Deciding that was as good as it was going to get, Liz walked out of the restroom and back down the hallway. She stopped short of the exit when she heard her name from one of the guys.

“No, seriously, she’s really fucking hot,” Hannity said.

Liz peered around the corner and saw all of the guys nodding, agreeing. Hayden just shrugged. They hadn’t seen her, and while it felt wrong to eavesdrop, she was curious.

“Are you telling me you still haven’t slept with her?” Bynum asked, gesturing with his hands.

“It’s not a big deal,” Hayden told them.

Liz’s cheeks burned even as Hayden defended her. She knew guys talked about this shit. She and Victoria were ten times as vulgar, but somehow it embarrassed her in this context. They didn’t know that she was merely steps from them, but how long did they think she took in the bathroom?

“I mean, we thought you were gay when you claimed you were hung up on this girl all year,” Lightsey said with a shrug.

“You’re one to talk, Lightsey,” Cush yelled, punching him in the arm.

“Back the fuck off, Cush.”

“Fucking make me!”

“Christ,” Hannity cried, knocking Cush back. “You sprinters need to get off the juice.”

The guys all laughed. Steroids were banned even for the club team, but everyone joked that the sprinters used it to take seconds off of their time.

“Is she a virgin or something? What’s the hang-up?” Hannity asked. “You guys have been hanging out for weeks and you haven’t even tried anything? She doesn’t seem like a prude to me. So, what’s wrong with her?”

“There’s nothing wrong with her, you asshole,” Hayden said, shaking his head. Whatever else he said was lost to her as she took a few steps back toward the bathroom and leaned her head against the wall.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.

It had only been a month. Why were guys such dicks about that shit? She and Hayden didn’t have to sleep together in the first month. It was a perfectly reasonable amount of time. Hayden wouldn’t push. He respected her and her decisions. Plus, he had defended her to his friends.

They were just being dudes. They never would have said that shit if they knew she had been listening. She just needed to calm down, laugh it off. There was nothing wrong with her.

Liz took a deep breath and walked out into the bar with her head held high.

“Lizzie,” Hayden said, reaching out for her. She let him draw her into him. “You took out your bows.”

“I figured I didn’t need to look as much like a Christmas bomb away from the party.”

“I thought you looked cute.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, unsuccessfully stifling a yawn. She hadn’t even thought that she was tired, but all of the energy had drained right out of her at those comments.

“Hey, do you want to get out of here?” Hayden asked.

Liz nodded. She really did want to get far, far away from this moment. “Are you okay to drive?” She hadn’t paid attention to how much he had been drinking, but after her friend Justin’s DUI, she wasn’t going to make the mistake of getting in the car with someone who had been drinking ever again.

“Yeah. I only had one at the other party,” he told her as he placed his mostly full beer back on the bar.

“Y’all aren’t leaving, are you?” Bynum asked.

“Yeah, man, we’re going to head out. Liz has class early on Fridays.”

“All right. Y’all take care.”

Hayden shook hands with all of the guys. A glint of mischief was evident in Hannity’s eyes as he stared between them. He gave her another hug that she tried to escape, making him laugh. And then they were free and walking back toward Hayden’s car, getting inside, then driving to her house.

Liz let Hayden open the door for her, and she trudged inside, exhaustion taking over. She grabbed a pair of yoga pants and a sweater from a drawer and walked into the bathroom to change out of her silly Christmas attire. She returned a minute later to find Hayden looking at the pictures on her dresser.

He turned around when she walked back into the room and shot her a dazzling smile. “Hey, gorgeous.”

She bit her lip and walked over to him. Hayden wound his finger through her hair and her eyes closed of their own accord. He ran his hands along her scalp and over the tense muscles in her neck. She couldn’t help it when a moan escaped her lips.

God, she just wanted to let herself get lost in this moment. She wanted to feel his lips against hers, have him press her back into the bed, to just give in to the emotions warring through her. But thoughts of Brady crept in, coupled with the words of Hayden’s friends, and it all just felt so wrong. She had never had this happen before. She usually just let romance run its own course, but every time it seemed to begin with Hayden, she felt a Brady stumbling block cross her path. Her body stiffened and she couldn’t continue.

Reading her body language, Hayden pulled back to look at her. “Are you all right?”

Liz nodded and then after a second shook her head. No point in keeping it from him. That wouldn’t help anything, and she wasn’t ever going to go further with him if she kept this feeling bottled up inside of her. And she liked Hayden.

“What’s going on?” he asked, drawing her toward her bed. It had a big comfy queen-size feather-top mattress that she sank into when she sat down. She scooted closer to the center.

“I heard what your friends were saying at the bar,” she said in a rush.

Color drained out of Hayden’s face. She had never seen him look so ashamed and uncomfortable.

“I don’t know what you think about . . . this relationship,” she said. “But I didn’t know that there was anything wrong with me for waiting.”

“Liz, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I know. And I feel stupid for even bringing this up or feeling bad about it . . .”

“Please don’t feel stupid,” he said, taking her hands in his. “The guys are the stupid ones. They don’t know anything about a real relationship, and they don’t know anything about our relationship.”

“They seemed to know quite a bit about our relationship.” Liz arched an eyebrow.

“I would never want you to feel bad for your choices, Liz.” He paused as if deciding what to say next, and then he moved closer to her on the bed and brought her hands to his lips and placed a kiss there. His hazel eyes, almost green in the dim light, stared back up at her then like he couldn’t ever convey enough with just words. “If you don’t want to have s . . . go further with our relationship, then we can wait. I’m not in a rush.”

“I’m not in a rush either,” she whispered, lost in his gaze, in his sincerity, in that smooth voice.

“Good. Because I don’t plan on letting you go.”

Chapter 3

ALL THAT MATTERS

Liz spent the long holiday lounging on the beach at her parents’ place in Tampa and catching up on reading. It was a nice break from reality. Normally she liked to stay in Chapel Hill for breaks, as she had over the summer. But by the end of winter break, she was more than ready to come home to see Hayden, who had been in D.C. with his family. He called every day and they chatted for hours, long into the night, but the phone calls weren’t enough. Liz had gotten used to him coming over to her apartment, seeing his smiling face at work, and spending time with him late into the evening.

She missed him. A lot.

The realization hit her all at once one afternoon right before Christmas. She had been home for two weeks and Hayden had called her like normal to wish her good night, which always resulted in a marathon phone conversation.