“I called your name like four times. You looked like you were trying to figure out something pretty serious over here.”

We both went to DU and were both in our junior year. Shaw wanted to be a doctor so she was looking at a longer haul than I was, but it was nice that a couple of our upper-level undergrad classes now overlapped. I rarely saw her unless we went out or were at work together, and even then, chances were she left early to go home to Rule or to study. I missed her, and while Cora was fun and I enjoyed spending time with her, talking to her was different from talking to Shaw.

I traced the image on the front of the book with a finger nail and refused to look up at her. “I’m thinking it’s time to cut Adam loose.”

“Hmm . . . This wouldn’t have anything to do with Valentine’s Day would it?”

I made a face and sat back in the chair with a sigh. “Maybe.”

Looking into those green eyes of hers was like looking into a raw piece of emerald. She watched me for a second before sitting back and copying my pose with her arms crossed over her chest.

“What do you want to do tomorrow night?”

I think the more accurate question was who did I want to do tomorrow night and the answer was clearly not Adam. I huffed out a breath that sent my dark hair sliding across my forehead.

“I wanted to go to the show with everyone, but then Adam showed up at the bar with flowers and chocolate and made a big production about making plans. Rowdy was there and saw the whole thing. Jet came in and told me I should go have a romantic night, that I deserved it—so now I don’t have any idea what I want to do, but I know I’m irritated at both of them for different reasons.”

Shaw lifted a pale eyebrow and tapped the edge of her fingers, tipped in a crazy leopard-print polish, on the cover of her book. “So tell me the reasons.”

“It’s stupid.”

“If it has you sulking outside the library when it’s barely forty degrees out, then it isn’t stupid. Something is bothering you and we should talk it out.”

I sighed again and ran aggravated hands through my hair. I normally wore it much shorter, but between school and work, I was unsuccessful in finding time for anything that might be labeled trivial or a waste of time, which included my current state of boy confusion.

“I like Adam. He’s nice and we have a pretty good time together, but it bothers me that he never wants to hang out with my friends. He’s almost too cookie-cutter, you know what I mean?” I waited until she nodded. “He has a great future all planed out, he has an awesome family all from here and I know that he really likes me. He’s cute enough and we have a million and one things in common, but . . .” There shouldn’t be a “but,” yet there it was.

“But what, Ayd?” She wasn’t going to let me sugarcoat it.

“But when he kisses me or tries to touch me, I might as well be filing my nails or watching CNN. There is no spark— Hell, there isn’t even a stiff wind. It’s boring and dull, and I hate it.”

“Well, that’s not good.”

I scoffed at her, “You think? I’m not attracted to the guy I’m supposed to be dating, but if, God forbid, the guy who lives across the hall comes out of his room without a shirt on, instantly I’m ready to spontaneously combust. Watching Jet onstage, being close enough to accidentally touch him and smell him, does more to get me off and turn me on than anything Kyle or Adam has done in the past year, and that’s why I’m irritated and frustrated with him.

“I don’t want to be attracted to Jet, Shaw. I want to be attracted to a guy like Adam, who I can potentially build a future with, and it bugs me to no end that no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to make that happen.”

She gazed at me knowingly for a long minute. Shaw knew all about my disastrous attempt at seduction with Jet and she always told me that something seemed off about it. Sure, he thought I was all virginal white-gloves and untouched purity, but she was convinced there was more at work than Jet just trying to be chivalrous. She was always encouraging me to let a little bit more of the old me out, so he could see that I wasn’t above whatever lofty pedestal he had decided to place me on.

The last time I did that, he hurt me and made me run away, so I wasn’t too keen on letting the old Ayden out again for him to reject all over again. Frankly, I was terrified of the way he made we want to throw all caution to the wind.

“Well, we both know you can’t maintain a relationship of any kind with a guy you aren’t physically attracted to, and as for Jet, maybe you just need to get him out of your system. Maybe once he’s not the one that got away, you won’t want him so bad. That thing that happened last year between the two of you has always lingered. Maybe you just need to take a full dose of whatever he’s packing, and it will go away. Then you can focus on finding a guy more like Adam to work on building a serious relationship with.”

“I tried that already. He said it was a bad idea, remember?” I couldn’t help the bitterness that colored my tone.

Shaw laced her fingers together and leaned across the table, so that I couldn’t look away from her super-green eyes.

“So make him think it’s a great idea. You really think if you set out to seduce him, he’s going to say no? I heard what you told me happened last time, Ayd. He put up a little tiny protest and you ran away as fast as you could because it reminded you too much of something you might have done in another life. We don’t talk about Kentucky much, but I get the distinct impression that the girl from Woodward wouldn’t have let Jet go that night, the way the girl from Denver did.”

I groaned and dropped my head into my hands to cover my face. “The girl from Woodward wouldn’t have ever given him the impression that she was some good little girl, just trying to play with fire. Who I was before wasn’t pretty, Shaw. I tell you that, but I don’t think you really get the enormity of it.”

She waved a dismissive hand and got to her feet, hefting her heavy book as she went. The thing looked like it weighed more than she did.

“None of that matters. It’s this Ayden that I’m worried about. This Ayden deserves to be happy, regardless of what the future holds, and this Ayden is the one who has to decide why she is settling for milk and cookies when what she really wants is edible body paint and furry handcuffs.”

That startled a laugh out of me and I got to my feet to follow her. “What do you know about edible body paints?” She flicked her long hair over her shoulder, and the black underneath shimmered under the pale blond.

“Tattoo artist boyfriend, remember? He likes to draw.”

We shared a knowing look and parted to go our separate ways to class. I hated that she was right. I could drag things out with Adam forever and still end up nowhere. He was too nice for that, and I was too good of a person now to make him suffer and wait around needlessly for things that I just wasn’t willing to give him. I knew that being with someone like Adam helped me keep all the bad traits from my past at bay. Dating a guy like him didn’t allow for the spontaneity or the reckless decision-making that so often ended up making me suffer harsh consequences. Adam was steady and didn’t offer up much in the way of excitement or passion, and my logical side knew that was what I should want. However, the bigger part of me that operated on instinct and emotion knew he just wasn’t ever going to cut it on the more basic, physical fronts.

I spent my entire next class worrying about it and getting nowhere. Unfortunately, Adam was the teacher’s aide for the I-chem class that was directly across the hall from mine so when I exited the classroom he was waiting for me. I had to try not to flinch when he leaned down to press a light kiss to my unyielding mouth. It shouldn’t be this hard. He was nice enough looking, with brown hair and clear blue eyes. Regrettably, he dressed like he was about to burst into a lecture about cell division or the effects of global warming at any minute. There was just nothing there; no spark, no tingle, no nothing.

He offered to take my books from me but I shook my head no.

I was getting ready to tell him that we needed to cancel Valentine’s Day and that I didn’t think it was a good idea to see each other anymore, when he grabbed my hand and placed a kiss on the back of it.

“I know you were on the fence about spending Valentine’s Day together tomorrow, so I went ahead and made us a reservation for dinner at that Brazilian restaurant you like so much. I really want us to spend the evening together, Ayd. This relationship is very special to me. You are very special to me.”

I gulped down a mixture of bile and guilt, and tried to give him a smile that I knew ended up more like a grimace.

“That’s really sweet, Adam, but like I said, I just don’t know about dinner and the night together. I don’t think I’m in the same place with this relationship that you are.”

I could see that my words hurt him and it made me feel awful, but I knew it was the truth. I couldn’t use him to keep myself from acting in a certain way. Maybe I had really changed or I was just pretending, but either way, he didn’t need to be jerked around while I figured it out. He didn’t need to be mentally rejected while I was busy getting Jet’s pants off in my mind every five minutes.

“I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you wanted to hear.”

He squeezed the hand he was holding and gave me a grin that was sad and sweet. “Well, how about this, we go to dinner and you let me try to charm you? After, you can decide what you want to do. We have to eat, and the reservation was tricky to get on such short notice. I think you’ll be missing out on something really great if you don’t give this thing between us a shot.”

I wanted to groan, but just tugged my hand free and used it to twist the straps on my book bag around. I knew the right thing to do was to walk away, but he looked so bummed out. He had given it his all for the last four months and I was having a hard time just pulling the Band-Aid off clean.

“Look, I have plans to go see a friend’s band tomorrow night. I’ll go to dinner with you but you have to understand that all it’s going to be is dinner. I don’t think my mind is going to be changed. You’re a really nice guy, Adam, but there’s just something missing here, and after four months I know when to pull the plug.”

He laughed and I heard a chord of bitterness. “I know what it means when a girl says I’m a nice guy, Ayd. You don’t have to try to spare my feelings. You’re bored with me. I’ve seen the guys you hang out with when you aren’t working or at school. No one in their right mind would ever call any of them nice guys, especially that one you live with, the guy with the band.”

We had reached the parking lot and my car, so I popped the lock and tossed my stuff inside. I shifted on my feet and tried not to look guilty.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with that. I just know that something isn’t working and I’m not going to draw it out for either one of us. Trust me, Adam, there was a time when I would have just kept dating you until I had wrung you dry, and then walked away without an apology or bothering to look back. I know we both deserve better than that now, so if you want to cancel dinner I totally understand.”