I glance at my phone. Wow. It’s two in the morning. Time sure flies when I’m with Rhyson. I walk with him to the door, conscious of San’s eyes on us even though he’s drinking his almond milk straight from the carton in the kitchen.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” Rhyson pulls the door open and turns to face me.

“I’ve heard that before.” The words are out before I think.

“Did it bother you when I didn’t call for a week?” Rhyson’s lips bend a little like they’re really close to smiling.

“Of course not.”

“Still, friends stay in touch, right?” He tugs the ponytail resting on my shoulder.

We’ve done so well, besides the occasional spark and goose bump. I had to go and open my trap.

“I know you’re busy,” I say, finding it hard to breathe this close.

He backs up, facing me as he eases off the little stoop of our apartment and turns toward his car parked in a space a few feet away.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says.

I close the door and lean against it. It’s holding me up because the combination of that last smile, his full lips, the beautiful grey eyes almost hidden by the dark hair kissing his forehead, made my knees weak.

“That was just sad.” San plops onto the couch, taking another gulp of his milk.

“Don’t start, San.” I cross into the kitchen, finding a bowl to put away in the dishwasher and a few bits of trash to toss. Anything to keep me out of the conversation San wants to force on me.

“Watching you guys trying to be friends is like watching porn with no penetration. Really hot, but no climax.”

“You’re disgusting.” I head toward my bedroom, not bothering to respond further.

“At least if I had a hot rock star wanting to screw me, I’d know what to do with him.”

“You’re welcome to try, but I don’t think Rhyson rolls that way.”

I close my bedroom door, hoping that’s the end of it. Of course, the door flies open immediately.

“He’d roll your way.” He grins at me, his handsome face and knowing grin working my nerves. “Pep.”

“Call me that again and I’m junk punching you.”

“Hey, that’d be more action than I’ve gotten in the last few weeks.”

“Ginny not servicing you?” I pull the elastic from my hair, shaking the waves loose.

“Spotted is keeping us both so busy.”

“You love it though, right?” I bring out the vintage Sonny and Cher nightshirt my mom gave me for my sixteenth birthday. It guarantees me a good night sleep every time.

“I love it, but I’m just exhausted and involuntarily celibate.”

“Two weeks?” I scoff. “Try . . .”

I trail off. My self-imposed celibacy hasn’t given me any problems until lately. San knows that, so this is a dangerous path that will only lead to more probing and poking about Rhyson and me. Or more digging about my last sexual encounter, which San knows is off limits.

“You haven’t gotten laid since that jerk from the video shoot?” San leans against the doorjamb. “How do you do it? I can’t make it through one shower without jerking off.”

“San, there is such a thing as TMI, even in this friendship.”

“Don’t get all prissy. We passed TMI around eighth grade when we went shopping for your first training bra.”

I snort laughing from that memory.

“Remember the sales lady was so polite, saying she thought I could wait a while?”

“There wasn’t much to train at the time, but you were determined not to be the only eighth grade girl still wearing undershirts.”

We’ve been through everything together. Middle school drama. High school heartbreaks. No one else could have dragged me away from Glory Falls so soon after Mama’s funeral.

“You know I love you right, San?”

His cocky grin softens until it’s just a soft crook that warms my heart and has made me feel at ease more than half my life.

“Sometimes I know you better than you know yourself, Kai.”

“True story.” I take off my earrings and stow them in the jewelry box.

“That’s how I know you’ll jump Rhyson’s bones before the year is out.”

I whirl around, pointing to the hall behind him.

“Out.”

San laughs, steps back into the hall, and closes his door. His parting words reach me through the door and stay with me until I fall asleep in my beloved nightshirt.

“Mark my words.”

IF I HADN’T BEEN BORN A musician, I’m pretty sure I could have made a living as a professional gamer. A lot less money. A lot fewer women. A much pastier complexion. Upside is I wouldn’t have to wear disguises to go out in public to avoid some camera shoved in my face every day. This is the alternate destiny I consider as I kick my best friend, Marlon’s, ass in Madden. Again. He just won’t give up.

Kai’s ring tone breaks my concentration. Where’s my damn phone?

“Pause it.” I tear my eyes away from the screen, scanning the floor for my phone. It doesn’t escape my notice that Marlon’s still playing.

“Man, pause it.” I toss my controller to the floor and start flipping couch cushions up searching for my phone. “You seen my phone?”

“What’s it look like?” he asks.

“What the hell do you mean what’s it—” I stop to look at him. Smartass is holding my phone up, inspecting the screen.

“Give me my phone, Marlon.” He thinks I’m playing, but if Kai hangs up, I’m suspending him from a chandelier by his dreadlocks.

“Who’s Pepper?” His teeth flash white against that dark chocolate skin the girls fall at his feet for. He wiggles his eyebrows. “Is that her stripper name?”

I snatch my phone and walk a few paces away, turning my back on him.

“Hey, Pep. What’s up?”

“Nothing much.” Her honeyed, husky voice goes straight to my dick. I should be used to it by now, but I’m not.

“Everything okay?”

Even though I’ve told her over and over to call me if she ever needs a ride, she never does. San usually will text me or call. I’m glad I resisted the urge to cut his balls off when I found out they lived together and that he was her first. How I restrained myself that night, I’m still not sure, but it’s apparent that aside from one random initiating sexual encounter in a storage room on a bag of grits, they’re like family. So for her to call . . . even Madden’s not worth missing this.

“Everything’s great,” she says. If we were together, I bet she’d be biting the sweet curve of her bottom lip. “I . . . um . . . well, I worked an extra shift at The Note today.”

Not surprising. She’s the hardest working girl I’ve ever met.

“An extra shift, huh?” I laugh and lean against the pool table Marlon insisted I had to have, but we rarely use. “That sounds like you.”

“Yeah. Well, my manager gave me the day off tomorrow.”

“Cool.”

I need to let her take the lead here. I’m always the one initiating contact, calling her, picking her up from work, texting first. In the six weeks we’ve known each other, this is one of the few times she’s reached out to me. I need to be patient enough to see how far she’ll come.

“And I don’t have a class to teach tomorrow.” She clears her throat. “And Grady doesn’t need me.”

Okay. That’s enough hanging back. Who am I kidding? I haven’t seen her in days, and I’m practically salivating at the chance.

“We should hang out or something,” I say, keeping my voice casual.

I’m really not used to being in this position. The one chasing and playing down my feelings. But Kai is like another species. I’m not even sure she’s fully girl. She rarely even acknowledges that I’m famous. Or rich. She won’t let me within an inch of paying for lunch, much less the gargantuan medical debt she’s struggling to pay off.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” She sounds relieved that I suggested it first. “Maybe you could pick me up from work, if you don’t have anything to do.”