The Cheat Sheet

Lily: She lasted longer than I expected.

Me: Aka too long.

Lily: Be nice! He might be sad.

Me: Ummm I’m always nice, thank you very much.

Lily: I bet you have a creepy smile on your face.

When Nathan finally comes back into the kitchen, I train my face into a heartfelt frown, proving Lily wrong. “I’m sorry, friend.”

“No, you’re not,” he says with a chuckle as he leans his bare hip against the counter.

I really wish he’d wear more clothes. It’s painful having to look at something so beautiful and never touch it. Nathan’s skin is like hot golden sand from an exotic beach, wrapped around a rippling form that makes you feel instantly dehydrated. His perfectly crafted physique is the reason he was named Sexiest Man Alive and made the cover of Pro Sports Magazine’s form issue where they highlight and celebrate all the different physical forms of pro athletes and what they have to do to keep their bodies in tip-top shape. It’s a classy spread with well-placed hands and thighs to cover the most important bits. But yeah, Nathan was completely naked in that magazine. And although I own five copies, I’ve never been able to bring myself to look inside (the cover only shows him from the waist up). There are some

boundaries you just can’t cross as friends. Nakedness is one of them.

I pick up a donut and shove it in my mouth to keep from smiling. “No! I really mean it. Kelsey seemed…fun.”

“You stuck your tongue out at her in the box last night.”

“Geez! Do the Avengers know about you and your superhuman eyesight?”

He smiles and reaches out to tug on my messy ponytail. “Was Kelsey a jerk to you when I wasn’t around? Be honest.”

Nathan has black eyes. Not chocolate, not brown. Jet freaking black. And when they zero in on me like this, it feels like I’m suffocating. Like I couldn’t get away from their intensity even if I tried.

I shrug a shoulder and take a drink of my coffee. “She wasn’t the best, but it’s no big deal.”

“What’d she say?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He inches closer. “Bree.”

“Nathan. See, I can do it too.”

He’s quiet…thoughtful, a mere five inches between our chests. “I’m sorry if she made you feel bad. I didn’t realize she was like that toward you or I would have broken up with her a long time ago.”

A corner of my heart aches. If he cares about me being in his life so much, why isn’t he attracted to me? No. Uh-uh. Not going there. I refuse to be that girl. We’re friends and I’m happy with that. Grateful for it. And maybe one day, life will toss me a man who loves me back as much as I love him. Either way, I’m good right now.

“Well, I didn’t exactly help things. I probably shouldn’t have come over here this early and let myself in.” I take a big bite of my chocolate donut. “I should implement better boundaries.”

“Probably,” he says, sounding gravely serious. But when my eyes jump up to his, Nathan is grinning—right dimple popping and all.

I playfully shove his arm. “What! If that’s the case, maybe I should take away your key to my apartment. Implement some boundaries there.”

He takes the last bite of his donut, grin still in place. “Good luck. I’m never giving it back.” His arm brushes against mine as he passes by me, and I wonder if it would be a breach of these boundaries if I plastered myself to his body like a barnacle.

I think I need this run more than he does, and for completely different reasons.

Sweating and worn out from our run, Bree and I dump ourselves onto the floor in front of my giant white couch. To my left is a floor-to-ceiling three-million-dollar view of the ocean, but to my right is the view I would give my soul to see every day for the rest of my life. Obviously, Bree doesn’t know I feel this way about her.

I knock the back of my knuckle against her knee, right beside the jagged scar that changed the course of her entire life. “What are you doing later? You want to come meet me for lunch at CalFi?”

CalFi is my team’s stadium. It has a recently added training facility where we practice and work out during the week, complete with a cafeteria catered by some of the best chefs in the business. And I, in case you are wondering, am an overeager puppy, begging for Bree to play with me—to always play with me.

She rolls her head so her soft brown eyes lock with mine. Bree is all honey-brown, long, wildly curly hair and a wide, gorgeous mouth with dimples the size of my thumb on either side. She has a Julia Roberts smile—one so unique and stunning that once you’ve seen it, no other smile even comes close. With our heads laid back against the couch, our foreheads almost touch. I want to lean in an extra inch. Two inches. I want to feel her lips.