Her eyes trailed the length of my bare chest, and my abs tightened in response. She glanced down for a few seconds at my stomach, which was particularly ripped since I started working out a year ago on my lunch breaks at the office gym. The way her lips parted proved all of my hard work was worth it.

She finally looked up at me. “Ha…hi…what’s up?”

A tight tank top clung to her enormous breasts, her nipples protruding through the fabric.

Fuck. Me.

Wearing that, she was definitely not expecting me to knock on her door, and I was definitely not expecting to forget how to breathe. I couldn’t even remember why I’d come to her room.

Oh, yeah.

I reached into my pocket. “I found these on the bathroom floor…thought you might want them.”

She took them from me, looking adorably embarrassed. Glancing over to the corner of the room, I noticed the bat still sitting in the same spot on the nightstand and assumed she hadn’t seen it yet.

As if suddenly realizing that my eyes were making plans for the future with her beautiful tits, she crossed her arms over her chest.

Damn.

“Thanks,” she said.

Her face returned to the same shade of pink I recognized from earlier. I smiled in an attempt to downplay the now obvious tension between us. When I felt my dick twitch, that was my cue to step back into the hallway and return to my room. God, I needed to stay away from this girl, or I was gonna be in big trouble.

That night, I tossed and turned as one thought ran through my head like a broken record.

You can never have her.

CHAPTER 4

Present

“So, I take it you didn’t actually stick to your vow to stay away from her,” Mitch joked.

“Ugh…no.”

I looked down at my phone when a text from Nina came in.

I’m fine. But I need more time alone.

“Is that Nina?”

“Yeah. I promised not to text her but couldn’t help it. I needed to know she was okay. She says she’s fine but that she needs more time.”

“Time for what exactly?”

I shook my head and gazed out the window. Light snow was beginning to fall outside. “Time to think, I guess…time away from me.”

Skylar reentered the room holding a mug. She’d gone to the kitchen to put on some tea and to call and check on their two older kids, Henry and Lara, who were staying with Mitch’s mom back in New Jersey. Henry was Mitch’s son, and Lara was adopted. So, Mitch Jr. was their first biological child together. His birth was a really big deal because Skylar was told she might not ever be able to have children after cancer treatments for lymphoma in her teens. Thankfully, she was in remission now.

“What did I miss?” she asked.

“Nina just texted. She’s fine but says she needs more time to be alone.”

“Do you want me to call her?”

“No. I know my wife. That would annoy her even more if she thought I got you involved. She doesn’t even know you’re here, remember?”

“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“She just needs to blow off steam. It’ll be okay. She’ll come back tonight.”

That was what I kept telling myself at least. Truthfully, her walking out scared me shitless. It made me afraid that even after all this time, Nina had finally figured out that she could have done better and that she deserved better.

Sporting fuzzy socks, Skylar kicked her feet up on Mitch’s legs. “So, we need to get back to this story.”

“Yeah, Jake,” Mitch said. “What happened after she moved in?”

“Oh, this is the best part.” Skylar laughed. “This was where the quote end quote tutoring started.”

“Hey, I took it very seriously.” I smirked. “I wanted to help her pass math.”

“You wanted to help yourself to her Pootang.”

Skylar always made me laugh.

I chuckled. “Maybe. But at the time, I never thought I’d have a real chance at that. I was really trying like hell to keep it platonic just so I could be around her.”

Skylar turned to Mitch. “They came up with this bet that if she got below an A on her math exams, she would have to let Jake take her out to face one of her irrational fears.”

Mitch nodded as he rubbed Skylar’s feet. “So that brought you closer.”

“You could say that.”

CHAPTER 5

Past

Holy shit. It was show time.

Nina had gotten a C+ on her first exam. That was actually way better than I thought she’d do given our tedious first study session.

A few days after she moved in, we shared a beer in the kitchen. I’d been home for lunch when she walked in after her first day of classes. (Alright, so I came home in the hopes that I’d run into her.) I’d been gone all weekend to Boston and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Even though she was still acting shy around me, she was really easy to talk to, and I enjoyed her company.

We got to chatting about her troubles in math, a subject she needed to pass as part of her nursing curriculum. Math was so easy for me, so I offered to tutor her. Then, the brilliant idea of a bet popped into my head. She’d have to get an A on every exam or face one of her phobias. Fear, after all, is a master motivator. If she didn’t accept the bet, I told her I’d renege my offer. It was a win-win situation: either she excelled in math or started overcoming things that were preventing her from fully experiencing life.