“Dude! What the fuck!”

That would be Gaige, my (second) best friend and roommate. He’s currently in the shower, and I just busted in the door to take a leak. Of course my dick isn’t working because I have a major boner, so I have to sit down. Ladies, in case you didn’t know, that’s a legit thing. It hurts to piss with a boner, and sometimes sitting down is the only thing that helps. Yes, it’s awkward as fuck to have to do with another man in the room, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

“Care to explain why there were two empty bottles of wine, bags of chips, and half-eaten pints of ice cream scattered around the living room?” he calls over the curtain. Apparently I ruined his peaceful shower.

I grunt in reply because the asshole is making this even more uncomfortable with all his talking.

“Why, Gaige, best roommate ever, it’s because I had a sleepover. Possibly a drunken sleepover,” Gaige mocks, attempting to sound like me. He switches back over to his normal voice. “What? No way! Who could it be? The girl you’ve been pining over for almost a year now?” And back to “my” voice. “Yep, bro. It’s her.” Back to his voice. “Well, you tell Maura ‘hey’ for me. Or better yet—” he pauses for dramatic effect and then yells, “HEY MAURA!”

I punch at the curtain and hear him groan. Good. I hope it was a junk punch.

“Stop it, asshole. She’s still sleeping. She had a rough night.”

“Rough? TMI, dude.”

I snort in response.

“Speaking of TMI, I’m shower—” Gaige starts, peeling back the curtain to look at me. “Whoa. What the hell happened to your face?”

I automatically reach up to touch it and wince on contact. Fuck. I almost forgot about my brother punching me last night at the party, acting like an ass, and accusing us of cheating. Stellar night.

Then I smile, because it was a stellar night. After the punch, Maura and I ditched the party and went to Mic’s to begin our night of drinking. We quickly moved on to my apartment, where we devoured two bottles of wine and half a fifth of Jameson. No wonder my dick hates me.

“Tanner punched me,” I mumble.

“He what!” Gaige shouts, and I angrily motion toward the door. “Shit, sorry. But he punched you? Did you at least hit him back?” I shake my head. “You’re a damn pussy.”

I smirk at him. “I happen to think I look badass with this black eye.”

“Dude,” he says, wrinkling his nose at me. “No one looks badass sitting on the shitter.”

This time he moves out of the way before I can make contact with my fist.

I finally manage to piss, wash my hands, and make sure to flip the light switch off on my way out, laughing as Gaige manages to give sailors everywhere a good run for their money.

Pausing in the doorway, I admire the beautiful woman lying in my bed. Her blonde hair is a mess, spread out all over my pillow, and the blankets are bunched up around her in the weirdest way, making her bare legs stick out. Although she’s drooling and snoring lightly, this scene in front of me makes me one ridiculously happy man.

Gaige was right. I have been secretly pining for Maura for almost a year now. When I first started taking note of her, she was just an everyday college student loading up on caffeine in the morning. Then she became the best friend of the girl my best friend was falling for. And then she became my brother’s girlfriend.

That last one is what kept me at bay for so long.

Until it didn’t.

I officially met Maura at Clyde’s on the same day she met Tanner. I swear time stopped when I saw her. Undeterred by the fact that I hadn’t seen her at Perk for a few weeks, she still had this invisible thread connected to my chest, making it beat against its cage so fucking hard every time she was near. In that moment, I wanted to know everything about her past, her present, and her future. I felt like I had to have her. I felt like she was mine.

“That’s her. That’s the girl.” Tanner asks who I’m talking about, so I nod my head in her direction and declare, “Her. She’s the one.”

My brother, being the absolute jackass, says, “Damn, bro. Yeah, she’s the one all right. The one that’s gonna be in my bed. I give it a week.”

I admit, I should have told him to fuck off, I should I have stuck up for the way she called to me, and I probably should have kicked his ass for talking about her like he was. But I didn’t. I didn’t because the instant her eyes passed over mine and settled on Tanner, I knew dating someone like me was out of the question for someone like her.

That was the end and beginning of me and Maura.

Until it wasn’t anymore.

After avoiding my brother the rest of his leave because he was so wrapped up in the girl I wanted, I went back to my regularly scheduled life. Music, work, friends. But with Rae came Perry, a cool dude who quickly became a good friend, and Maura. So naturally, our circle of friends grew. Which means with my brother gone and back at base, Maura was alone.

Let me just say that, as a musician, I have a way of reading people. I can see things other people can’t. It was no different with Maura.

At first she was happy. And then she was sad. Finally, she was gone. She stopped showing up to our group gatherings and, according to Rae, hardly ever left the house on her days off. I watched her slowly descend into this shell of herself, while everyone else was so wrapped up in life they let it happen.

I got tired of allowing it to happen.

This weird slow dance we’ve been doing with one another began a few months ago when I found her in tears over my brother. I called Tanner and went off on him for twenty minutes about how he needed to treat her with more respect. None of the yelling made me feel any better, so I started—as Maura likes to affectionately call it—stalking her. For weeks she repeatedly said no to me taking her to the dinner. I finally managed to wear her down after wiggling into her life, starting with a performance at Mic’s (because chicks dig music).

I like to believe the part that hooked her was that I bared it all from the start. I think Maura needed to know that someone else out there saw her for who she is, and that’s what I did. I let her know I could see through her façade. I got her to crack, to open up.

The real kicker, though? Somewhere along the way, I gave her my heart. That chunk that I had been holding on to somehow got handed off to her in my attempt to help her be herself.

I lost myself to her. How fucking ironic is that.

As much as I wanted to act on all the feelings I was having for her, I didn’t, because I couldn’t do that while she was still with my brother. And my God did I want to. There were so many moments when I wanted to kiss her—and almost did! There were moments when I wanted to hold her or whisper things to her that only a man who’s calling her his should be allowed to whisper.

But as of last night, she’s not his anymore.

Because Maura handed her heart off to me too.

Long story short, I got punched, we got drunk, and clothes came off.

So that’s where we are. Me being a creeper and watching this beautiful woman sleep, and her finally baring it all to me.

As I crawl back into bed behind her, she immediately presses back into me and continues snoring. Smiling at her action, I follow her into slumber.

* * *

I wake up to my dick pressing against my bed mate.

“Why do guys wake up with boners all the time?” I hear a soft, feminine voice say.

Smothering a laugh, I give her the same answer I got when I asked about morning wood many, many years ago. “Because sleep is so good our dicks say, ‘I wanna fuck this bed.’ That’s why.”

She laughs and wiggles back on me.

“Woman,” I warn, my voice and groan muffled by the pillow I have my face buried in. “Stop it. You’re making this a lot more embarrassing than it already is.”

I slip an arm around her tiny waist and pull her closer.

“What time is it?” She yawns.

“Too early.”

I feel her stretch and reach out toward my nightstand. I’m not sure what she’s reaching for, because the only thing that’s on there is the water and Advil I set out for her last night. I assumed she’d have a headache after her first time getting drunk.

“Come on,” she begs. “Let me up. I gotta see what time it is.”

“Nope. You’re gonna have to pry me off you.”

She grabs hold of my arm, trying with all her might to push me off her. It doesn’t work. I start feeling bad about how much she’s straining, so I relent and let her lift my arm.

That’s when she almost pushes me out of the small twin bed.

“What the fuck, Maura!” I shout, because she scares the shit out of me. I straighten myself, almost looming over her, and watch as the wheels start turning. She’s remembering last night.

And she’s regretting it.

My heart instantly starts breaking. She’s regretting it. I don’t want her to regret it. I want her to want it. I want her to want me.

She pushes at my chest again, so I sit up as she rushes off the bed, watching as she starts shoving her—or should I say my—clothes back on.

I sigh and try to reason with her overreaction. “Maura.”

She stops running around like a crazy person, and I think maybe she realizes that nothing happened last night. But I’m wrong.

“We…we can’t,” she whispers. “You know we can’t.”

“Maura,” I say again softly as she continues dressing. “Please.”

She shakes her head and slips her shoes on. “No.”

Suddenly I get it. She feels guilty. She thinks it’s too soon. Her thinking is valid because it is too soon.

“Is it because of him?” I ask.

“I’m sorry. This…this was a mistake. A big mistake. I—I’m just sorry,” she says, breaking my heart more, turning the doorknob and quickly running out of my apartment.

It takes me all of ten seconds to run after her.

“What the…,” Gaige says when I pass his towel-clad ass as he walks out of the bathroom.

“Why are you still naked? Put some damn clothes on!” I shout over my shoulder.

I pull open my front door and prepare to sprint down the small hallway when I stop dead in my tracks.

She’s broken. So fucking broken she’s sitting in the hallway on her knees, crying her eyes out. Her body shakes and shivers with every painful sob.

I tentatively walk over to her, kneeling down beside her slumped form.

“Maura,” I say gently. She doesn’t answer but instead continues to sob.

I don’t know what to say to her because a part of me understands where she’s coming from and why she’s feeling so terrible. I get the guilt because I feel it too.

But I also just feel. For her. As much as I don’t want to hurt my brother more than I already have, I want Maura, and I cannot continue to deny it. I want her to feel loved and cared for. I want her to find out all her potential. I want it all for her.

And I want to be there with her when she gets it.

“Look at me.” I pull her chin up until she meets my stare. Her eyes are puffy and red, snot forming at the end of her nose. She’s still beautiful.

She gazes up at me; her eyes are blue and sorrowful. She seems defeated, so dejected. I can almost read the thoughts going through her head. You cheated, she’s thinking. You’re no good. You’re a horrible person. You’re a whore. You’re everything your shitty parents always said you were.

“Stop,” I tell her. “Stop thinking all the things you’re thinking. Nothing happened last night. We didn’t sleep together. We made out. A lot. We drank too much and stopped before it got too out of hand.”

“I know,” she sniffles. “I remember everything. That’s why it hurts so much.”

I scrunch my brows. “Why does that hurt?”

“Because it’s too soon, Tucker. It’s way too soon. I’m supposed to be sad and mopey for a few weeks, eat a ton of ice cream, and listen to old school Taylor Swift songs. I shouldn’t feel happy. It shouldn’t feel natural. It’s wrong. We’re wrong.”

I swallow down the anger that’s starting to boil at how wishy-washy she’s being. I understand that she’s confused. Hell, so am I. I get that she feels like she can’t have feelings for me because of Tanner. But I also know that she wants to. And for me, that’s enough to convince her to give this thing a shot.

“That’s not what you said last night, Maura. You said it was right. You said we felt right. Don’t negate that now.” I can tell she’s still not convinced, so I press on. “You made a promise. What was it?”

She drops her head again and whispers, “Be me. Make me happy.”

“And what makes you happy?”

It takes a few moments, but she finally glances up at me, her electric-blue eyes now a lot less cloudy than before. Please say me. Please say me.

“You.”

Exhaling the breath I was holding, I pull her into my arms and hold her tightly. “Let this happen, Maura. You have to follow your heart.”

I feel her nod against me. “Okay.”

“You mean that?”

“I do,” she says, pulling away and wiping away the last of her tears. “I mean it, Tuck. But you can’t get upset with me if takes me awhile. I’m so used to not following it that I don’t know how to.”

She makes a good point, something I hadn’t considered before. We’ve both always been those people, the ones who set everything aside for everyone else. But what if we weren’t those people anymore? What if we finally did something for ourselves?

An idea hits me.

“Tell you what, I’ll make a serious effort at doing the music thing full time.” She opens her mouth to say something, but I hold my hand up, silencing her. “I’m not done. I’ll do all that, but only if you do too. You have a bullshit degree you don’t want to use? Get another one. You have a dream job you want? Go after it. Anything. We’ll work on making it happen. Together.”

“Together as what?”

“As us.”

Maura seems to contemplate my offer for several moments, her eyebrows knitted together in concentration, and settles back against the wall, drawing her knees up to her chest. I mirror her pose, watching her run through all the possible answers.

“So you go after music, and I’ll simply be happy?” I nod. “And we help each other? No matter what?” My nod is slower this time because that does worry me a little. “Deal.”

I bump her shoulder. “Good. I didn’t plan on leaving you alone until you said yes anyway.”

“Were you going to stalk me again?”

“If I had to.”

She laughs, and I get all warm and fuzzy inside. But that’s nothing new because her laugh always does that to me.

Her smile is like a ray of sunshine poking its head out on a cloudy day. Her laugh is serene. And when she cries, her tears beat down on my chest like choppy waves during a hurricane. Hell, even when she does that cute snort thing, my fucking heart sings for her. I always seem to feel so much more around her. All the mundane moments in life turn into the extraordinary ones anytime she’s around.

We sit out in the hallway for what feels like ages, neither one of us moving or speaking. We sit and plot and plan and dream. Our silence settles around us as a bond, as a promise, as an understanding.

“Thank you.”

I cock my head in her direction at her small, quiet words. “For what?”

“Everything. For pushing me. For giving me space when I need it. For being there. For all of it. You’re a good friend, Tuck.”

I grimace at her words. Friend. I guess that’s what she wants us to be. I swallow down the sudden burn in my throat and silently wish that I had a bottle of water with me. “Is that what we are?”

It comes out a lot harsher than I intend, so I’m not surprised when Maura flinches. Great move. Show her how big of an asshole you are. Please, remind her of Tanner. You’ve got great game, jackass.

“Friends. For now,” she says. “It’s no secret we like one another, Tucker. I like you. A lot. And if you like me half as much as that, then damn, that’s a lot too.” She sits up straighter for what she’s about to say next. “I think that—considering the type of people we are—we’d probably have a better shot at going after our big wants when we’re not so involved with one another. Ya know? So. Friends. For now. We act like friends would. No labels. I think it would be easier on us if we didn’t have them to answer to.”

I sigh because she’s probably right. We’re too prone to giving shit up, and I don’t want either of us to do that for the other.

I throw her a smirk and ask, “Can we still make out?”

Maura meets my eyes, a spark of mischief in hers, and answers with a straight face. “Of course.”

* * *

Gaige is sitting at the small kitchen table, fully dressed and sipping on coffee when we finally make our way back into the apartment. Holding hands, I might add.

“Well, I didn’t hear yelling. Or screaming. Or moaning. How are things?” he says as a greeting.

“You know, for such a handsome dude, you sure can be annoying,” I grumble. Reluctantly, I let go of Maura’s hand, heading toward our one-cup coffee maker to get my caffeine fix on. I glance toward Maura, silently asking her if she’d like a cup, and get a nod.

He shrugs. “Had to have one flaw, I guess.” Gaige turns his gaze to Maura, who is now sitting at the table with him and winks. “Mornin’.”

She points to me and groans at his sad flirting attempt. “I second what he said.”

“Can’t win ‘em all.”

“Or any of them,” I mutter, pouring creamer and sugar into both cups.

“So, Gaige,” Maura cuts in before he can give me any sass back. “I hear you moonlight as a tattoo artist from time to time on top of all fifty-something of your other jobs.”

Gaige cuts a glare in my direction and grunts.

My roommate is a private person. Like way private. I only know the things I know about him because he’s one of my best friends. And it took me many years to find it all out. The basics: he’s quiet, loyal, and charming as hell. He acts as the voice of reason for me and Hudson when we need it and always doles out advice without prying too much. He’s a damn good friend, and I’m lucky to have him in my life to always give me the reality check I need.

“Suck it up, dude. She’d have found out eventually.”

I set down the two cups of coffee and plop down opposite him. He sighs and pushes his cup away, sits back in the chair, and crossing his arms over his chest. He pins Maura with a mean stare. “Silence. That’s what I want from you. It’s a well-kept secret, and I’d prefer it remain that way.”

Maura zips her fingers over her lips. “Safe with me.” She leans forward and steeples her hands together, resting her chin on the tips of her fingers. “But I have to ask, why keep it a secret? You’re wicked talented.”

“I know,” he says in a cocky manner, leaning forward and giving her what I’ve come to know as his panty-pleaser smile while ignoring her question.

“And you’re done,” I say, sitting forward myself. “Go somewhere. Away. Far away.”

Gaige lifts a brow in my direction. “Pissing on her already, Tuck? I never had you pegged as the territorial type.”

I snort. “I wish I could say I never had you pegged as the asshole, but…looks like I was right.”

He clutches his chest, getting up and putting his dirty cup in the dishwasher. “The feels, man. Right in the feels.”

Turning to Maura as he leaves, I tell her, “I have an appointment on Wednesday if you’re available.”

“With Daren Darren? Hell yes I am!” she shouts as she pumps the air with her fists.

“Calm down. It’s nothing huge, only a preliminary meeting. I don’t know if I want to sign with him or not.”

“I think it could be good. But if it sucks, we walk.”

“We, huh?”

She gives me a suggestive smile (okay, not really sure if it is, but it sounds good) and says, “We.”

“I like the sound of that,” I tell her honestly. I can tell by the grin on her face that she likes it too. Before she can answer, I ask, “You working tonight?”

“At four,” she nods. “Why? You gonna come stalk me?”

I don’t attempt to hide my grin and say, “Of course.”