After a hot shower to wash off the day, I run a towel over my hair, dry off, and pull on a pair of black boxer briefs. I stroll into the kitchen and yank open the fridge, just in case something miraculously appeared inside it while I was gone.

Nope.

Still full of condiments and beer. Though they are the two basic food groups, some protein would be nice. I pick up my phone to place an order for a burger, and a message from Mia lands on my screen.

Four days in the woods, four days away from the woman I want. That was absolutely enough time to recalibrate my feelings back to just friends.

I exhale deeply before I open her text. Remind myself of who she has to be to me.

Mia, my friend. Mia, who I put in the friend zone. Mia, who I’ve never kissed, and never will kiss.

I read her text. It’s a reply to my earlier text message letting her know I’d returned and she was relieved of cat detail.

Mia: Welcome back! I loved every second of cat detail. Also, if you’re wondering where the sriracha is, I might have borrowed it. But I’m on my way to return it right now.

Patrick: Good. I was hungry. Now I’ll be satisfied with some sriracha.

Mia: It is quite filling.

I set the phone down, pleased that we both executed that just friends exchange so easily. It’s going to be seamless slipping back into friendship with her.

Two minutes later, she raps on my door. “Damn, you’re fast,” I say as I unlock and open it.

And it’s safe to say her jaw drops.

Her eyes approximate the size of pizza pies as she swallows hard, as if there’s something stuck in her throat.

“I think you forgot to put on clothes . . .” She points at me with the sriracha in her hand.

Oh, yeah. I’m wearing only my boxer briefs. I wiggle my eyebrows. “Good thing I didn’t slip into a yellow thong tonight.”

She furrows her brow. “Please tell me you don’t own a thong.”

“You tell me. Zeus said you went through my drawers.”

“Oh my God. I did not. I swear.”

I hold up my hands in surrender. “Just teasing.” I open the door all the way. “Come in. I was about to order a burger. Are you hungry?”

I pat myself—virtually—on the back for staying in the zone.

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

“Does that mean you want one?”

She flubs her lips. “Do high heels hurt? Are meetings the bane of my existence? Does cereal taste better with milk?”

I laugh. “Gee. I don’t really know if high heels hurt.”

“They do. They’re the devil, and yes, I want a burger. Veggie, please, with cheddar.”

“Coming your way.”

I open my Seamless app, place the order from my favorite diner, drop my phone on the coffee table, and then offer her a beer. She takes it and tips the neck to mine in a toast. “To your return.” Then her eyes wander, traveling over my frame as I lean against the kitchen counter. “Are you going to put on any clothes?”

I decide to have fun with her. That’s what friends do. Plus, I’m not lacking in the confidence department. I wasn’t always in great shape. Fitness is an effort, so I’m not going to pretend I don’t like looking this way. “Do you want me to get dressed, Mia? Does it make you uncomfortable to see all this masculinity on display?”

She closes her eyes for a second. “It’s fine. You can wear those things.”

“Things?”

“Those form-fitting boxers that show off your fantastic ass,” she blurts out. “There. Are you happy I said it?”

I peer behind me as if checking out my own butt. “Damn, that is one fine ass. Did you want to conduct any firmness tests on it?”

She drops her face into her hands, laughing. When she looks up, she slides the sriracha to me along the counter. “Here you go.” Next comes the key. “And I picked up your suit.”

Good. Come sit on my face now.

Shit. Where did that come from? I shake away the filthy thought that flashed before my eyes. “You’re pretty much a perfect cat-sitter.”

She smiles. “So how was the trip?”

I tell her about the group from the financial firm, and how they were an interesting mix of daring and cautious, but that kind of reflected the point of the trip. “These two firms just merged, and the company wanted to bring the new team members together. Have them work in tandem on the rapids.”

She arches a brow. “That’s kind of cool. Did it help them bond, or what have you?”

I nod. “I think so. At the beginning, you could sense some tentativeness. Maybe even wariness. But after the first day on the water, they were getting along better. By the time we navigated the toughest sections, it was as if they’d been working together for years.”

“That’s amazing. You’re like glue.”

“I’m very sticky, Mia,” I say straight-faced.

She laughs. “That’s kind of gross and sexy at the same time.”

“That’s generally what I aim for.” We make our way to my couch where we sink onto the soft maroon cushions.

She takes a sip of beer and sets her bottle on the coffee table. “So I guess this is how it goes. You’re comfortable enough around me to drink beer in your underwear.”

I laugh, leaning back into the couch and stretching an arm over the top of it. My reboot completely worked. Even she can tell we’re awesome at being buddies. “I guess I am.”

As I take a drink, she looks at me. Studies me. Stares.

“What is it?”

She licks her lips. “I’m sorry, but you have a perfect body.”

It’s like an injection of pride right in my chest. “You really don’t have to apologize for saying that. Also, so do you.”

Crap. I didn’t mean that in a friendly way at all.

A reddish tint spreads in her cheeks. “You really do.” She flaps her hands around at me, gesturing. “Your abs. Your arms. Your biceps. I think your biceps are bigger than my thighs.”

“Possibly.” Setting down my beer, I take her hands, and bring them both around my left bicep. She can’t touch her fingertips, and naturally, this pleases me to an incomprehensible degree.

“Holy guns,” she says, kind of breathless.

Then I move her hands and circle them around her thigh. She’s wearing jeans. I keep my hands on hers as her fingertips touch.

“Do I get to touch your thighs now and compare them to my tiny arm?” she asks, a hint of mischief in her hazel eyes.

In an instant, my bearings are gone. I don’t know where we are anymore. I don’t know how we slipped so quickly into this touchy, flirty game, but I know I like it. I know I want it.

“Go for it,” I tell her.

She wraps her right hand around her opposite arm, coming a few inches shy of her fingers touching her thumb. Then, she places that same hand on my thigh, barely covering the top of it.

I laugh at how small her hand is on my body. Then I stop laughing because it’s her hand on my thigh, and now I know exactly where we are. We’re no longer in the friend zone. Friends don’t touch each other’s thighs like this. This is elevator land.

While I was in the woods, I tried to put her in the friend zone. I tried hard, and I thought I’d succeeded. Maybe I was just fooling myself.

But there’s no fooling myself now.

Sometimes you don’t know where a trail goes, but you turn onto it anyway. Like she did to me in the car, I set my hand on top of hers. I’m not lying when I say it’s an instant turn-on. This woman—she has my number. She has to know it, too, as I curl my fingers through hers.

The barest hitch in her breath tells me she’s turned on, too. Neither one of us is wandering in the friend zone right now.

Thank God.

When I raise my face and meet her eyes, she asks, “Were you always in such perfect shape?”

I laugh. “I was born with muscles. I sprang out of the womb lifting weights.”

“Seriously. Have you always been so . . . fit?”

My smile fades away. “No.”

“Why do you say it like it’s sad?”

“It’s not sad. It’s just true. In my freshman year of high school I was—”

“Chubby?” she supplies with a lift of her eyebrow, like she can’t quite believe that.

I shake my head.

“Skinny?”

I make a rolling gesture. “And?”

Her eyes bug out. “And awkward?”

I flash a huge grin at her, baring my teeth.

“With braces?”

“Forever,” I say. “That was the kind I had. The forever kind of braces. I swear they were on for my entire high school years and only came off a month before graduation.”

She stares at me in disbelief. “I can’t picture you skinny and awkward.”

I hold up a finger to correct her. “Tall, skinny, and awkward.”

She pats my shoulder with her free hand. “I’m going to need to see the photos.”

“Why?”

“I can’t see you as anything but what you are now.”

“So, what’s wrong with that? Why do you want to?”

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s a part of me that likes knowing you weren’t always this . . .”

“Handsome? Strapping? Studly?” I ask, puffing out my chest as I exaggerate preening for her.

“Yes,” she says, squeezing my fingers more tightly, sending heat all over my skin. “Can I see?”

“I don’t have my yearbook,” I remind her. “But I have a picture that Evie sent me recently.” Without letting go of her hand, I reach for my phone then open the text thread from my sister, searching for a digital shot she snapped of a framed photo of us she came across at our parents’ house.

She titled it Before We Were Cool and sent another text that read, “Just kidding. We were never cool.”

“There am I, in all my TSA glory. That’s tall, skinny, awkward to you, Jackrabbit,” I say as I show her the pic. My sister wears big round glasses and is sticking her tongue out, and I tower above her, a muscle-free metal-mouth.

Mia doesn’t laugh. She smiles, then sighs, then nibbles on the corner of her lips. “I love it,” she whispers.

And I crack up. “You’re such a goofball. Why on earth would you like this?” I toss the phone to the table.

“Because it means you’re—”

I hold up my hand. “Don’t say normal again.”

“Tell me what changed, why you’re no longer TSA.”

“My parents sent me to summer camp my freshman year. I’d already been a Boy Scout and an Eagle Scout, but this was every day. Outdoors. I fell in love with the swimming, the hiking, the canoeing, the rafting, and the obstacle courses. I couldn’t get enough of it. I came home fifteen pounds heavier, and it was the good kind of heavy.”

She runs her other hand down my bicep. “This kind of heavy?”

“Yeah,” I say, and the word comes out dry, husky.

She’s turned the temperature in me to red-hot. She draws her hand down my pecs, to my abs. “You’re so . . .”

“So what?”

“Every part of you is hard.”

I laugh, and my eyes drift to my crotch. “Yes.”

She takes notice of the tent in my briefs and licks her lips.

“And that’s because of you,” I say, my voice lower but my words clear. She’s been complimenting me, but I need her to know how I feel. Turns out four days away from her didn’t reset anything at all. I don’t know where we’re headed tonight. I don’t know where we’re going. All I know is I can’t turn back. “Because of what you do to me. Because of your body, your face . . . you.”

She takes a breath, her lips parting. “This is crazy,” she whispers.

“It’s not crazy.”

My gaze strays to her wandering fingers, traveling down my arm, over my elbow to my wrist. My little Mia is such the explorer, and it’s me she wants to discover. She looks at me like she wants to touch me everywhere. Lick my skin. Run her fingers all over me.

She looks at me the way I look at her.

Screw friends.

Screw distance.

Screw the hurdles.

I’m going all in.