“What are you doing in my apartment like a freak?”
He shrugged. “I was hanging out with Ollie, but he ran to Sheetz to get some nachos.”
“Ah, a nachos night.” Which meant Ollie would be up all night. I shifted my weight. “Are you going to let me in?”
“Well, since it is your place.” He cocked his head to the side, casting half of his swarthy face into a shadow. “I guess so.”
Jase stepped aside, allowing me to squeeze past him. I went straight to the fridge, grabbed a beer and then dropped onto the couch. “You’re not at the farm?”
He shook his head as he joined me, picking up a bottle from the coffee table. “No. Jack is with the grandparents.”
“Ah . . .” That explained it. Jase was usually at his family farm on the weekends.
Jase glanced at me. “Sooo, you were out with the redhead?”
“Shortcake?”
His dark brows slipped out of the wave of hair and knitted. “Huh?”
“Avery’s the redhead. And no. We were doing an astronomy assignment. We’re partners.”
“Oh.” He took a swig of his beer and made a face. “Sooo,” he said again, and I rolled my eyes. “Why were you staring at her apartment door?”
“How do you know?”
“I watched you through the peephole.”
“Nice.” I laughed, taking a drink. A couple of minutes passed and then I said, “I asked her out.”
Jase didn’t look that interested. “Okay.”
“She turned me down.”
His head swung toward me, his dove-gray eyes sparkling with interest. “What?”
“Yep.” I fell back into the couch, grinning. “Turned me down flat.”
Leaning onto the arm of the couch, Jase laughed so hard I think he hurt his stomach. “I like this girl.”
“So do I,” I said, sighing. “So do I.”
Seven
Fresh banana-nut bread cooled on the counter, filling the apartment with its savory scent.
I glanced at the clock on the stove. Five till eight.
Shoving my hands through my damp hair, I gave up on the idea of actually sleeping. In the living room, Ollie was passed out on the floor snoring, and the last time I’d checked my bedroom, Jase was sprawled across the foot of my bed. And there was no way in hell any part of my skin or clothes were touching any part of Ollie’s bed.
It wasn’t so much that Jase and Ollie had kept me awake. At any point during the never-ending night, I could’ve locked myself in my bedroom, but my mind wouldn’t shut down. Some of it had to do with the meeting on Friday and how Dr. Bale had laid everything out. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Jase was going to make things work, because after Ollie had passed out and Jase was more drunk than an entire frat, he started talking, and well, I didn’t know how to help him.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl a few doors down.
Shortcake had turned me down.
I grinned, thinking of how I was going to turn that no into a yes.
Pivoting around, I reached for the fridge and came to a stop. Was that it? The challenge? From the moment I met Avery, she was running from me, and females ran toward me.
But what I said to her last night about why I wanted to go out on a date was true. Avery did interest me. She wasn’t like the girls I hung out with—the well put together, coy and flirtatious ones. Not that anything was wrong with them, but Avery was different. She made me laugh. Maybe not on purpose, but I loved watching her flush over the simplest things, and when she smiled?
Shortcake shone brighter than any chick I knew.
Perhaps it was all that, combined with the challenge. I really didn’t know, and at that moment, as I opened the fridge and grabbed some eggs, I really didn’t care.
I liked her.
And I wasn’t sleeping anytime soon, so why should the object of my current restlessness be sleeping in on a Sunday morning?
The moment the idea sprung to mind, I didn’t even think twice. Shortcake probably wasn’t going to be happy with the plan, but no one—not even her—could resist my banana-nut bread.
Gathering up my items, I strolled toward the front door. There, I heard Ollie mumble, “No tomatoes. Extra bacon.”
“What the?” I looked over my shoulder at him. He was still on his stomach, his check plastered to a throw pillow my mom had given me, dead to the world. “Freak,” I muttered, slipping out of the apartment.
At Avery’s door, I knocked softly at first, not wanting to wake the neighbors, but when a full minute passed and I hadn’t heard footsteps, I knocked hard and kept knocking.
After what felt like an eternity of me banging on her door like the police and turning around to make sure I didn’t have anyone seconds away from shooting my ass, I finally heard footsteps and then the door swung open.
“Is everything okay?” she asked in what was possibly the sexiest voice I’d ever heard.
I spun back to the door, getting an eyeful of a bedraggled Avery.
Coppery hair hung in loose tangles, flowing down her shoulders and grazing the golden skin of her arms. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her in a short-sleeve shirt before. My gaze, all on its own, traveled sideways and stopped, devouring the way the thin shirt she wore stretched across the swell of her breasts. With a will I didn’t know I possessed, I forced my eyes to her flushed face.
Suddenly unsure of what the hell I was doing, I offered a crooked smile and said to hell with it. “No, but it will be in about fifteen minutes.”
“W-w-what?” She moved out of the way as I slipped past her. All the apartments were the same, so I knew where the kitchen was, but I did a quick scan of the living room. The furnishings looked new—the couch and dark end tables. A black moon chair sat beside a TV. No pictures hung on the walls. The moon chair was possibly the most personal thing in the room.
“Cam, what are you doing? It’s eight in the morning.”
“Thanks for the update on the time. It’s one thing I’ve never been able to master: the telling of time.”
She trailed after me, and I could feel her staring daggers in my back. “Why are you here?”
“Making breakfast.”
“You can’t do that in your own kitchen?”
“My kitchen isn’t as exciting as yours.” I placed the eggs and bread on the counter and faced her. Scrubbing her eyes, she looked so damn cute, and I wished I was wearing something more decent than sweats and a shirt I wasn’t even sure was clean. “And Ollie is passed out on the living-room floor.”