THE ONLY THINGS I NEEDED in life were books and a glass or three of white wine. I got over my disappointment about Riley leaving pretty quickly when I curled up on his leather couch in the living room with both of my favorite things in hand.

Halfway through my second glass and a bank heist gone horribly wrong, the front door slammed open. I leaped into the air, and my book went flying sans bookmark. Wine sloshed all over my Reading is Sexy T-shirt.

“Ffffuck me,” I growled between clenched teeth.

From my view on the couch, I couldn’t see who it was, but pots and pans clanked in the kitchen. Cabinets banged open and shut. The clatter rolled over the wooden floors and hammered echoes between my ears. Why didn’t everyone have a ‘Shh’ meter built inside them?

I rescued my book and empty glass from the floor then marched toward the kitchen. “Do you think you can be any louder?”

Sam whirled around and stumbled into the countertop. His eyes, the part not swollen shut from his shiner, were bloodshot. Completely wasted, though not enough to stop his gaze from raking up and down my body.

That same pulse I’d felt earlier sparked electrical currents from head to toe and gathered at my center. I cleared my throat, trying unsuccessfully to ignore that feeling, and crossed my arms over my chest. Crap. Why couldn’t I materialize a bra under my thin, now wet, shirt? Though earlier today I obviously hadn’t minded his hungry gaze. Of course, he hadn’t been drunk then, either.

“What’re you doin’ here?” he asked. “I thought you were out with Riley.”

“He had to go to work.”

“Fucking bastard.” He turned and swayed in the direction of the refrigerator.

Shaking my head, I came up behind him and pushed him onto a stool at the island in the center of the kitchen. The guy could barely walk, and I was in no mood for his deafening culinary skills.

“Tell me you didn’t drive like this,” I said.

He slumped over the island with his hands clasped together and glared at his bandaged knuckles. His long blond hair hung in his face, and it made him somehow look defeated.

“You’re not even old enough to drink yet, are you?” I asked, mistakenly leaning toward him. Alcoholic fumes burned my nasal passages, and I jerked back with a wince. “You’re what? Twenty?”

“I had a bad day,” he said, his voice low.

I flashed back to our time in the library earlier that afternoon and wondered if he was including that in his description. It had appeared he was enjoying himself just fine then.

“So you were going to make it better by being a shit-faced idiot?” I asked.

He pinned his red-rimmed gaze on me. “What are you, my mom?”

My eyes narrowed. What the hell happened to this kid? He used to be such a little sweetie, had even been a sort of library comedian just hours before. Now he was looking at me as if I were the enemy. It hurt to see him like that, so much so that I had to look away, though I could still feel his gaze on me.

After several quiet seconds, I shoved away from the island and said, “Do me a favor and get out your phone.” He’d set out a package of bacon in his drunken haze, so to continue the quiet, I took over.

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to make you a BLT sandwich.”

I’d spotted a tomato and lettuce in the refrigerator during my earlier raid, and a BLT seemed like a good thing to suck the alcohol from him.

“And you need my phone because...?”

“Because you’re going to do something for me in return.”

He watched while I rummaged through drawers to find the aluminum foil and a shallow baking pan.

“What would you like me to do?” he asked, and I didn’t miss the husky note of curiosity in his voice.

“Program my number into your phone.” What did he think I was going to say? “If you get drunk again, you call me and I’ll call you a cab.”

“I could jus’ call myself a cab,” he said.

I set the pan down on the island a little too loudly and stared at him. If his eyes weren’t so bloodshot with an enormous bruise shadowed over one of them, I would be able to see that startling shade of baby blue a little better.

“Then why didn’t you?” I asked.

An almost smile tugged at his mouth as he reached for his phone inside the pocket of his baggy jeans. “Okay. You win.”

Damn right I did.

When my number was safely tucked away in his phone, he said, “I didn’t act’lly drive like this. A friend drove. I’m not that much of an idiot.”

“Really,” I said. A friend? It was none of my business if that friend was male or female, yet I found myself really wanting to know.

“Yeah. Really. You sound like you don’t believe me.”

I shrugged while I lined the pan with foil. “I believe you, but you’re still not old enough to drink. The law is a law for a reason, so I hear.”

He didn’t say anything for the longest time, and I thought he might have passed out until I glanced at the island behind me. No, he was awake, his head propped up on his arm and a sloppy grin on his face while he stared at me. I quickly turned back around, a blush flaming over my cheeks.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Making bacon,” I said. “What’s it look like?”

“That’s not how you make bacon.”

“It’s how I make bacon. I put it in the oven to bake, and that way it doesn’t splatter everything with grease.”

“Okay.” Sam leaped from his stool—maybe fell off was more like it—with his hands out in front of him like he expected me to attack him with the box of aluminum foil or something. His legs wavered beneath him, but he caught himself on the corner of the island. “Put the bacon down and no one’ll get hurt.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“I’m very particular about my bacon. The grease splatter’s jus’ part of the experience. I’ll cook it so you don’t get...” His gaze roamed down to my bare legs, then inched back up again, and he trapped his bottom lip with his teeth. “Splattered.” He swayed to my side, his large frame towering over me, and slowly reached for the bacon.

His fingers sizzled a current up my forearm as he touched it, and I held my breath to keep from gasping. Riley had said Sam was never here, and after what happened between us earlier today, a topic which I noticed we were skating large circles around, I had hoped he wouldn’t be here. But he was, and I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that.

With his precious bacon gripped tight, Sam concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other toward the stove.

I followed to cut up the tomato on a nearby countertop and to make sure he didn’t burn the house down. “So bacon, huh? Is it a special kind of relationship between you two?”

He grinned, and it lit up his entire face so bright, heat crept up my neck. I quickly turned back to the tomato.

“Bacon’s its own food group.” He carefully arranged it in a frying pan. “You either like bacon or you’re wrong.”

“Oh?” I said and attempted to steady the knife in my hand. I sucked at cutting vegetables and fruit. I would make a terrible serial killer despite my know-how about dumping bodies. “And how do your arteries feel about the new food group pyramid?”

Another genuine smile. “I’m not dead yet.”

“Good to know,” I said over the roar of my heartbeat.

What the hell was wrong with me? Why was I getting all giddy about a boy turned man who was drunk out of his mind and three years younger than me? It couldn’t be because of the lean muscles in his arms that stretched and flexed as he prodded the bacon with a spatula. It couldn’t be because a section of his soft-looking blond hair skimmed the light scruff along his jaw. Nope. Couldn’t be.

“It’s like how you feel about books,” Sam said over the crackle of bacon.

“Huh?”

“Bacon.”

“Right. Bacon and books. Exactly the same,” I said, nodding. God, I really needed to concentrate better, especially with the knife in my hand. “So where did you get your, uh...” I spun a finger around my right eye.

“Oh, that?” he said like it was just a freckle. “Work.”

“And the bandage on your hand, too?”

He flexed his fingers around the spatula handle, frowning, and several beats passed before he answered. “Yeah.”

“Hmm.” I tried to imagine a way I could get a black eye at the Library of Congress, and I supposed it could happen if a box of books fell on my face. That happened once at the public library in Wichita where I used to work part-time. Instead of a box, though, it was a whole bookshelf, and instead of me, it was my boss. Still not fun. “Where is it you work?”

“Auto Tech over on Ontario Road.”

“So, is this a regular thing at Auto Tech? People getting black eyes?”

“No, jus’ me.” The bacon was really snapping now, but he didn’t even flinch as bacon grease flew in every direction. “This guy I work with decided he didn’t like the way his girlfriend was looking at me, I guess, so he decided to rearrange my face.”

I nodded at my tomato. “How nice.”

“I thought so, too,” Sam said. “Which is why I gave him a matching one.”

“Maybe it’s time to rethink the whole giving and sharing thing.” I set aside the mangled tomato slices and set to work toasting the bread. That I could do. Other than cutting things, I usually didn’t have trouble in the kitchen, except for those cans of dough that pop open. I couldn’t stand those. But cooking in my little apartment in Wichita meant slapping together a quick sandwich so I could do homework or write research papers.

“Maybe.”

“So was his girlfriend looking at you?” I couldn’t imagine a member of the female species not looking.

He shrugged. “I don’t really notice those kinds of things.”

Ha! Because it happened all the time? “Really? Never?”

“Most girls don’t interest me.” He switched off the burner underneath the bacon. “Hand me a plate?”

I followed the direction of his gaze and handed him a plate from the cupboard over my head. His fingers brushed mine as he took it, and I recoiled my entire arm away at the intense jolt buzzing through it. His gaze dipped down to my mouth, and when he connected with my eyes again, he looked hungry, and not just for bacon.

“And...” I swallowed. “What girls do interest you?” The question fell out before I could even think. I didn’t need to know the answer, but somehow I sure wanted to.

He leaned past me to the paper towel holder, filling the small space between his stomach and my hip with frenzied surges of energy. He tore off a paper towel, and when he straightened, he said, “Smart ones.”

The words sighed across the back of my neck. Goose bumps lifted over my skin. I clutched the edge of the countertop as I drew in a long, ragged breath.

“Are there a lot of smart girls where you work?” I asked, because I hadn’t embarrassed myself already.

“Auto Tech is an equal opportunity employer, but so far...” He shrugged and began transferring the perfectly crisped bacon to the paper towel-covered plate.

“I see.”

My gaze strayed to his wide shoulders under his tight black T-shirt, then to the lift of his backside under his jeans. I saw alright, but I quickly ducked my head into the refrigerator. Back in the day, he might as well have been my little brother. I shouldn’t be checking him out. Yet there I was, totally checking out the hot, drunk guy I wanted to make out with earlier at the public library. I had no idea who I was anymore.

I grabbed the mayo jar and focused with all my might on building sandwiches. Sam munched on several strips of bacon while I crafted double-deckers fit for a king. The food seemed to clear his head of the alcohol some because he no longer needed to lean against the stove for support.

“Excited for your internship?” he asked, and even the timbre in his voice sounded stronger.

An enormous grin bloomed over my mouth. I couldn’t help it, and he matched it with one that twinkled his blue eyes. My heartbeat stuttered, and I forced myself to look away.

I pressed the nearest sandwich into the plate so I could slice it into two equal triangles. It didn’t have to be done, but I needed a diversion, any diversion. Even a hazardous don’t-chop-off-your-fingers-with-a-knife diversion.

“I’m so excited I haven’t slept much this last week. I’m not sure I’ll sleep the next six weeks.”

We sat across from each other on twin barstools at the island. He took one of the sandwiches and bit into it with a satisfied groan. I picked up mine, too, but my gaze aimed at the tip of his tongue that kept darting out to catch stray crumbs. It made his lips rosy, wet, and caused me to squirm in my seat.

I chomped into my sandwich and tried to focus on how delicious it was.

“Well,” he said once he’d swallowed. “There are a lot more fun things to do than sleeping anyway.”

At the suggestive arch of his eyebrow, my food slid down my throat much too fast. I sputtered. My knees weakened at the possibilities surrounding his words, and as he drew closer to pat me on the back, I decided these next six weeks would be the longest ever.

“Okay? You need some water?” he asked.

I could only nod.

He filled a glass from the sink and set it in front of me, and I guzzled it down until I could breathe again.

“Thanks,” I said and took another cleansing breath.

“No problem,” he said between bites.

“You’ve helped me a lot today.” This was my not-so-obvious starter to our might-have-been afternoon delight, public library edition, discussion we still hadn’t had and really needed to.

He stopped chewing and fixed me with a knowing stare. “You don’t even have to ask. I’ll be your book retriever anytime you want me.”

Anytime I wanted him? But I most definitely didn’t. I shouldn’t. “You could have told me who you were before you cornered me in the library. You took advantage of the situation.”

“Hmm,” he said and picked up some dropped bacon pieces from his plate. “Did I?”

My phone vibrated on top of the island, making me jump. No one ever texted me after midnight. Kay couldn’t stay up much past Aaron’s bedtime, and Mom and I had only progressed to communicating via cat video links on YouTube. And Dad... Well, he could hardly look at me.

“Aren’t you going to check your phone?” Sam asked.

What I wanted was to continue this conversation, but because it might be Riley or even Charlotte telling me her burst pipe was fixed and I could move in tomorrow, I swiped at the screen.

It was an email from Mom with the subject Her Number.

Oh. I bit down hard on my lip under Sam’s watchful gaze and forced a swallow down my desert-dry throat. A million thoughts rushed through my head, and every single one of them knotted up my chest. Tears sprang to my eyes because of Her and what I did. No way would I be calling Her Number. I wouldn’t be able to speak over the rapid-fire guilt puncturing my insides.

“Paige?” Sam said softly.

I pushed off the stool, my sandwich only half eaten. “I think I’ll go to bed now.”