Shared

I shrugged, pretending to consider it. “Possibly.”

“Not just possibly,” he said. “Definitely.”

He was right of course, but it didn’t stop me from messing with him. I’d found I loved messing with all the boys, but especially Colin.

“What if I liked you?”

He turned into me, his lithe, athletic body barely contained by a fresh white T-shirt. We were the only ones up in the whole house. The only ones around…

“Do you?” he asked, and his ice-blue eyes sparkled.

I crunched down on another bite of bacon. “I don’t know,” I shrugged, pretending to look him up and down. Well, not really pretending. “I could… but then again…” I bumped him with my hip. “That might be cataclysmically bad.”

The smell of burning pancakes brought him back to the task at hand. As he cursed and flipped as fast as he could, I couldn’t help but chuckle on the way out of the kitchen.

In truth I was being an asshole. Making myself feel better at the expense of someone else. The breakup with Garrett had emotionally drained me, and I’d been feeling down about myself ever since. Only now was I coming out of my shell. Finally opening up to the idea that, someday soon, I’d have to eventually dip my toes back in the dating pool.

It’s more than loneliness though, the honest part of me knew. It’s something else too.

My roommates were beautiful, sexy, amazing guys. And single. Let’s not forget single. In the short time I’d been here they’d treated me like a princess, and I’d done my best to be there for them as well.

For example there was Brandon, failing two classes right from the start of the semester. His entire scholarship, not to mention his whole future with the team, was in jeopardy. Colin had taken to tutoring him, and when I found out I jumped right in to help. Already he’d done better on his latest round of exams. Still, he needed more work and less partying. More studying. More structure.

Colin seemed fine on the outside, but it was obvious his obsessive compulsive order was being fed by some inner turmoil. I suspected it had something to do with his ex girlfriend, who he talked about just a little too frequently. I hadn’t gotten him to open up yet, though. He always played it off like everything was fine.

And Hunter? He was the most private of all. He was fine whenever we were in a group setting, but when he and I were alone in the house it seemed like he would intentionally avoid me. Any contact we had was playful and fun, but he kept it short and sweet… as if he were afraid to let things go on longer.

Even so, there was a strange magnetism between us. A natural chemistry that seemed to deepen the more we ignored it. And there was something about him as well. Some deep-seeded secret he kept close to his perfectly-sculpted chest. The more he hid it, the more I wanted to know. And the more he denied me, the closer I wanted to be to him.

The whole thing was incredible, it really was. For the first time in forever I actually had family. People who looked out for me, cared about me, locked the door with me inside the house at night. We played together, laughed together, ate together, even got involved in each other’s lives. I’d see Colin or Hunter on campus, and they’d walk with me sometimes. Or I’d stop by the football field to watch Brandon drill. To admire the herculean effort he was putting in as an athlete, even as Colin and I did our best to hone him as an

academic student.

We became comfortable. Lax. Even flirtatious. But if just one of us succumbed to our more baser, honest desires?

I knew it held the sad promise of going bad.

Thirteen

COLIN

CRASH!

I knew without looking the phone had made a hole in the wall. The hole could be fixed, though. Everything else… couldn’t.

Why do you do this to yourself?

I didn’t know. It made no sense, really. The only thing I knew was that, as my anger subsided, I hoped my phone wasn’t broken beyond repair.

Why do you still even care?

In truth I shouldn’t. Holly was gone — long gone, in fact — and no matter how much I clung to the glories of our past relationship she was not coming back.

Not that I even wanted her back. Not after Derrick. Not after she’d give him—

“Colin?”

Claudia stood in the doorway, not sure whether to come in or remain in the hall. She looked absolutely beautiful, even in her paint-streaked sweatpants.