We stared at each other silently for a while, so long that it ultimately became awkward and strained. I wanted to ask her to ditch Adam and come, and I think she wanted me to ask her to ditch Adam and come, because she would do it. But if she wanted a boring, predictable Valentine’s date with a douche bag in a sweater vest, who was I to stop her? I was never going to be a guy who had an advanced degree and a five-year fiscal plan. I was never going to be a guy who valued safety and security above passion and creativity. I sure as fuck was never going to be a guy who wore argyle in public.

“Well, you should have a nice time. Let Adam take you out and give you a nice romantic night. You deserve it.” I almost choked on the words, but I got them out.

Something moved across her pretty face that I couldn’t read. Ayden was really good at that, hiding her emotions behind a flirty smile and a sarcastic comeback. Whatever it was disappeared as she picked up my empty glass and asked if I wanted a refill. I nodded silently and turned back to Rowdy. He was watching me dispassionately and pushed his full pint of beer in my direction.

“We getting shit-faced?”

I tried to exhale around the band that had tightened in my chest, and nodded sharply.

“Yep, sounds about right.”

Chapter 3

Ayden

I called the Kentucky number back every day for the rest of the week and never got an answer. I called my mom and she had no clue who it might be. She insisted that she hadn’t heard from Asa in months and got mad when I asked her if he was in jail. My brother was an easy guy to take up for—charming, unassuming, and effortlessly attractive and suave. He was the kind of guy who could steal the shirt off your back while you were still wearing it and then convince you it was your idea to give it to him all along. He made you want to take care of him at all cost even though he would never, ever return the favor.

I couldn’t fathom why he would suddenly have a pressing need to get ahold of me, but it still gave me a sense of apprehension that I couldn’t shake. On top of that, I swore I had seen the same guy I thought I recognized earlier, walking in the neighborhood near the house the last two times I had headed out for a run. I was tempted to stop and ask him if we knew each other, but I still kept my distance from strangers after the attack on Shaw at our old apartment. Granted, she had been cornered by a lunatic ex-boyfriend bent on making her his by any means necessary, but I figured better safe than sorry.

I would have mentioned it to Jet, as the de facto man of the house, but over the last few days I got the impression he was upset with me and was purposely avoiding me, so I hadn’t had much of a chance to say anything to him. Something had happened when I told him I didn’t know if I was going to the show on Saturday, some subtle shift that changed things between us, and I didn’t know what it was or what to do about it.

In all honesty, I didn’t want to spend Valentine’s Day with Adam. He was such a sweet guy and he was exactly what I was convinced I should be looking for in a long-term partner. But when he had come strolling into the bar with those ridiculous flowers and that box of chocolates, just like a scene out of Pretty Woman, all I wanted to do was find a place to hide.

I knew he wanted Valentine’s Day to be a big night. He had been pressing for our relationship to get more serious the last couple times we went out, but even though I tried, and gave myself pep talk after pep talk, I just couldn’t drum up an inkling of the desire for him that I felt for Jet.

In fact, the last time I had sex with a guy was with a fellow chem major named Kyle. I had used him to try to rid myself of the memory and humiliation of Jet’s rejection the previous winter. The only purpose it had served was to make me feel worse than I had before and to remind me that good-girl sex was entirely boring and unsatisfying. That was why such a huge part of me was so drawn to Jet. Sure, his future plans, or lack thereof, concerned me, but the real reason I needed to stay as far away as possible had to do with more than that. The way he simply made me want to let it all go and just be with him made my blood freeze up and my better judgment scream and holler.

I might hate that girls wandered in and out of his room across the hall on a fairly regular basis, but I was honest enough with myself to admit that not a single one of them looked like they left wanting more or like they were in any way unsatisfied. It made me want to tie him down and have at it myself, but that wasn’t in the cards. So in the meantime I had to decide what I was going to do about Adam.

I knew it wasn’t fair to keep stringing him along if I wasn’t willing to commit to something more serious. I knew it wasn’t fair for me to try to keep fitting these perfect guys into a role I needed them to fill for my perfect vision of the future, only to ultimately deem them not right. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what the alternative was. Deep down, I knew what I really wanted, what I ultimately desired, but we didn’t fit. Jet didn’t fit into my flawless vision, and I had a feeling that trying to make him fill any other role than the one he was already occupying would destroy more than just our friendship. Jet wasn’t the kind of guy that respected boundaries.

I was sitting at a table outside the library at the college mulling all of this over and not paying any attention to what was going on around me, when a heavy anatomy book slammed down in front of me on the table. I jumped a little and glared at my best friend as she lowered herself into the chair across from me.

Shaw Landon was the opposite of me in every way one could imagine. She was short, with almost-white blond hair and leafy green eyes, and came from a background flooded with wealth and privilege. She was also shy, sweet and, as of late, so ridiculously happy and in love, it took a concentrated effort not to gag all over her.

Don’t get me wrong. I was very happy she had finally come clean about her feelings for Rule and that after some serious damage and some serious making up, they had figured out how to make things work between them. I had to admit I was a little jealous that even though they seemed to be so different, it was incidental when it came to just simply being together. I didn’t know how to do that. If I did, I wouldn’t be sexually frustrated and contemplating hurting a very nice guy for no other reason than he just didn’t do it for me or have me daydreaming about skintight pants and what was inside them.

“I called your name like four times. You looked like you were trying to figure out something pretty serious over here.”

We both went to DU and were both in our junior year. Shaw wanted to be a doctor so she was looking at a longer haul than I was, but it was nice that a couple of our upper-level undergrad classes now overlapped. I rarely saw her unless we went out or were at work together, and even then, chances were she left early to go home to Rule or to study. I missed her, and while Cora was fun and I enjoyed spending time with her, talking to her was different from talking to Shaw.

I traced the image on the front of the book with a finger nail and refused to look up at her. “I’m thinking it’s time to cut Adam loose.”

“Hmm . . . This wouldn’t have anything to do with Valentine’s Day would it?”

I made a face and sat back in the chair with a sigh. “Maybe.”

Looking into those green eyes of hers was like looking into a raw piece of emerald. She watched me for a second before sitting back and copying my pose with her arms crossed over her chest.

“What do you want to do tomorrow night?”