“Oh?” There’s a shift in the air. A warm breeze ruffles his hair and sends mine fluttering around my face. I feel ridiculously girlie as I tuck it behind my ear, my skin suddenly hot.

Dax waits until I meet his eyes before he continues. “I had a thing for you in school.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“That day I met you in the quad—”

“As if that wasn’t humiliating enough when it happened. I’d prefer to leave that memory buried in the past, thanks.” I try to pull my hand free from his again, but he tightens his hold.

“I thought it was pretty great.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, because I drooled all over you like an idiot.”

“If you think about it, it was the perfect meet cute, and if I hadn’t had my head up my ass at the time, I would’ve done something about it.”

“The perfect what? Did you just refer to me as cute meat?”

Dax laughs, “No, meet cute, m-e-e-t. It’s when the hero and the heroine meet in a movie, or sometimes a book.”

“Oh, that’s significantly better than being called meat, but it was still embarrassing, and then I fell on you again less than twenty minutes later. I figured you thought I was stalking you, and then your friend made that comment.” I duck my head, reliving that humiliation all over again. All my visualizing success didn’t seem to do much for me back then.

“My friends were assholes.”

“I think that’s pretty typical for college guys. They’re all swagger and balls and zero tact.”

“That about covers it.” He looks down, playing with my fingers, tracing the curve of my nails with the pad of his thumb. “That first day was the only time I ever saw you like that.”

“Like what?”

“Unsure of yourself. It was like I got this peek into who you were that no one else did. But in the classroom you were spectacular.” His smile is impish. “I loved debates because I knew you’d have an opinion and it would be grounded in fact and conviction. Watching you in class was . . . enthralling. You pushed me to work harder. You set the bar and we all had to follow. I just wanted to beat you.”

“Well, you got your wish in the end, didn’t you?” I don’t want to rehash this with him, not when I finally feel like I’ve been able to let it go.

“If it’s any consolation, I was rooting for you.” His expression is strangely genuine.

I pull my hand free and shift away, confused. “Oh, come on, Dax.” I can’t tell if this is all an act, or what. “If you were rooting for me, why did you hand in my paper late?”

“What?”

“Just before finals I ran into you on campus and asked if you’d handed in your term paper yet. It wasn’t due until the next day, but I knew you had a habit of handing things in early. I asked if you could hand mine in for me because I had to miss class the next day.” I remember how frantic I’d been and how perplexed Daxton looked at the time, much like he is now, likely because most of our conversations took place in the form of classroom debates.

“I handed them both in that afternoon, though.”

I remember the day I got the paper back with the late marks taken off. The paper was worth 50 percent of the final mark, so the deductions were a huge blow to my pristine record. I was so confused at first, until I noticed when it had been handed in. “It went in a day late. It was stamped, Dax. There’s no point in lying.”

“But I—” Daxton’s eyes fall closed and his jaw tics. “Fucking Felix.”

“Who?”

Daxton rubs the space between his eyes. “My friend Felix McQueen. He was in our class.”

I recall the name, but not the face that went with it. “That doesn’t really explain anything.”

He sighs and looks at the sky. “Not to you, but it does for me. I remember that day, because I was shocked that you’d ask me for a favor like that, knowing how much your grades meant to you. I was actually hoping to run into you because I’d finally grown some balls and I was going to ask you if you wanted to exchange numbers or go for coffee or something. But you seemed so upset, I figured I’d wait, and then I didn’t see you again until I walked into your office with my parents.” He huffs a little laugh and grows serious again. “Anyway, after class, Felix said he was handing in his paper, and I had study group at the library. I wanted to get the papers in before the office closed for the day, you know, because of the stamp.” He shakes his head a little. “So I gave them to Felix, yours and mine.”

“Except mine didn’t make it,” I supply. I remember the sinking feeling when I got it back, how devastated I was, not just because of the late mark deductions, but because I’d felt betrayed by someone I thought was my friend.

I don’t know whether to trust what he’s telling me or not. He’s an actor by nature. He could be making this up to keep me in his corner. All of this could just be for show. Just as my being here is steeped in ulterior motives, although I’m struggling to keep that in perspective.

“Well, this explains the way you reacted to me when I first saw you again after all these years.” He rubs his fingers back and forth across his bottom lip, pensive. “I didn’t know, Kailyn. I mean, I guess it all makes sense. After that you just disappeared. I expected I’d see you on campus again, but I never did. Not even at graduation.”

“My dad had a heart attack. That’s why I couldn’t turn in my paper. All I could focus on was getting to the hospital, especially since we’d lost my mom during my undergrad. I was terrified I was going to lose him, too.” At Daxton’s horror-stricken expression, I continue. “He recovered, but it weakened his heart. He wasn’t doing well around graduation so I skipped it. A year later another heart attack took his life.”

“I’m so sorry, Kailyn. There aren’t even words. If I’d known, I would’ve said or done something. I would’ve gone to the professor and explained.” Dax reaches out as if he’s going to touch me, but I stiffen and he stills. “If I could undo it I would. I’m so sorry I took what you worked so hard for away from you.”

“Well, you didn’t, Felix did.” My GPA had been less than a point below Daxton’s at the end of the year, and when I did the calculations, without the late marks, I would’ve just beaten him. But this puts it all into perspective and once again changes my view of him. Holding a grudge over something like this seems trivial and pointless.

“I will gladly junk punch him for you.”

I laugh a little. “I don’t need you to do that for me.”

“I might actually need to do it for me.” He tilts his head. “If I could go back, I would’ve handed that paper in myself.”

“I thought we were kind of friends back then, you know? Like we were competing with each other but still on the same team, if that makes sense.” We’re both clearly driven and career focused. Or at least Dax was until recently.

“And now?” He stretches his unoccupied arm across the back of the couch and twists a lock of my hair around his finger.

“And now what?” I don’t know what’s happening here. Or maybe I do, but it doesn’t fit with the plan I have. And suddenly the attraction I’ve been fighting since he dropped back into my life isn’t something I feel compelled to deny anymore.

“Are we friends?” Dax leans in closer, dragging his tongue across his bottom lip. I track the movement, wondering what I have a million times as an infatuated girl. Season three, episode two was his first on-screen kiss. I’m sure I watched that episode a thousand times as a teenager. Which is just . . . mortifying.

It’s different now, though. I’m attracted to the man I’ve gotten to know, the one who clearly loves his sister and will do anything for her. The one who gets riled up and riles me. The same man who knocked me over in the quad all those years ago and who told me I had pretty eyes.

I hitch a casual shoulder, the nonchalant gesture a contradiction to what’s happening in my head. I still manage to come up with a saucy reply. “I guess. I mean, I did help you navigate sanitary napkins today, so I suppose that could qualify as friendship.”

He keeps leaning in, and I find myself mirroring that movement, as if a magnetic force is pulling us together. “Sometimes when you got to class first, I’d sit behind you on purpose.”

“To irritate me?”

“No, because I liked the smell of your body wash, or your shampoo, whatever it was—it was uniquely you. And whenever I was close to you, you seemed to give the best answers, as if you had something to prove. It made me sharper. We would’ve made an awesome team.”

Mere inches separate us, his fingers laced with mine, my heart beating a staccato, frantic rhythm, while anticipation makes my skin tingle and my mind hum with possibilities.

“When you didn’t like what someone had to say on a particular subject, you’d either flip your pen between your fingers or bite the end and leave behind tiny teeth marks. It used to drive me insane. You still do that, by the way.” Dax caresses my cheek with gentle fingers. “Tell me we’re on the same page, Kailyn.”