by Jana Aston
“When’s the last time someone asked you on a date, Boots?”
Wow. The hits just keep on coming with this guy. “I do okay.” Does he think I’m chasing Finn because nobody else is interested?
“No. When’s the last time a man pursued you? Instead of the other way around?”
“It doesn’t work that way any more, Sawyer. My generation is different than yours.” Ha.
He ignores the dig. “Any man worthy of you would work for it, Everly. Not sit by passively while you did all the work.”
I don’t have a single smart retort for that.
We arrive in front of my dorm and I pop the door open the second the car stops moving. I can’t get my feet on the pavement fast enough. Sawyer puts the car in park and retrieves my bag from the trunk, walking around the car to hand it to me. I sling the bag over my shoulder and look up at him expectantly, hand out. He’s standing so close I have to tilt my head back a little to meet his eyes.
“Phone?” I demand.
“Keys?” he replies.
Grrr. I dig into my bag and pull out the remaining two keys to Finn’s apartment and drop them in his hand, then go back to looking at him expectantly, hand out.
“Don’t you want to thank me for the ride, Everly?”
Right. Of course. I drop my outstretched hand and take a deep breath. It’s better than a sigh. Not much, but I’m trying. “Thank you for driving me back to school, Sawyer. I appreciate it.” I add on a smile. “May I have my phone now?”
Sawyer just continues to stand there and look at me, his eyes doing that thing again, that thing that makes me think he’s picturing me naked. I do sigh now, and reach into his breast pocket and grab the phone myself.
“Is this you passively giving me my phone back? To prove how annoying it—”
I’m cut off mid-sentence because Sawyer’s lips are on mine. One hand is behind my neck, warm on my skin and holding me still. The other is low on my hip, dangerously close to my ass, pulling me closer. My heart stops for a second, and then it’s racing, blood flowing at warp speed throughout my body. I’m clutching my phone, my arm trapped between our bodies and across his chest. His tongue dips into my mouth and he groans. My traitorous ears are quick to acknowledge it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard, that this kiss, God, this kiss…
“That’s chemistry,” he says when he lets me go. I’m a few seconds behind hearing him, my eyes still closed, my lips still tilted in his direction.
Then his words register. I blink and take a step back. I just, I just don’t have anything to say to that. I need to think. I whirl around and make a getaway for the dorm entrance, intent on getting out of there without giving him another look.
“Boots!” he shouts at me as I dash up the steps, door in sight.
“What?” I snap, stopping at the top of the steps and turning to look at him again.
“So I’ll call you?” he asks, smiling. “We can Netflix and chill?” He laughs as he says it, leaning against the car with his hands in his pockets.
“You’re an asshole, Sawyer! And you’re at least a decade too old to be using that phrase!”
He must find rejection funny because he’s still laughing as I yank open the building door and disappear inside.
Chloe is dunking a tea bag into a mug of hot water from the small microwave in our room when I get upstairs. I drop my bag on the floor and flop face first onto my bed, burying my face in a pillow.
“Pfft!”
“What’s that?” Chloe asks.
Her bed creaks and the covers rustle as she sits, so I roll over and suck in a breath. “He’s impossible,” I tell her, waving my hands in the general direction of the ceiling. “Impossible!”
“Who’s that?” Chloe asks, smiling. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed facing me, her fingers wrapped around the steaming mug. “The brother?”
“Yes. Him.” I stress the word with all the disdain I can muster. “He’s arrogant. And pushy! He manipulated me into accepting a ride back with him to Philly, took away my phone and forced me to talk with him the entire drive!”
Chloe blinks for a second and then the giggles start.
“What’s funny?” I ask, swinging myself up to a sitting position and leaning against the wall. I’m failing to see how anything I said was funny.
Chloe, however, is laughing so hard she’s had to set the mug down. “What’s funny?” she repeats. “What’s funny is that he’s you, Everly.”
I shake my head. “No, he’s bossy.”
Chloe snorts.
“Fine, I might be a little bossy, but he was intrusive. Super nosey. You should have heard the things he was asking me.” I cross my arms across my chest and nod, waiting for her to agree.
“Everly, you signed me up for a dating site last semester. Without my knowledge.”
Well, there’s that. “I gave you plenty of opportunities to do it yourself first,” I mutter.
“You sent me on a date, Everly. Without telling me I was on a date. I spent an hour with the guy before I figured out not only did he not need tutoring, he had, in fact, graduated three years ago.”
“You were getting along so well online,” I mumble.
“By which you mean he was getting along with you impersonating me online.”
“Um.” I examine my nails and avoid looking at her. “Well, the thing is, I expected that was going to end differently.” I smile hopefully. “Also, I did that to help. I’m a helper.” I shrug.
“That you are, my friend, that you are.” She sips her tea and examines me over the rim. “So the brother—”
“Sawyer,” I supply.
“Sawyer.” She nods, committing it to memory. “Parents had a Mark Twain thing going on, huh?”
“Appears so,” I agree, smiling. My mom would appreciate their literary baby-naming method.
“So the brother, Sawyer.” She grins. “He sounds interesting.” She raises a brow in question.
“No. He absolutely was not.” I shoot her a dirty look. “No.”
“Okay.” She shrugs. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
“But Everly?” Her tone is serious.
“What?” I’m apprehensive.
“Remember, after we made our college decisions based on your”—she pauses and her lips twitch—“innovative plan to make Finn Camden fall in love with you, you promised me that you’d keep an open mind.”
I nod.
“It’s okay to rewrite your happily ever after, Everly. Sometimes the right guy is the one you never see coming.”
Eighteen
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to the large shopping bag sitting on my bed when I return from class Monday afternoon.
Chloe looks up from her desk, tendrils of hair escaping the messy knot piled on her head. She drops the pen she’s holding on the desk and turns her attention to me. “It was waiting for you downstairs. I brought it up on my way in.”
I eye the package as I drop my backpack on the floor beside my bed, then slip out of my coat and toss it on my desk chair. Placing both hands on my hips, I stare at it some more.
“I’m assuming that guy, the one you’re not interested in, sent it,” Chloe comments from her desk, watching me with interest.
I shrug, then peer inside the bag. There’s a box wrapped in plain white paper and a big orange bow, my favorite color. I smooth the ribbon under my fingers and wonder what Sawyer is up to, because she’s right. I’ve never wandered into my room and found a Neiman Marcus bag waiting for me. There’s a card attached to the ribbon that simply says,
For Boots.
God, he’s given me a nickname and he’s sending me gifts. No one’s ever given me a nickname before. Well, romantically anyway. Finn nicknamed me Shortcake when I was six, but that was different. None of the guys I dated ever called me anything but babe or baby, which is the worst. It’s generic and kinda silly. I was always tempted to give a little infant wail in response, just to see what they’d have t
o say, but I never went through with it.
I tug the ribbon and it falls away, quickly followed by the paper. It’s a Christian Louboutin box. Chloe is watching with interest as I open the lid. Holy shit. It’s a pair of boots. The pair I’ve been admiring all fall, pinned to my fall wardrobe inspiration board on Pinterest. They’re a combination of leather and suede with a three-inch stiletto heel, the zipper concealed along the back. Totally impractical and totally out of my price range. Way, way out of my price range. Which doesn’t stop me from trying them on.
Remember the feeling you got when you were a little girl and slipped on your favorite princess dress? Stepping into a pair of Louboutins feels even better than that. Way, way better.
“You know you have to send them back,” Chloe says, watching me check myself out in the mirror on the back of the door.
“Do I?” I say slowly. “I mean, isn’t that the biggest cliché? Guy sends girl gift, girl fawns over the gift then insists she can’t accept it? Where did such a ridiculous practice begin, anyway? It’s quite stupid,” I add, sitting down to take the boots off.
“You said you weren’t interested in him, so you can’t accept gifts from him. That’s standard etiquette.”
Etiquette. Only Chloe would etiquette-check a girl with a brand-new pair of Louboutins. I shake my head as I step out of my jeans before pulling on a grey cable-knit sweater dress. Chloe tilts her head and raises an eyebrow as I slip the boots back on and admire my new outfit combination.
“Ohh, they look good with a dress too. They’re so versatile, Chloe! I can wear them with everything.” I turn to face her, hand on hip, waiting for her commentary.
She shakes her head.
“It’s rude to refuse a gift, Chloe.” I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere.
“In the south. That’s only a thing in the south, Everly, and you are not southern.”
I frown. How the hell did southern girls pull that off and why isn’t it a universal thing? I sit at my desk and watch Steve swim in his bowl. “Do you think he’s happy in there?” I ask, pointing a thumb at Steve. “Do you think he needs a little tank? Or a friend? That bowl is really small.” I frown, worried I am failing at fish parenting.
“I think he’s fine,” she says and, giving up on talking sense into me, goes back to her studying.
I should study too. I tap my toes on the floor, admiring the boots from this vantage, and open up my laptop. I’ll just take a quick peek at my Pinterest board first to see what else these boots would look good with. Everything. They look good with everything, I decide after a half hour of pinning. Which somehow ended with me pinning knitting patterns. I don’t knit, but Pinterest is a bitch that way.
Chloe’s right. I shouldn’t keep the boots. I’m not interested in Sawyer. I’m not. I’ve spent a long time thinking Finn was the perfect guy for me, and I’m not ready to give up on that. Just because Sawyer can kiss—and okay, just because I’m attracted to him—doesn’t make him the right one for me. Not for the long haul and that’s what I’m interested in. I can’t date them both. Once you date one brother, the other is off limits. For life. I don’t even need Chloe telling me to know that.
I reach down and slip the boots off my feet, then carry them back to my bed where the box is. There’s another card. I didn’t notice it before, placed under the boots. I pick it up. It’s a notecard, no envelope. The card stock is heavy and his name is embossed in gold print along the bottom, aligned to the right. Sawyer Camden.
I place the boots in the box and sit, running my index finger over the edge of the card for a moment. A note from Sawyer.
I like you.
That’s it. That’s what’s written on the inside of the card, and it confuses me. Not the statement. I got that much in the car on Sunday. But my feelings confuse me. I’m so flustered by him. By his interest. By his certainty. By that kiss.
I run a finger over my bottom lip, remembering it, and flush. To be honest, I’m not completely sure what it meant to him. I mean, was he just fucking with me? Proving a point? Or did he mean it? I’m not sure. He’s a thirty-four-year-old man. Successful, by the looks of his car, the assistant on speed dial. I’m a twenty-two-year-old college senior with a delusional one-sided thing for his brother. Why me?
Yet I can’t discount the chemistry. He wasn’t lying about that, there’s most definitely something between us. But just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to act on it. The road to hell is paved with attractive men who radiate sex appeal and look like models from a Polo ad campaign.
Or something like that.
Nineteen
“He bought you an Elf on the Shelf?” I’m at work and my friend Sophie is catching me up on her Thanksgiving weekend. She spent it with her new boyfriend, the gynecologist. I think it’s weird too, but he is crazy hot. And in her defense, she didn’t know he was a gynecologist until she ended up in his exam room. But that’s a story for another time.
“Yeah. Neither of us really knew what it was, but we looked it up and now he texts me pictures of the elf every morning,” she says with a big grin.
“Pictures of the elf on his dick?” I ask hopefully. Because this domestic elf shit is just a little much.
“No! Pictures of the elf doing funny stuff around his house.”
Huh. I don’t know what to make of that.
“Never mind.” She waves a hand to close the subject.
But still, I blurt out, “Holy shit. He’s in love with you.”
She demurs, insists they’re just having fun, but Sophie is not a having-fun kind of girl. This can’t possibly end well. That guy is all wrong for her.
“Okay, enough about me,” she says. “Tell me about your weekend. Did you make any headway with Professor Camden?”
“I…” I start to answer her, but stop. “I don’t know what is going on anymore, Sophie.”
“What do you mean?” Sophie tilts her head in concern. “You always know what is going on. You have a plan, remember? Six months till graduation, six months to make Finn Camden fall in love with you.”
As if I need reminding. “I know, I know, but I’m so confused.” I can feel my face fall as I talk, my forehead creased in worry. Confused is an understatement.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I suck in a gulp of air and plaster a smile on my face. I’m not ready to talk about this with Sophie. I haven’t even fully talked it out with Chloe. I told her I wasn’t deviating from my Finn Camden plan and she just groaned and thumped her head on the desk.
I’m saved from thinking any more about the Finn versus Sawyer debacle that is currently my life because Sophie’s stalker has just walked into the coffee shop. I point him out and get the usual lecture about the difference between a regular customer and a stalker. I barely have time to shrug before the guy is at the counter asking her out and then flashing a federal ID at her when she declines.
Knew it. Well, I didn’t know that, exactly. But I knew he wasn’t a customer. I snatch the ID up and examine it while Sophie shifts nervously and asks if she’s in trouble.
The guy is extremely good-looking and, not gonna lie, the badge makes him that much hotter. Gallagher. Nice Irish name. I run my finger over the three-dimensional surface while I have one of my best ideas to date. “Feds aren’t really her fetish, but I know a girl at school who’d be so into you,” I blurt out, my mood instantly lifted.
“Everly!” Sophie and Agent Gallagher reply simultaneously with near-identical looks of exasperation.
Whatever. I have so many good ideas, but sometimes you just can’t help people when they don’t want to be helped.
A flower delivery arrives and I grin, looking forward to Sophie signing for a flower delivery from her boyfriend while this agent guy attempts to hit on her. It’s the most stunning arrangement of flowers I’ve ever seen. A sea of orange blooms. I think I spot a peony. I love peonies. Luke and Sophie must have had one hell of a weekend. But then the delivery
man looks up and asks for me.
I walk to the other end of the counter to get out of Sophie’s way and accept the delivery. They’re even more stunning up close. Roses, peonies, some miniature calla lilies in orange. An assortment of greenery. I’m not sure what it all is. The vase itself is at least a foot tall.
The delivery man places them on the counter and then pulls out his clipboard and frees a card from the clamp. It’s not a business card-sized envelope, the kind that normally comes with a bouquet. It’s a notecard. My name and work address at the coffee shop are typed across the front. He places it on the counter next to the flowers and wishes me a good day while I stand motionless and stare at it, deep in thought.
It’s obviously from Sawyer. I lean on the back counter and stare at it from a safe three feet away. He’s done his homework. The orange ribbon yesterday, the boots I’ve been coveting, the orange flowers today. That can’t be a coincidence. He’s looked, or had his assistant look—what was her name? Sandra. They’ve clearly looked at enough of my social profiles to send what I’d like. I don’t think Sandra is responsible for more than the legwork here though. She wouldn’t have known to send me boots in honor of the nickname he’d coined for me without him specifying to do so.
A customer arrives, interrupting my musings and procrastination over opening the envelope. Sophie’s still busy with the agent so I move the flowers and card to the back counter and take their order. Two more customers file in and I busy myself with their orders, the unopened card never out of my consciousness, as much as I try to pretend I’m not curious about its contents.
I finish up with the customers then ponder making myself a drink. I get as far as filling the portafilter with espresso and leveling it before I admit to myself I will not wait another second to open the envelope. I abandon my drink-making and slide the envelope off the counter and run my finger under the glue on the back to break the seal. I slide the card out. It’s the same as yesterday’s. Heavy cream card stock with Sawyer Camden written in a bold font along the bottom edge, off centered to the right. I flip it open.