“I’m not going to ask him and find out. NO thanks.”

“It’s one way to find out what he’s up to.”

Why does she always make so much sense?

And why am I still thinking about Jackson Jennings?

Jackson

“That’s that same girl.”

“Yup.” It sure is.

“She doesn’t like you.”

“No shit.”

Tyson gives me side-eye. “Do you like her?”

“What? No.” Is he being serious? “You know I’m not datin’.”

“I didn’t ask if you want to date her. I asked if you like her.”

“I don’t know her.”

He’s quiet for a few seconds, thoughtful—likely putting some bullshit sentence together in his mind before saying it out loud. “Didn’t look like you don’t know her, and you sure do run into her a lot.”

That I do.

Weird.

This is the fourth time she and I have clashed, bumped into each other randomly and gotten into a tiff.

“She’s cute. I wonder if she’s single,” Tyson muses out loud.

I roll my eyes, not about to fall for his tactics. He’s feeling me out and trying to see if I’ll get jealous. Which I won’t.

My shoulders rise into a shrug. “Don’t care.”

He replies by tapping on the window ledge and staring out the at the administrative buildings on campus as we pass by them. The library. The registrar’s office. The alumni house.

We pass the stadium, which rises out of the ground like Goliath.

I love that fucking stadium; it’s the very reason I fell in love with Iowa and the school. New, shiny, and state-of-the-art, it was like nothing I’d ever seen.

Certainly not in the small town where I grew up, though our high school stadium wasn’t your typical playing field, either. No one hosts football games like Texans.

“Not even a little bit interested?” he inquires.

“Not even a little.”

I can feel him staring at my profile and keep my gaze trained on the road ahead of me. I’m taking him to his place before heading home; we’ve had enough fun for the night and I’m beat.

That little blonde on the side of the road lost all her appeal once Charlotte and her traitorous friend pulled up. That friend of hers liked me, that I could tell—she at least knew who I was.

Charlie sure as shit didn’t, and Charlie couldn’t care less.

Charlotte.

The name suits her. It’s feminine and beautiful and a bit old-fashioned, just like she seems to be.

Fifth Friday

Jackson

Well, well, well, what do we have here?

Charlotte Edmonds and her crappy beige car, broken down on the side of the road, that’s what. Not a safe place to pull over, but with a flat back tire, doesn’t look like she had much choice.

How do I know her last name? Easy—I looked her up and crept on her pretty hard for someone who thinks she’s a bit too salty to taste.

Charlotte Edmonds. Twenty-one. Junior. Business major who plays intramural volleyball. Kind of tall for a girl at five foot seven. Her Instagram gallery shows her doing all kinds of cutesy, adorable shit, like baking cupcakes in her tiny kitchen for the Fourth of July and volunteering at the local humane society. Spraying a hose at some little kid, wearing a bikini—that one I really could appreciate.

Boobs. Legs. Ass.

She’s a trifecta of feminine perfection…

And she hates my guts.

I pull over and watch her eyeballing me, arms crossed as she leans her hip on the side of her beat-up Chevy, looking like a car model, though she would most likely disagree with that assessment.

I unfasten my seatbelt and hop out of the truck, my flip-flops hitting the ground, door slamming behind me.

“Whacha doin’?”

“My nails,” she says sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “What does it look like I’m doing? I have a flat tire, Triple J.”

She uses my nickname as if it’s an insult, the little shit. As if I didn’t work hard to earn it with blood, sweat, and grass stains permanently embedded in both my knees, with concussions and a few knocked-out teeth.

“Looks like you’ve done broke down on the side of the road. You have a flat?” I can see that she does—the ass end of her left side is slouched toward the pavement.

Her eye roll is one big Duh. “Where is your sidekick?”

“Busy doin’ somethin’ else.” I shrug. “Did you call someone to help you?”

“Honestly? No.”

My brows shoot into my hairline. “Why not?”

“Because, Jackson, I knew you would eventually come along and rescue me. It’s Friday night—isn’t this your route?”

“You wanted me to rescue you?”

“Want? No. Need? Yes. I need help putting on my spare tire.”

“So, no to the rescuin’ you.”

Charlotte runs out of patience. “Are you going to help me or not? I can call someone who isn’t going to dick me around.”

Dick me around.

Hoo-ee, the mouth on this one…

“Yeah, I’ll help you. I’ll show you how to change your tire, too—it’s somethin’ you should know how to do.”

She groans. “Fine.”

“Pop your trunk and let me see what you have back there.”

Begrudgingly, Charlotte complies, opening the driver’s side door and bending to flip the switch under her dash to release the trunk of her car.

It pops, opening a fraction, and I lift it the rest of the way up to peer inside. The spare tire is buried beneath a pile of crap: gym bag, water bottle, athletic sandals. A fuzzy purple blanket, one tennis shoe, a few paperback books.

No tools. No crowbar.

No jack.

I remove the spare with one hand, hefting it out and setting it on the ground, slamming the trunk shut.

“You’re lucky it was me who came along, because you ain’t got nothin’ to take your tire off with. You should get a tool kit and keep it in your trunk.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will,” she replies in a bored, I won’t tone. “Tool kit—gotcha.”

I make short work of fishing the tools we need out of the bed of my truck then cop-a-squat next to her flat so I can wedge the jack underneath. Pump the handle until the left side of her car is suspended slightly off the ground, just enough so I can remove the tire and replace it with the smaller, temporary one.

“Come watch what I’m doin’. Pay attention.”

She sighs, dragging her feet on the concrete, squatting beside me.

“First you’re gonna remove all the lug nuts with this.” I show her the tire iron, putting it onto one of the nuts and cranking it counterclockwise. “Sometimes they rust a little so you have to use elbow grease.”

“Okay.”

“Next you’re gonna pull the tire off and roll it to the side.” I do just that, propping it against her bumper so it doesn’t roll away. “Now go ahead and pop the spare on.”

“You want me to do it?” Her eyes are wide.