“Rusty?” I asked, curious as to why a hockey hottie like Luka would refer to himself that way. It was hard to believe that he didn’t have plenty of opportunities to date.

“It’s kind of a long story, but I haven’t been on a first date in a long time,” he answered.

His reply didn’t really satisfy my curiosity since it wasn’t much of an explanation. “A long time like a couple of months or like a year?”

“More like almost five years,” he admitted gruffly.

At this shocking bit of information, I turned in my seat to stare at him. “Five?” I gasped.

Luka pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant called Oasis Grill that had opened a couple of years ago. He parked the car and moved so that he was also facing me, my hands clasped in his.

“Yes, five,” he confirmed. “Up until the start of summer break, I was still dating my girlfriend from high school. We broke up because I found out she’d been lying and cheating on me ever since we went to college. The whole thing was a major clusterfuck.”

Luka went on to explain what had happened in May when he’d gone to help her move out of the dorm, and the story was just as bad as Lexi’s breakup with Brad when he’d cheated on her. Maybe worse because it had been going on for years before Luka found out.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I said softly. “Cheating sucks.”

Luka chuckled darkly at my words. “Voice of experience?”

“Not that I know of, no. Lexi had a messy breakup when her boyfriend went to college while we were still seniors in high school, but as far as I know, none of mine ever cheated on me,” I replied. I thought about my answer for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe it was because I never gave them long enough for it to get to that point?”

“Could be,” he answered. “What was your longest relationship?”

“About nine months,” I said sheepishly. “And you were with your ex for almost five years?”

“Yeah,” he replied on a deep sigh.

I did some quick math in my head and realized that it hadn’t really been that long since they’d broken up. It was October now, so it had only been five months.

“Are you sure you’re ready to date again? Or is this a rebound thing?” I worried aloud.

“This is definitely not a rebound thing,” he assured me. I must have looked doubtful because he decided to say more. “What I went through with Kat was tough. I’ve known her all my life, and the fact that she played me like that gutted me. Am I surprised that I met you and was interested right away? Yeah, I’ll admit to that. But you aren’t a rebound for her.”

“If you were interested right away, then why didn’t you ask me out back then?” I asked.

Luka heaved another sigh. “Your longest relationship has been nine months. Mine was five years. You’ve got a bit of a reputation for getting guys to fall for you and then dumping them. My ex cheated on me. As attracted as I was, it didn’t seem like the smart move.”

“Do guys really think I try to get them to fall for me so I can break up with them?” I asked, hurt by the idea.

“Fuck,” Luka swore. “I didn’t mean it like that. What I meant was that you’ve been a serial dater in the past, never really taking your relationships that seriously.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t take them seriously,” I said, defending myself. “I just never found the guy who fit me the right way. They all seemed like they might at first, but then something always went wrong. At least for me. For sure there were times that it was because they got super serious way too fast and it scared me off. But I didn’t break up with all of them for that reason.”

“Aubrey, I get it,” Luka said. “I was an idiot to listen to the rumors in the first place and to judge you by what your ex-boyfriends had to say about you. I’m pretty sure, if you met my ex, she wouldn’t be very flattering, and I wouldn’t want you to base your decisions about me on anything she had to say.”

“It’s a little scary to me that your last relationship was so long and only ended in May,” I admitted.

“That’s okay because it’s a little scary to me that your longest relationship was only nine months long and you’ve had more boyfriends than I’ve had girlfriends,” he retorted.

Luka made a good point, but I wanted to get one thing clear. “You do know that I didn’t sleep with every guy I’ve dated, right?”