Joel didn’t want to admit it, but Potions class was a lot harder without his brother at his table.  He’d never realized quite how much he depended on Tucker’s unspoken assistance, and ever since his brother had dropped the class, his marks had been less than stellar.  Joel wasn’t a poor student, and he did his lessons carefully, but somehow his book knowledge didn’t translate very well when it came to actually getting the right things into the cauldron.  The subtle variations in the way the potion looked was hard to decipher in these dark dungeons and some ingredients looked so similar that he just couldn’t understand why it was that others could just pick them right out with apparent ease.  Group work – working with anybody – tended to help a great deal.  Just having somebody else who was invested in the cauldron to catch his errors made a big difference.

Naturally, he was partnered with Cora, and by the time he was at the workstation beside her, he was already thinking about her naked, which wasn’t exactly going to help him concentrate.  Time had softened his anger with her and, though he couldn’t say he’d forgiven her exactly, he thought maybe he understood a little more of her position.  All of it just hurt, though, all around.  That didn’t stop the memories of her naked body from piling up in his mind when he got too near her, though.  

“Cora,” he said by way of hello.  Joel thumped his textbook onto the table, flipping through to the potion they were to prepare.  “Want to fetch the ingredients while I get the cauldron going, then?”


JOEL WATKINS