier pinch, he tugged my hair one more time and left.
I ran out of the hotel like a lunatic, shivering under my big winter coat. Later at home Fleming greeted me with puppy enthusiasm.
"So?" he bounced. "How was he?"
"Which one?" I asked.
Fleming smiled and produced a shy-looking classmate. "This is the guy I told you about. Cute, right?"
My head spun. There had been two guys? The wrong one in the hotel and this one at home? My stomach dropped.
"Don't ask questions," Fleming said, dragging me inside. "Did you convince the calculus demon to be merciful?"
I froze. How could I possibly explain? I had done more than convince. I had made a fool of myself in a hotel with the wrong man. My cheeks felt like they'd explode.
He pulled out his phone. A contact named CALCULUS DEMON flashed. I nearly lunged for the door.
"Fleming—" I tried to plead.
"Wait," he said, and he dragged his classmate to the door. "This is my classmate, Austin McCormick. He'll also take makeup. Tell me, big sister, did you do it?"
My brain wrote blank checks of panic. I wanted to tell him everything except the truth. Instead, in a surge of poor judgment, I slammed a hand over the wrong man's mouth and kissed him.
It was a reflex. My only thought was to keep him quiet. I locked eyes with him, and the world narrowed down to his surprised eyes and the pounding of my heart.
He pushed my hand away, breath ragged. Fleming's mouth fell open, the classmate turned pale, and I was mortified into silence.
"No one say a word," I hissed. "Nobody breathe."
Fleming looked at me like I was suddenly dangerous and nodded. He scurried off with his classmate, leaving me with the man I had kissed.
Ellis looked at me hard. "You really are something," he said. "You know how to get into trouble."
I couldn't look him in the eyes. "I'm sorry," I whispered.
He just smiled that quiet, unreadable smile. "I won't change your brother's grade," he said, "but I will tutor him. In return, you keep your promise: be present."
"Fine," I said. I thought I sounded dignified. I didn't.
After that, Ellis started coming by. He came to the apartment, calm and severe, and for a while I thought my punishment would simply be sitting in the corner while he put two students through educational torment.
"Ellis," I said once, watching him hand a paper to Fleming. "You're early."
He looked at me. "You brought two enthusiastic pupils."
"They're dramatic," I said, and the two boys wailed in the living room like small old men.
Ellis's eyes softened in a way that made something thaw inside me. He reached out and fixed a stray hair at my temple. "You shouldn't have to do this," he murmured.
My chest did weird tango steps. "I know. But I owe Fleming."
He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "You always save reckless siblings," he said.
"What about you?" I challenged, trying to look tough.
"I'm Ellis," he said, and the tilt of his mouth made me forget to be brave. "I do math."
That winter, our lives became a series of tutoring sessions, tangled with ridiculous personal moments I would not have predicted.
"You're not supposed to be this vulnerable," Ellis told me once while I stirred a pot of slow-cooked chicken soup in his kitchen.
"Who says I'm vulnerable?" I asked.
He shrugged, inhaling the steam. "You are. You pretend to be a show, but you care too much."
"I'm fine," I said, but my voice cracked. He smiled at me like I’d said the most precious thing in the world.
There were days when I wanted to push him away and days I wanted to crawl into his lap and stay. He kept me honest by doing small things no one else did.
One cold afternoon he took his jacket off and draped it over my shoulders without saying a word.
"You're freezing," he said.
I felt like someone had reached inside my chest and pressed a thumb on my ribs. "Thank you." I had never had that simple care wrapped around me like a blanket.
"Don't get used to it," he muttered, but his fingers lingered a beat too long.
Our back-and-forth became a game. I teased him; he corrected my grammar. I tried to embarrass him; he blinked and then kissed my forehead.
"You owe me for that night," he said once, voice low.
"I already paid," I said.
He cocked an eyebrow. "How?"
"By making me tutor Fleming," I said.
"That's not payment," he argued.
"Then prove it." I grinned.
He smiled, and it was like the first thaw after a long winter. "Fine. I will prove it."
We had moments that were slick with small electric contact. Once, in the library, his hand brushed mine while passing a book. "Sorry," he murmured, but he didn't pull away.
"Don't be," I whispered.
Another time, after a lesson, he walked me to the subway and fixed a loose button on my coat, fingers grazing my palm. "There," he said, simple as a prayer.
"Thank you," I said, but my heart was the one answering.
We argued too. He had an expression when he was about to scold—one I adored and feared. "You can't keep forcing yourself into danger," he said sharply once.
"I was protecting my family," I shot back.
"By getting yourself into messes?" he asked.
"You don't get it." I wanted to say so many things, the important ones wrapped in a silly shell.
"Maybe I do," he said, and then he reached out and tucked the collar of my coat. "You do things because you care."
I wanted to say that he did things because he cared too. I wanted to say that I realized now, absurdly, that I had missed him during the two weeks he was on leave. I wanted to say that when he came back, seeing him waiting at the station made my heart do crazy things.
Instead, I asked, "Why did you come to my town?"
He hesitated. "You looked like you might run away."
That was not an answer. I shoved him playfully. "Are you jealous of a traveling sister who runs away for two weeks?"
"Not jealous," he said, and his voice became small. "Worried."
"That's almost as sweet," I said.
When the makeup exam came, both Fleming and Austin passed. They hugged each other and cried like two kids who'd climbed a mountain.
"I did all the work," Ellis said softly when he came to congratulate them.
"You did everything," I said.
He looked at me and smiled. "Thank you for enduring the lectures."
"It wasn't all lectures," I said. "You made soup once."
He reached out and smoothed my hair. "You helped more than you know," he murmured.
Then he cupped my face and kissed me like winter turning into spring. It was gentle, inevitable, and for a moment I forgot to breathe.
"Are we done with our contract?" I asked breathlessly when we pulled apart.
"For tutoring? Yes," he said.
"For this," I said, awkward.
"For this?" He looked at me like I had asked the sun a question.
"For whatever we were doing."
He took my hand. "No. I don't think so."
I pretended to be outraged. "You said the contract ended."
"I am not a contract man," he said. "And I don't like losing."
"So you're keeping me on." I smiled.
"Officially," he said. "Unofficially, you'll keep me."
We laughed and the world felt absurdly right.
After the exam, I tried to go back to normal. I took nine days off and booked a train ticket to nowhere in particular. I told myself I needed space, that I needed to remember who I was without Ellis watching over me like a star.
On the train, late at night, I scrolled Fleming's school forum and saw a post: Ellis Cherry would be on leave for two weeks. My chest clenched.
Two days later, I arrived at a small town and checked into a cheap hotel. I was trying to be brave and independent.
I didn't expect him to be there.
"You're Iris," he said when I stepped out from the ticket gate.
My stomach dropped like a stone. "Ellis?"
He looked tired. "You came alone."
"I needed air," I admitted.
"You said you might take a job out of town," he said.
"What?" I tried to keep my face neutral.
"Fleming mentioned you were thinking of leaving." He drew me close. "Don't go."
"Why are you here?" I demanded and then my voice melted. "Why would you follow me?"
"Because when you disappear, something in me presses like an alarm," he said. "And I have this stupid habit of not letting things go."
A wave of relief crashed through me. "So you'll stay?"
He kissed my forehead. "Yes."
"I want you to say you love me," I blurted, suddenly childish with want.
He hesitated, then smiled the crooked smile that made my heart do small jumps. "I love you, Iris."
It was both weaker and more than I had dared hope. I felt brave enough to say things now. "I love you too."
He hugged me until my glasses fogged. "Then let's stop pretending our contract defines us."
We spent the rest of that week like reckless teenagers. We ate badly, fell asleep tangled, argued about math the way other couples argued about movies. I introduced him to ridiculous songs; he corrected my pronunciations.
Once, we went to a seaside cliff at sunrise. "Promise you won't leave me alone?" he whispered.
"I won't promise things like that," I teased.
"Please," he said simply.
I looped my arm through his. "No promises," I said, "but I will try."
He laughed. "That's the best promise."
We were not perfect. I still raged sometimes, especially about Fleming. He had the maddening habit of putting us into awkward situations. During one drunken night in the city, I accused Fleming of setting me up on purpose.
"Why would I do that?" Fleming protested, looking like a small wounded animal.
"Because you like chaos," I accused.
Fleming fixed me with his most sincere face. "I only wanted you to have fun."
"Fun!" I shouted. "You nearly made me marry a stranger in a hotel!"
Ellis watched us, arms crossed. Then he turned to me and said, "You could have told the truth."
"I didn't remember everything!" I cried.
"You didn't try to explain," he said.
"How do you explain kissing a stranger in full daylight?" I wailed.
He sighed, then took my hand. "By being honest now."
So I was. I told him the whole ridiculous truth. He listened, expression gentle and strange. When I finished, he pulled me close and kissed all the apologies off my face.
"See?" he said. "Honesty didn't hurt us."
"You're impossible," I muttered.
"And you are dramatic," he answered.
We kept building a life that fit in the seams of ordinary days. He introduced me to lean nights of research and I introduced him to wild nights of karaoke. He taught me patience; I taught him how to order spicy food.
One night, at a rooftop party with my friends, a stranger tried to be obnoxious to me. Ellis stepped between us without asking. He did it quietly, like it was natural that he protect me.
"I told you he's not for you," he murmured into my hair.
My friends noticed. "He's different with you," one whispered.
"Yeah," another agreed, watching us with the same small awe I felt every time he smiled at me for no reason.
When we had a fight about something silly—him being distant because of a paper and me being suspicious about the silence—he insisted on resolving it in public at a crowded café.
"Iris," he said, face open. "I don't want to be with someone who thinks I will leave them."
"Don't say things like that when I'm angry," I snapped.
"You tell me how you want me to be," he said.
"I want you to stay," I said, voice softer.
He put his hand over mine. "Then I will."
Our friends clapped. A stranger at the next table whispered, "Cute couple."
We laughed.
When the season changed and the days warmed, Ellis brought me back to the place where the first absurd hotel incident began to feel like a strange dream. We sat on the same bench, and he took my hand.
"Do you ever regret teaching them?" I asked.
"Sometimes," he admitted. "The boys were difficult in ways that made me tired."
"Was I difficult?" I asked.
He turned the question over. "You were reckless and lovely and you were honest as soon as you could be. That matters."
"And you?" I pressed. "Were you hard to like?"
He smiled. "Maybe. But you liked it anyway."
I rolled my eyes. "Flatterer."
He kissed me. "I mean it, Iris. You pulled at something hard to reach."
"You're sentimental," I teased.
"I'm persistent," he said.
We had a future sketched in small strokes—dumb inside jokes, cookbook disasters, late-night lectures turned into love notes, and the tiny, miraculous way he always knew how I liked my eggs.
The day I was to return to the city, I packed slowly. Ellis came to the station with me. "Stay," he said softly, almost a plea.
"I can't," I said. "Work."
"Then come back soon."
"I will."
He kissed me, long and sure, and when the train finally moved, I waved until his figure blurred and the screen of the window merged with my reflection.
Later, when I checked my phone, a message from Fleming popped up: "Thanks, sis."
I smiled. I tipped my head against the train window and remembered the weird, fumbling way the story had begun—with a wrong man in a hotel, a lie that backfired, a calculus demon who refused to be a demon to me, and a brother who caused more problems than he solved.
And I thought of Ellis’s hand on my head, his fierce quiet care, the slow chicken soup and the nights filled with math and laughter, and I realized certain stories refused neat endings.
They preferred the messy way we lived them: late trains, sudden kisses, and promises not in ink but in small, steady acts.
I put my phone away and watched the town shrink. The train hummed, and for the first time in a long while I felt like I was heading somewhere I could stay.
The End
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