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Brandon smiled, his teeth looking impossibly straight and white. Colin, his shirt soaked t

o his flat stomach by sweat, put his hands on his hips.

“Well shit,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. “I’m pretty sure we’re gonna like you.”

Five

HUNTER

I loved watching her. The way she carried herself, the way her face lit up when she talked… hell, I even liked her smile.

But nothing was more attractive to me than her laugh.

The kitchen was still a mess, but right now it was warm and clean and well lit. After another few hours of scrubbing things down and tightening some screws here and there, there was room enough for the four of us to sit down around the old linoleum table and split a pizza.

“Thanks for the dinner invite,” Claudia smiled, helping herself to a second piece. “You guys really didn’t have to.”

“Well you looked hungry,” Brandon smirked. “And I wouldn’t exactly call this ‘dinner’.”

“I am hungry,” she said. “Or rather, I was. I haven’t eaten since—”

“The pieces of granola we caught you picking out of your hair?”

Claudia blushed, and she suddenly looked even cuter. She elbowed Brandon just as he got up to hit the fridge again.

“One of the many perils of eating on the go,” she explained.

“That’s not eating,” Colin countered. He wagged a finger in her direction. “Come by again once we’ve got everything set up in here. I’ll make you a real dinner.”

She laughed casually, probably not realizing how serious my fraternity brother actually was. Back at Omega Alpha, he’d done more than his fair share of the cooking. He could whip up some mean grub.

“Sorry about the appliances,” she said, glancing around. “I’ll talk to the University’s Housing Department tomorrow. See if there’s enough wiggle room in the budget for some new ones.”

“Even second-hand ones would be an improvement,” Brandon noted.

“We could probably sell these on the Antique Roadshow,” Colin quipped. “Raise some money.”

She grinned again, and I knew I was in trouble. There was definitely something about her. Something that spoke to me on levels I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Shit.

She was a genuinely nice person for one, but she also had a very no-bullshit way about her. In other words, she said what she meant and she meant what she said. I liked that. Probably a little more than I wanted to admit.

And she was beautiful too. High cheekbones, full lips, and a shrewd intelligence behind her emerald eyes. The whole time she’d been here, she’d listened more than she talked. She asked more questions than she answered. I also noticed she stopped at two beers, not three.

She was in control. I liked that too.

Enough already. Forget about it.

And how old was she? Twenty four? Twenty six? Not much older than us. And yet…

And yet it didn’t matter how much older she was. She was a professor. And now, apparently our landlord. Or maybe the University was our landlord, and Claudia was just the Super.

Whatever.

Either way, she was off limits. Colin had realized that right away, and so did I. We’d talked about that first night, after realizing how pretty she was. And after collectively warning Brandon not to go after her, too.

Still, after the couple of weeks the three of us just had? Looking at something pretty was a pleasant distraction.