Fresh banana-nut bread cooled on the counter, filling the apartment with its savory scent.
I glanced at the clock on the stove. Five till eight.
Shoving my hands through my damp hair, I gave up on the idea of actually sleeping. In the living room, Ollie was passed out on the floor snoring, and the last time I’d checked my bedroom, Jase was sprawled across the foot of my bed. And there was no way in hell any part of my skin or clothes were touching any part of Ollie’s bed.
It wasn’t so much that Jase and Ollie had kept me awake. At any point during the never-ending night, I could’ve locked myself in my bedroom, but my mind wouldn’t shut down. Some of it had to do with the meeting on Friday and how Dr. Bale had laid everything out. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Jase was going to make things work, because after Ollie had passed out and Jase was more drunk than an entire frat, he started talking, and well, I didn’t know how to help him.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl a few doors down.
Shortcake had turned me down.
I grinned, thinking of how I was going to turn that no into a yes.
Pivoting around, I reached for the fridge and came to a stop. Was that it? The challenge? From the moment I met Avery, she was running from me, and females ran toward me.
But what I said to her last night about why I wanted to go out on a date was true. Avery did interest me. She wasn’t like the girls I hung out with—the well put together, coy and flirtatious ones. Not that anything was wrong with them, but Avery was different. She made me laugh. Maybe not on purpose, but I loved watching her flush over the simplest things, and when she smiled?
Shortcake shone brighter than any chick I knew.
Perhaps it was all that, combined with the challenge. I really didn’t know, and at that moment, as I opened the fridge and grabbed some eggs, I really didn’t care.
I liked her.
And I wasn’t sleeping anytime soon, so why should the object of my current restlessness be sleeping in on a Sunday morning?
The moment the idea sprung to mind, I didn’t even think twice. Shortcake probably wasn’t going to be happy with the plan, but no one—not even her—could resist my banana-nut bread.
Gathering up my items, I strolled toward the front door. There, I heard Ollie mumble, “No tomatoes. Extra bacon.”
“What the?” I looked over my shoulder at him. He was still on his stomach, his check plastered to a throw pillow my mom had given me, dead to the world. “Freak,” I muttered, slipping out of the apartment.
At Avery’s door, I knocked softly at first, not wanting to wake the neighbors, but when a full minute passed and I hadn’t heard footsteps, I knocked hard and kept knocking.
After what felt like an eternity of me banging on her door like the police and turning around to make sure I didn’t have anyone seconds away from shooting my ass, I finally heard footsteps and then the door swung open.
“Is everything okay?” she asked in what was possibly the sexiest voice I’d ever heard.
I spun back to the door, getting an eyeful of a bedraggled Avery.
Coppery hair hung in loose tangles, flowing down her shoulders and grazing the golden skin of her arms. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her in a short-sleeve shirt before. My gaze, all on its own, traveled sideways and stopped, devouring the way the thin shirt she wore stretched across the swell of her breasts. With a will I didn’t know I possessed, I forced my eyes to her flushed face.
Suddenly unsure of what the hell I was doing, I offered a crooked smile and said to hell with it. “No, but it will be in about fifteen minutes.”
“W-w-what?” She moved out of the way as I slipped past her. All the apartments were the same, so I knew where the kitchen was, but I did a quick scan of the living room. The furnishings looked new—the couch and dark end tables. A black moon chair sat beside a TV. No pictures hung on the walls. The moon chair was possibly the most personal thing in the room.
“Cam, what are you doing? It’s eight in the morning.”
“Thanks for the update on the time. It’s one thing I’ve never been able to master: the telling of time.”
She trailed after me, and I could feel her staring daggers in my back. “Why are you here?”
“Making breakfast.”
“You can’t do that in your own kitchen?”
“My kitchen isn’t as exciting as yours.” I placed the eggs and bread on the counter and faced her. Scrubbing her eyes, she looked so damn cute, and I wished I was wearing something more decent than sweats and a shirt I wasn’t even sure was clean. “And Ollie is passed out on the living-room floor.”
“On the floor?”
“Yep. Facedown, snoring and drooling a little. It’s not an appetizing atmosphere.”
Her lips twitched into a quick smile and then quickly disappeared. “Well, neither is my apartment.”
I folded my arms as I leaned against the counter. “Oh, I don’t know about that . . .” I let my gaze wander the exquisite length of hers. Her nipples were hard, pressing against her shirt, begging to be touched, licked, and kissed and God knows what else I would do to them. Lust slammed into my gut and I almost took a step toward her. “Your kitchen, right this second, is very appetizing.”
She flushed. “I’m not going out with you, Cam.”
“I didn’t ask you at this moment, now did I?” I grinned. “But you will eventually.”
“You’re delusional.”
“I’m determined.”
“More like annoying,” she retorted, brown eyes twinkling.
“Most would say amazing.”
She rolled her eyes. “Only in your head.”
“In many heads is what you meant.” I turned to the stove. “I also brought banana-nut bread baked in my very own oven.”
There was a pause. “I’m allergic to bananas.”
I wheeled around. “Are you shitting me?”
“No. I’m not. I’m allergic to bananas.”
“Man, that’s a damn shame. You have no idea what you’re missing out on. Bananas make the world a better place.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Well damn. Apparently she could resist my banana-nut bread. “Anything else you’re allergic to?”
“Besides penicillin and guys who bust up into my apartment? No.”
“Hardy-har-har.” I turned and bent, opening the nearest cabinets. “How many weaker, less-assured guys have you slayed with that tongue of yours?”
“Apparently not enough.” Her gasp was audible. “I’ll be right back.”
I had no idea what she was up to, but I doubted she’d leave the apartment. Humming under my breath, I found a pot to boil eggs in and filled it with water. Plopping it on the stove, I cranked up the heat. I could hear her back in her bedroom, her soft footfalls, heavier than I thought they’d be. A couple of moments went by and I turned to the doorway. It was quite possible that she would lock herself in her room.
Dammit.
“Hey! Are you hiding back there?” I yelled. “Because I will come back there and drag you out.”
“Don’t you dare come in here!” she shouted.
I laughed softly. As appealing as seeing firsthand what she was doing was, I didn’t want to end up in the hospital for doing so. “Then hurry up. My eggs wait for no one.”
By the time she returned, I found shredded cheese and had decided she was going to eat hers sunny side up. I didn’t say anything even though I knew she was there, staring at me.
“Cam, why are you over here?” she finally asked.
“I already told you.” I eased the eggs onto a plate and walked it over to the small table pressed up against the wall. “Do you want toast? Wait. Do you have bread? If not, I can—”
“No. I don’t need toast.” She watched me, eyes wide. “Don’t you have anyone else to bother?”
“There are a shit ton of people that I could reward with my presence, but I chose you.”
Her mouth moved, but there was no sound and then she spun around, hopping up on the chair, pulling her knees to her chest as she picked up a fork. “Thanks,” she muttered.
I raised my brows. “I choose to believe that you mean that.”
“I do!”
I turned back to the stove. “I doubt that for some reason.”
There were several seconds of silence and then. “I do appreciate the eggs. I’m just surprised to see you here . . . at eight in the morning.”
Waiting for my eggs to finish boiling, I found myself watching her. “Well, to be honest, I was planning to woo you with my banana-nut bread, but that shit ain’t happening now. So all I have left are my delicious eggs.”
“It is really good, but you’re not wooing me.”
“Oh, I’m wooing.” I went to her fridge and found some OJ. Grabbing two glasses, I poured some sweetness and sat one in front of her. “It’s just all about the stealth. You don’t realize it yet.”
She ducked her gaze to her plate. “Aren’t you eating?”
“I am. I like boiled eggs.” Sitting across from her, I rested my chin in my palm. Her hair fell forward, nearing hitting the plate. She kept batting the strands away. She was so fucking cute. “So, Avery Morgansten, I’m all yours.”
Her lashes swept up. “I don’t want you.”
“Too bad. Tell me about yourself.”
Shortcake pressed her lips into a thin line. “Do you do this often? Just walk into random girls’ apartments and make eggs?”
“Well, you’re not random, so technically no.” Pushing up, I checked the eggs. “And I might be known to surprise lucky ladies every now and then.”
Which wasn’t exactly true. I mean, if I somehow found myself in someone else’s place and I was up, I’d make breakfast, but this? This was a first. But she didn’t need to know that.
“Seriously? I mean, you do this normally?”
I glanced over my shoulder. “With friends, yes, and we’re friends, aren’t we, Avery?”
She studied me for a few moments and then placed her fork down. “Yeah, we’re friends.”
“Finally!” I shouted. “You’ve finally admitted that we are friends. It’s only taken a week.”
“We’ve only known each other for a week.”
“Still took a week.”
As I started devouring my eggs, she questioned me on how long it took for me to declare best-friend status. Sitting back at the table, I met her curious stare. “It usually takes me about five minutes before we’ve moved on to best-friend status.”
A tiny smile appeared on her lips. “Then I guess I’m just the odd one.”
“Maybe.”
“I guess it’s different for you.”
“Hmm?” I peeled the last piece of shell off the egg.
“I bet you have girls hanging all over you. Dozens would probably kill to be in my spot and here I am, allergic to your bread.”
I looked up. “Why? Because of my near godlike perfection?”
She laughed outright, and that goddamn knot was back in my chest. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Shrugging, I chuckled. “I don’t know. Don’t really think about it.”
“You don’t think about it at all?”
“Nope.” I popped the egg in my mouth and then wiped my hands on a napkin. “I only think about it when it matters.”
Her gaze bounced off of mine as she toyed with her glass. “So you’re a reformed player?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I heard you were quite the player in high school.”
“Really? Who did you hear that from?”
“None of your business.”
I took a deep breath. Her tongue was sharp as a blade. “With that mouth of yours, you don’t have a lot of friends, do you?”
Shortcake flinched. “No. I wasn’t really popular in high school.”
Aw fuck, now I felt like a dick. I dropped my egg onto the plate. “Shit. I’m sorry. That was an asshole thing for me to say.”
She shook her head.
I watched her as I picked up the egg and peeled it, unable to figure her out. “Hard to believe though that you weren’t. You can be funny and nice when you’re not insulting me and you’re a pretty girl. Actually, you’re really hot.”
“Ah . . . thanks.” She wiggled in her seat.
“I’m serious. You said your parents were strict. They didn’t let you hang out in high school?” I popped the other egg in. Needed my protein. “I still can’t imagine you not being popular in high school. You rock the trifecta—smart, funny, and hot.”
“I wasn’t. Okay?” Sitting the glass down, she started fiddling with the hem on her shorts. “I was like the very opposite of popular.”
Unsure of what to think about that comment, I peeled the third egg. I’d seen her around campus with a girl I went to high school with and Jacob Massey. It wasn’t like she was incapable of making friends. “I am sorry, Avery. That . . . that sucks. High school is a big deal.”
“Yeah, it is. You had a lot of friends?”
I nodded. I had a busload of friends.
“Still talk to them?”
“Some of them. Ollie and I went to high school together, but he spent his first two years at WVU and transferred down here and I see a few around campus and back home.”
She huddled in on herself, looking incredibly small. “Have any brothers or sisters?”
“A sister.” I went for the final egg, smiling. “She’s younger than me. Just turned eighteen. She graduates this year.”
“You guys close?”
“Yeah, we’re close.” I liked that she was asking me questions, but talking about my sister made me think of other things. “She means a lot to me. How about you? A big brother I have to worry about visiting and kicking my ass for being here?”
One side of her lips curved up. “No. I’m an only child. Have a cousin who’s older, but I doubt he’d do that.”
“Ah, good.” I finished off the last egg, leaned back and patted my stomach. “Where you from?” When she didn’t answer, I decided I was so not letting this go. I wanted to know her. Exchange of information was necessary. “Okay. You obviously know where I’m from if you’ve heard of my extracurricular activities in high school, but I’ll just confirm it. I’m from the Fort Hill area. Never heard of that? Well, most people haven’t. It’s near Morgantown. Why didn’t I go to WVU? Everyone wants to know that. Just wanted to get away, but be somewhat close to my family. And yes, I was . . . very busy in high school.”
“You’re not anymore?”
“Depends on who you ask.” I laughed. “Yeah, I don’t know. When I was a freshman—those first couple of months, being around all the older girls? I probably put more effort into them than I did my classes.”
She grinned. “But not now?”
I shook my head and went back to what I wanted to know. “So where are you from?”
Shortcake sighed. “I’m from Texas.”
“Texas?” I leaned onto the table. “Really? You don’t have an accent.”
“I wasn’t born in Texas. My family was originally from Ohio. We moved to Texas when I was eleven and I never picked up any accent.”
“Texas to West Virginia? That’s a hell of a difference.”
Her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second and then she stood, picking up her plate and the bowl. “Well, I lived in the strip-mall-hell part of Texas, but besides that, it’s kind of the same here.”
“I should clean up.” I started to stand. “I made the mess.”
“No.” She shot me a serious look. “You cooked. I clean.”
Watching her take care of the dishes, I couldn’t help but think how intimate this was—me cooking, her cleaning. While I may have cooked some breakfasts for girls before, it had been nothing like this.
And I really wasn’t sure how to process that.
Turning to the bread, I peeled the foil back. “What made you choose here?”
She finished washing the little frying pan I’d brought over before answering the question. “I just wanted to get away, like you.”
“Got to be hard though.”
“No. It was incredibly easy to make the decision.”
It was? I couldn’t imagine moving that far away from my family. I was pretty sure my mom would hunt me down if I did. I broke the bread in half. “You are an enigma, Avery Morgansten.”
She leaned against the counter. “Not really. More like you are.”
“How so?”
She gestured at me and my half-eaten loaf of bread. “You just ate four hard-boiled eggs, you’re eating half of a loaf, and you have abs that look like they belong on a Bowflex ad.”
My smile was the size of an earthquake crater. “You’ve been checking me out, haven’t you? In between your flaming insults? I feel like man candy.”
She laughed, and the sound was soft and sweet. “Shut up.”
“I’m a growing boy.”
Her brows rose at that, and I laughed. In the following silence, I found myself telling her more than I told most girls I’d known for years. “My dad is a lawyer, runs his own firm back home. So he probably wanted me to go to law school.”
She stayed by the counter. “Why didn’t you?”
“Law is not my thing. Mom’s a doctor—cardiologist—and before you ask, med school also wasn’t my thing.”
Her right hand went to that bracelet, a nervous habit I was beginning to realize. “And sports recreation is your thing?”
“Soccer is my thing. So if I can get on with a team, helping their players, then I’m happy.” I paused, shifting my weight. “Or I’d love to coach, maybe high school or whatever.”
Her gaze dipped to the floor as she crept forward. She reminded me of a scared animal that had been hurt before and was distrustful of those around her. The knot expanded in my chest and the horrible pricking sensation was back, telling me something I didn’t want to hear.
“Why don’t you play soccer?” she asked.
And that was a subject I didn’t want to touch, but she was asking questions and there was no way I could shoot her down. “It’s a long . . . complicated story, but it’s not something I can do right now.”
She was by the table, hovering near the chair. “What about later?”
“Later . . . later might work.” And that was true. If I kept in shape, kept up with the game, who knew? It just wasn’t something I allowed myself to think about a lot. “So you flying back to Texas for fall break or Thanksgiving?”
She snorted. “Probably not.”
“Got other plans?”
Avery shrugged and then started asking me about soccer. Hours had passed and I was sure she was as knowledgeable about soccer as she ever would be. It was near noon when I stood. I didn’t really want to leave, but I had sucked up all her morning.
Flipping the skillet in one hand and carrying the bread in the other, I stopped in front of her door. “So, Avery . . .”
She leaned against the couch. “So, Cam . . .”
“Whatcha you doing Tuesday night?”
“I don’t know.” Wariness settled in her brow. “Why?”
“How about you go out with me?”
“Cam,” she sighed.
“That’s not a no.”
“No.”
“Well, that’s a no,” I admitted.
“Yes, it is.” She moved away from the couch, grabbing the door. “Thanks for the eggs.”
I backed away, undaunted. “How about Wednesday night?”
“Good-bye, Cam.”
Shortcake closed the door, but not before I saw her smile, and I knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before she said yes.