“You got lucky last night, didn’t you, girl?” Axel’s eyes danced over the rim of his latte.
“Keep your voice down, wouldja?” I hissed.
A group of girls at a nearby table were sneaking glances our way and being conspicuously quiet. I thought I recognized two of them as members of Tory Miller’s posse. When one of them stood up and walked slowly past our table on her way to dropping her empty cup in the trash, I noticed a Wildcats jersey beneath her jacket, confirming my suspicions.
Axel utterly ignored my hiss. “Deets, darling.”
“I don’t ask you that,” I countered.
The epic eye roll included his entire head. “I live with my man. It goes without saying I get lucky on the regular.”
“Then why do you feel the need to pry into my love life?” I pushed at my bangs, gave up, and readjusted my headband.
“Because you’re living my fantasy and sleeping with Callahan O’Reilly.” He grinned and sipped his coffee.
Relief washed over me when I slid a surreptitious glance at the jersey chasers and found them whispering with each other. Nodding in the direction of their table, I said, “I’d rather not discuss this with an audience who are even more interested in my answers than you are. But for the record, he took me out for ice cream.”
“You want me to believe ice cream is all you licked?” He smirked.
“Axel! Jesus. Knock it off.” I sat back in my chair and almost scalded the roof of my mouth when I hid behind a massive swig of my flat white.
“Confirmed. You licked more than ice cream.” Reaching across the table, he offered his fist to bump.
I left him hanging. “Sometimes I wonder how we’re friends.”
Merrily unoffended, he shot me a cheeky grin. “The best of friends. Because we watch out for each other and share our own gossip.” He leaned both forearms on the table, his tone conspiratorial. “He’s not selfish in bed, is he?”
“Will you let up? Please?” It wasn’t only the eavesdroppers at the next table that kept me quiet about Callahan: for some reason, sharing my private experiences with Hotshot felt like I was betraying him—us—somehow.
Raising a finger to his lips, Axel nodded as if he were my therapist or something. “So that’s how it is.” A genuine smile spread over his mouth. “This isn’t a fling. You’re serious about him, aren’t you?”
I sighed. “I guess? I don’t exactly know.”
“BS. You do know.” A cloud fell over his features. “And I know you. Don’t you dare screw up a good thing by being scared.”
It was my turn to lean forward. “Axel, he’s a player. With a reputation he didn’t deny when I asked.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, how he can’t stop touching you whenever he has the chance.” He reached across the table and squeezed my forearm. “I’m a guy. Trust me when I say he might have been a player in the past, but he’s not playing now.”
My friend’s words ran on repeat in my head hours later when I was closing down the sweet shop. As I jammed my homework into my backpack, a movement outside the door caught my attention. Hotshot waved through the glass then stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels as he waited for me to finish.
After I locked the door, he caught me by the shoulders, leaned down, and brushed a kiss over my cheek. “Hello, Island Girl.”
His warm smile washed over me like a balmy breeze, which was a gift considering the blustery day we were headed into. So I returned it.
“Hello, Hotshot.” He smelled clean and fresh as though he’d come directly from the shower. “Did you come straight from practice?”
With a nod, he dropped an arm across my shoulders and guided me toward the stairs. “I didn’t want you to have to wait for me.”
Tilting my head at him, I said, “So you haven’t had dinner?”
The rumbling of his stomach answered my question before he did. “I had a protein shake at the end of practice.”
“We can study in a café if you want. That way you can grab dinner.”
“Nah. I have it covered.” At my raised brow, he clarified, “Before I left home this morning, I put stew in the Crock-Pot. It should be perfect when we arrive.”
“Unless your roommates raided it.” I smirked.
An enigmatic grin ghosted over his features. “There’s enough.”
After we reached his place and walked into the kitchen, I understood what he meant. I had no idea regular people could buy industrial-size appliances. The Crock-Pot was big enough to hold a five-pound bag of potatoes, a ten-pound roast at least, and a myriad of additional vegetables. Even though I’d grabbed a bite before my shift at the store, the savory smell of meat and veg roasting in gravy had my stomach rumbling.
“We can eat in about fifteen minutes.”
My brows came together. “Didn’t you say your dinner’s been cooking all day?”
“Yeah. But you can’t eat stew without biscuits.” The “duh” in his tone had me tucking my chin.
By the time I’d shrugged out of my jacket, hung it on a peg by the door, and set my backpack down by the couch, he’d whipped up a batch of drop biscuits and was sliding them into the oven. After he set the timer, he stalked over to me, stopping an inch in front of me.
“How do you suppose we’re going to distract ourselves from how hungry we are for the next ten minutes?” His eyes followed his fingers rubbing one of my curls between them.
“We could make a plan for our study session,” I teased, grinning from beneath my brows.
Those gorgeous blue eyes blazed. “Or we could say hello properly.”
He slid his fingers beneath my hair at the back of my neck and lowered his lips to mine. The kiss began as “hello,” but then his other hand squeezed my hip and pulled me into him. I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding on as “hello” morphed into “all I’ve thought about for the past twenty-four hours is what happened in your bed last night.” Our lips fused to each other as our tongues tangled and chased. His hard length pressed into my belly and flooded my core with heat. Of their own volition my hips moved, and I shamelessly rubbed myself against him. When the buzzer on the oven blared that our dinner was ready, I’d forgotten all about stew and biscuits and that I was at his place to prepare for Dr. Dair’s class.
For a couple of seconds he rested his forehead on mine as we caught our breath. With a rueful smile, he slowly let me go and sauntered over to the oven to retrieve the biscuits before they burned. I watched in fascination as he expertly slid them into a bowl he’d lined with a tea towel and covered them before setting them on the table. As he set out butter and silverware, I asked, “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing. Just sit your pretty ass in a chair.”
A minute later he carried two steaming bowls of savory-smelling stew to the table, setting one in front of me. He returned with two small plates for our biscuits and pulled out the chair beside me.
The second I dug my fork into my dinner, his three roommates appeared as if by magic.
“Hey, Jamaica. Didn’t know you’d be over tonight,” Finn said as he filled a bowl to the brim with stew and carried it to the table as though it contained liquid gold.
“Hi, Jamaica. Bet you had no idea your boyfriend could cook,” Bax said as he stepped in behind Finn for his share of food.
“Had a bad day today, Bax?” I asked with a nod to his T-shirt, which read “What in the capital F?”
The third roommate I hadn’t met yet laughed and said, “Nah, that’s Bax’s default state.” Seeing that my hands were occupied, he contented himself with a wave. “Nice to meet you finally. I’m Danny Chambers, the adult among this band of reprobates.”
I smiled. “Nice to meet you too.” As advertised, something about Danny gave him the appearance of a man several years older than the rest of the crew even though Callahan said they were about the same age.
Callahan leaned in to whisper in my ear, “Grab two biscuits now, babe.”
“Two? Why?” I whispered back.
“You’ll figure it out after your first bite. But if you wait to taste the first one before you grab the second one you won’t get it.”
Gazing around at the half ton of male perfection filling the room, I decided to do as he suggested. Though the table seated six normal people, after Danny filled his bowl and joined us, the space became rather crowded. As Hotshot had warned, the two dozen biscuits he’d whipped up only minutes before disappeared at an alarming speed as the guys tucked into their meals. In short order, each of them was on seconds while half of my firsts remained in my bowl.
“May I have the butter, please?” I asked Finn who was hoarding it across the table.
“May I have half of your biscuit?” he asked.
I blinked and Callahan laughed. Then I glanced into the biscuit bowl and discovered it was empty.
“You were right, Callahan. These biscuits are to die for.”
He grinned at my compliment.
Turning my attention back to Finn, I added, “I can eat this whole thing”—I held my treat in my hand—“without butter just fine. But I’d rather not.”
He pulled the pot of butter closer to his bowl. “You have something I want. I have something you want. I learned in my government class that when that happens, both sides have to compromise.” His grin was triumphant.
I tore my remaining biscuit in half, letting a bit of buttery-smelling steam escape, and held onto one half while I dipped the other in the stew gravy. “Mmm, that’s even better than butter,” I said after swallowing a bite. After dipping my biscuit in my stew again, I bit into it slowly, teasing Finn with my eyes, then I chewed, swallowed, and licked my lips. “Yep. I’ve always kinda been a fan of biscuits and gravy, but Callahan’s are my new favorite.”
Beside me, I sensed him tense with my little show of defiance to his roommate, but the compliment reminded him he always had my attention. The other two guys watched in avid fascination, probably because they were hoping for a shot at the last half of biscuit too.
With ill grace, Finn slid the butter across the table. “You’re evil, Jamaica. Pure evil.” Shifting his attention to Callahan, he said, “You’re a nice guy, ’Han. How did you end up with such a wicked woman?”
The pout on his face cracked me up as I liberally slathered butter on the remaining half of the biscuit and took a normal, human-size bite as opposed to eating half a biscuit in one football-player-size bite like every guy at the table. No wonder two dozen biscuits disappeared in a blink.
Callahan slipped his hand beneath the table and rested it high enough on my thigh to make me squirm. “Lucky, I guess.”
Right as I finished my dinner, I slapped a hand over my mouth as an unladylike belch escaped. Callahan squeezed my thigh while three pairs of eyes snapped to me. Then the entire table erupted in laughter.
Ducking my head, I excused myself, stood, and started gathering empty bowls.
“No need to be embarrassed, Jamaica. That qualifies as a compliment to the chef at our house,” Bax said, his eyes dancing.
“You don’t have to clean up, girl. ’Han cooked, so it’s Finn’s turn to do dishes,” Danny added.
I set the bowls in the sink and returned to the table for plates and utensils. “My mama raised me to help, especially when someone else does the cooking.”
“That’s our division of labor too, Island Girl. You’ve done half of Finn’s work for him, which makes up for that biscuit, huh, buddy?” Callahan grinned at Finn who flipped him the bird. “Come on, let’s go do some homework.” He reached a hand to me, and without thinking, I slipped my hand in his.
A speculative gleam came into Danny’s eyes. “Work, huh? I’ve never considered swappin’ spit work.” Leaning back in his chair, he chortled at his own joke.
With the glance Callahan slanted my way he must have picked up on my heated cheeks. “Homework, dumbass. Jamaica and I have a project to finish for a class we have together. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
Danny shot an eloquent stare at where Callahan’s arm now encircled my waist, but he kept his mouth shut.
Sliding out from beneath his arm, I walked to the door and snagged my backpack. “I thought you said your roommates weren’t going to be home tonight.”
Blowing out a breath, he said, “They weren’t—until Finn forgot something and had to come home before practice. He sent out the all-call on our group text, alerting the other guys that I’d made stew in the Crock-Pot.” He ran a hand through his hair and replaced his backward ball cap. “Guess that changed their plans.”
“Guess that changes ours too.”
“What do you mean? We have to work on Emma, and I’m out of town this weekend. We’re leaving early Friday morning.”
“I didn’t mean about our study plans. I meant about the other plans—the ones that included you asking me to pack my toothbrush.” I patted my bag.
A feral gleam lit his eyes. “I have the master. It’s as close to soundproof as you can get outside of a music studio or something.” Stepping into me, he added, “We’re far less likely to be heard in my room than in yours.” He gave me some room. “Just sayin’.”
Taking my hand again, he led me up the stairs.