“But your mama is married to Dr. Frank. Don’t they, y’know, give you money?”

My face warmed.

Before I could answer, she added, “If you and Boyce ain’t getting busy then why are you living here instead of there? I haven’t been to the Frank place since we graduated, of course—what was that, four years ago? But shit, girl, they’d have to pry my ass outta there with a crowbar if I was you.” A crease popped up on her forehead. “Unless Dr. Frank—”

“God. No—no. He’s great. I just had a little disagreement with them about what I’m doing next. They expected me to go to medical school and I… don’t want to.” Why was I telling her this?

“You know you’re an adult, right?” she said slowly, as if I were dense. “You went to college even! Not married, no kids… You don’t have a kid, right?”

“Uh, no.”

“Free as a bird. And look at you—you’re a cute little thing. If you wanted Boyce, you could land him. Honestly, if you’d been a bitch in high school like your best friend was—no offense—I wouldn’t point this out, but I mean be real. Plenty of the dipshits we went to school with are still living with their mamas, but Boyce has his own place and his own business. Sure, he was a fuckup in high school—weren’t we all—well, not you—me and Boyce and Rick, etcetera. But Boyce turned out pretty decent I’d say, and Lord-have-mercy hot to boot.”

I snapped my mouth closed once I realized it was ajar. “I thought you and he… uh…”

She laughed, displaying a mouth full of white teeth. I meanly concentrated on her small overbite. “Well, yeah, but it’s never been anything serious between us. You, though. You’ve got the goods. He’d be an idiot not to go for it. Just make him work for it. Boyce doesn’t set store by anything that comes too easy, if you get my drift.”

• • • • • • • • • •

Boyce was silent when he returned, dropping the box in his room, checking the fridge and shutting it without removing anything. Unless he’d eaten while he was out, he’d missed lunch.

“How’d your meeting go?”

He shook his head but didn’t reply, staring out the window into a backyard that had been allowed to go wild.

“That bad?”

“I’ll figure it out.” His eyes shifted to mine and away. Just as I meant to press him to let me listen or help, he said, “I missed my workout this morning. I’m gonna go do that.”

He left his room five minutes later and headed straight outside wearing unlaced sneakers, mesh shorts, no shirt, and dog tags I’d never seen him wear. My body threatened mutiny at my self-imposed celibacy while sharing quarters with that. As soon as the door shut behind him, I went to stand six inches from the AC unit in the window, which couldn’t blow cold enough to cool my feverish skin. I’d handled Boyce Wynn in bits and pieces all my life, but living with him was testing every bit of willpower I had.

My body didn’t get it. I couldn’t deny that I wanted him on a purely physical level, but if I gave in to that, my heart would wake up and want more. I couldn’t play that game with Boyce. He would break me.

Even if I’d experienced brief moments of wishing I could be more than a friend he found attractive, I had never let myself imagine him falling in love with me. Exception: those few hours between our only time together and seeing him on the beach with a girl on his lap—a temp fuck—that’s what he and his friends called the tourists’ daughters they hooked up with.

Playing house had put relationship mirages in my head where none existed before. Or maybe I’d just been able to repress them before now. Damn Brittney Loper and her cruel promptings to land the boy I’d loved all my life.

Nine weeks, two days.

“I forgot to tell you—Brittney Loper came by for you,” I said when Boyce came inside.

He paused before pulling the fridge door wide and staring inside. “What did she want?” The waistband of his shorts was damp with perspiration.

“She said her truck was shaking.”

He grabbed a bottle of premade iced tea and a small tub of grilled chicken and turned around, his lips quirked. “That can’t be abnormal for her.” His shorts hung lower than they had an hour ago—showing off the sweat-sheened ladder of muscle notching his abdomen and sculpted chest.

“Boyce.”

“What?” He chuckled, spearing slices of chicken with a fork and wolfing them down.

“Double standard much?” I snapped, pointlessly angry.

“All right—down, ethics police—I’m just playing. God knows my TA’s been known to shake now and again.”

I wanted to punch him, but he probably wouldn’t even feel it. He looked like a bodybuilder, skin oiled to highlight the hard-won cuts and rock-solid curves.

“She say when she’s coming back?”

I stared down at my book. “She said she’d come back tomorrow. She’s at work now.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday—that’s my only day off.”

“I guess she believes she has a… special influence with you.”

He grunted. “The fuck she does. No one has influence over my Sundays.” When he finished off the chicken, he tipped the iced tea back and drank all of it without stopping.

Efforts to keep my eyes glued to the open book in front of me were a giant fail. I watched him through my hair, ready to feign total concentration on the text I was supposedly reading at the least indication that he was about to notice me staring like a creeper.

“I’m gonna grab a shower and go out. I’ll probably stop and check Brit’s truck.” He turned to look at me and my eyes dropped to the textbook. “Wanna go with, get a beer?”

“No thanks. I’ve got to get through this chapter.” Bullshit. I was more than caught up. There was just no way I was going to go watch him flirt with Brittney or the vacationers who’d begun to show up en masse in the past two weeks. And when he brings someone home—which could happen tonight? my practical side asked. I was of a mind to tie and gag my practical side. “I have to apply for more jobs tomorrow too.”

“No luck this morning?”

“Zero. But I’ll find something,” I said, professing more confidence than I had. “I just have to keep looking.”

Chapter Seventeen