“Seriously. Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?” I deadpanned.

Lexi giggled in response to my joke. “I guess I have a different perspective now. I know it’s hard to picture me asking a guy out. Like, ever. But if Drake hadn’t asked me, then I can only hope at some point in time I would have gotten up the nerve to ask him instead, because if we hadn’t gone out on that first date, then I wouldn’t be as ridiculously happy as I am today,” she explained.

“Except Drake didn’t ask you out. He pursued you relentlessly,” I pointed out.

“Yeah. And your point is what?” she asked.

“So you knew how much he wanted you because he had no problem showing you.”

“Oh, Aubrey,” Lexi sighed and grabbed my hand. “Are you worried that this guy really isn’t that into you?”

I looked down at the table and took a calming breath before I answered. “Yes. When I said I was into him, I think I might have understated it a little. I’m really, really into him. At that’s after only seeing him nine times during tutoring sessions and bumping into him at your elevator.”

“You’re counting the number of times he’s tutored you?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I admitted sheepishly.

“I’ve never seen you like this over a guy before Aubrey,” she said before giving my hand a quick squeeze and letting go. “Not with any of your high school crushes and not with anyone you’ve dated in college.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before. There’s just something about this guy that really gets to me, Lexi.”

“No, I get it. I fell for Drake hard and fast when I least expected it. Sometimes you just know what you know,” she said, comforting me.

“That’s certainly true,” I said. “So I guess I better be prepared to ask a guy out on a date for the first time ever tonight.”

“Tonight?” she asked. “You have a tutoring session today?”

“I sure do,” I answered, looking at my phone to see what time it was. “In three very short hours. Or long ones depending on how you look at it now that I’m super nervous.”

“Then we’d better hurry up and eat our lunch and head over to your dorm,” Lexi said.

“I’m not really that hungry, anyway. But why do we need to hurry?” I asked.

“Because there’s no way that I, as your best friend for life, can send you off to meet your super-hot, hockey-playing math geek tonight without making sure you look your very best. Duh, Aubrey!” she exclaimed.

So I spent the afternoon doing things with Lexi that I hadn’t been able to do in a while. We went for manicures and pedicures, and she insisted that I have my hair done while we were at the salon. Then, when we went back to my room, she had me try on outfit after outfit until it looked like a hurricane had hit it. The time spent with my best friend nourished my soul, and by the time I was ready to go to the library, I felt like I certainly looked my best. Lexi sent me off to battle looking hot.

chapter 4

luka

I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do. Tutoring Aubrey was a lesson in self-control for me. I didn’t want to be so drawn to her, but how could I resist when I was in such close proximity so often? I couldn’t stop imagining her sprawled naked in my bed. And it was my own damn fault because it had been my idea to tutor her so often. What the hell had I been thinking when I said I could squeeze her in a few times a week. I’d been thinking with my dick—that’s what I’d been doing.

My dick, which stood up to attention every single damn time I was with her but didn’t seem interested in any other chick on campus. It didn’t matter that, from what I’d heard, she wasn’t really girlfriend material. When I’d mentioned to Jason that it was Aubrey I was tutoring, he’d filled me in on all the campus gossip I’d missed out on by keeping to myself before.

I wasn’t happy to hear that Aubrey had dated a lot of guys on campus. Guys who weren’t worried about spreading it far and wide that she was incredible in bed but wasn’t too keen on keeping the same guy around for too long. If that was true, then she was exactly the kind of girl I needed to stay away from. So I’d managed to resist asking her out over the last few weeks even when she’d looked at me like she was just waiting for it each time she left me at the library. And then she’d turn away with a sad look in her eyes that drove me crazy and made me want to call her back.

I figured I would crack sooner or later though. Because I was sleeping like shit with dreams of her waking me up each and every night, my cock hard as a rock. It was worse than morning wood, and it didn’t matter how much I jacked off, because it just kept going on and on. But damn, had she added something special to my spank bank.