Second Chances: A Romance Writers of America Collection (Stark World 2.50)

"You know Jenny O'Keefe? Scott's older sister?" His response would have come off as completely random if I hadn't spent those eleven nights getting to know how his brain worked. He wasn't big on smooth segues.

I nodded. Who didn't know the former head cheerleader and her baseball-playing brother?

"She just started at the CC and likes it. Especially the

general ed classes," he added, slanting me a look.

He clearly remembered more about me than he'd been letting on. That's what I planned to take at the CC, while figuring out how to afford to finish at a university. I wasn't giving up on my dreams of becoming a magazine editor just because my family had fallen on hard times.

He pulled open the door to the parking lot, and then held it to let me through. Sweeping by him, I breathed in, getting treated to his clean, masculine scent. For that millisecond, I felt at one with him again. Almost in love with him again.

A car horn honked. Hayes waved to the driver idling in a nearby spot, and then slanted a look at me. "I'd offer you a ride, but we're not headed to my house any time soon."

I dismissed that with a wave of my hand. Again, I was grateful for the consideration.

It wasn't until he opened the passenger's side door that I saw the carefully plucked eyebrows and the slick blonde hair. Jenny O'Keefe herself.

I faked a big smile, praying it covered my raging jealousy.

"Good to see you, Maddie!" she called back.

Of course they weren't headed to his house any time soon. They had a lot better things to do first. The kinds of things he and I had once done. And I really, really wished we could do again.

I lifted my hand in a wave as they sped off. Even when life got immensely better, it could still suck.

"I WAS THINKING ABOUT what you asked, Maddie," Hayes had said last June, sitting beside me on a top bleacher at the park's baseball field. His buddies had headed home from practice. The sun was setting, the field lights were off, and technically, the park was closing.

But no matter. He'd texted me and asked me to meet him. I would have gone to hell and back.

"About kissing." He settled in beside me. So close, our thighs almost touched. That in itself was enough to make my nerve endings come alive. "I guess I could help. I mean, I want to."

I'm pretty sure I gasped, but he kept right on talking.

"You're sure this is above board, right? Alec's not going to come after me?"

"No problem," I said with utmost sincerity. I wanted to tell him I hadn't seen Alec in a couple of weeks and had no intentions of being near his lips again. But that wouldn't be in my best interest.

"Okay." If I didn't know better, I would have thought he'd swallowed hard. "I know you've done this before, and there are no real rules. Mainly, you relax and do what comes naturally."

Nothing felt more natural than being with Hayes, but the relax part was out of the question. Every fiber of my being wanted to leap into his lap, run my fingers through his hair, acquaint myself with the stubble shadowing on his cheeks, inhale his masculine scent.

His hand pressed gently against my cheek. "Now close your eyes."

I did, and after some quivering anticipation, felt his lips over mine. Soft, at first. Then his hand moved to cup the back of my neck, and he re-angled, deepening the kiss. Our breaths mixing, our tongues dancing, our hands caressing; it seemed I could no longer tell where my body ended and his began.

"How does that compare?" he asked later, pulling apart. Somehow, we'd lost almost all light, except for the glow of full moon high in the sky.

"Compare?" I repeated dreamily. To what? Walking on air? Winning a lottery jackpot?

"Kissing Alec," he said, reining me in.

"Oh," I said and laughed--mostly at the fact his powerful kisses had robbed me of brain cells. "No comparison, really. He doesn't have anything near your moves or style."

Even in the dim light, I could see his smile.

For the next ten days, my life felt pretty perfect. Sure, my father went and sold the family van. Chlorine was doing a real number on my hair. And my conscience tapped a steady beat over my ongoing deception. But I was happy. And I was pretty sure Hayes was, too.

Rather quickly, we'd gone from teacher/student to essentially lab partners, learning and experimenting together. Secret lab partners. By day, we'd hang around the Puglisi's pool, trying to act same-old/same-old, not to give ourselves away. Although, somehow, I always ended up on his shoulders during the shallow-end chicken fight competitions, my thighs pressed tight against his neck, his hands solid on my legs.