I laughed nervously, glad the awkwardness had faded somewhat.

We walked out together and back to the front of the store where I found Mila, sitting on a leather couch peering at a tattoo book.

“Is it over?” she asked, her eyes focused on my breast.

“Yep, all over. Too bad you missed it,” I said with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes. “Thank God.”

As we walked back to the shop, I got a text from Sebastian asking if we could meet him at the park. In a strange way, meeting him and Leo the other night felt fortuitous, like I’d caught a break for once in my life. I texted back and said I would meet him there.

Mila had to go home, so we said our goodbyes at the shop. After she left, I went inside and grabbed a towel from the closet and strolled the two blocks over to White Rock Lake, a thousand-acre lake and parkland. Although Aunt Portia’s shop wasn’t located in the premier area of Highland Park where I lived, this part of Dallas still featured million-dollar homes and plenty of imported cars. Even former President George W. Bush played golf sometimes at the exclusive course within the park.

Huge oak trees and pink crepe myrtles lined the entrance I walked through, and I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent and feel of late summer in Texas. Only a few more days of this and I’d be in school, studying like a maniac and getting ready for Princeton.

With BA on my mind, I headed for the center of the main grassy area, where I saw several guys playing football. When I got closer, I recognized Sebastian and Cuba Hudson, one of the other football players from school. Cuba, also known as Hollywood among his friends because of his pretty boy good looks, was the it boy at BA. We knew each other from growing up in the same town and had even had several classes together, but we didn’t hang out in the same circles. He was king of the jocks while I was queen of the intellectual crowd. He always had a different girl with him; I had no one.

A group of giggling girls sat on a blanket nearby, their eyes following the game as Sebastian caught a screen pass, and Cuba’s large frame blocked for him down field. Sebastian scored, and the girls went nuts, jumping up and clapping. When he looked their way and took a bow, I snorted. The girls at BA were going to fall in love with him.

He and Cuba continued their game as I sat on my towel. After a while though, my eyelids grew heavy from lack of sleep. My life had taken a turn this week, and I didn’t yet know what it was leading to. I lay down on the towel, worn out.

I woke up when I felt something tickle my wrist. I blinked my eyes a few times and brushed my arm, but it kept itching. Thinking it might be an insect, I forced my eyes to open and saw Sebastian, sitting beside me and running a small branch up and down my arm.

“I’ve been doing this for ten minutes,” he said with a grin, tossing the stick to the side. “You’re hard to wake up.”

I poked him in the ribs. “Why’d you wake me up?”

“I was bored and didn’t want to talk to myself. Plus, I thought you’d want to watch the show,” he said, nudging his head over to the left. I looked where he indicated and saw Leo with blue running shorts and a tank on. He’d been exercising hard because, even from here, I could see the sweat glistening on his body. Again, he reminded me of a warrior with his height and broad shoulders. He pushed his hand through his damp hair, and I had to smile a little because I’d figured out it was a habit of his. I turned my eyes to the girl he was talking to, trying to suss out what was going on with their interaction. She was petite with dark brown hair and appeared thrilled to be with him if the animated smile on her face was anything to go by. She wore a tiny red sports top that had to be two sizes too small because it barely contained her big breasts. The more I looked at her, the more I wondered how she stayed upright with those surgically enhanced boobs. She also wore a pair of running shorts with cute matching shoes. But she didn’t look like she’d been working out; she looked like she’d just stepped out of a Lululemon catalog. I frowned.

“Tiffany, the date, I presume?”

“Yep.”

“Why don’t you like her?” I asked.

He rubbed his jaw. “It’s not that I dislike her, although she is very annoying, it’s just I’m sick of him being a man-whore and not dating someone who’s good for him. He likes sluts because they don’t ask for anything more.”

“Hasn’t he ever been in love?”

“Leo, in love? Please,” he said, shaking his head emphatically, “the man has no idea what it is.”

We sat and watched them talk. They moved over to a shade tree closer to us, and they were standing close, as if in an intimate conversation. Every now and then, she’d reach out her hand and touch him somewhere; twice on his arm, once on his shoulder and one time she rested her hand on his chest. I got peeved thinking about her touching my dragon. But what bothered me the most was his body language, the way his body was centered with hers and the way his eyes focused on her as she talked. Sharp jealousy gnawed at my insides at the reaction she was able to get from him when last night, he’d barely even noticed I was standing there naked.

“I think he’s afraid of losing someone, like he lost mom and dad,” Sebastian said quietly. “It hurts when you love someone and then they disappear. I was ten when they died, but Leo . . . it affected him the most. Losing them both on the same day was devastating. It’s hard to recover from that.” He looked down at the grass. “I had Leo, you know, but who did he have? Nobody.”

I thought of my own family and how they’re never around.

“I think he’s afraid to love again,” he said.

“He seems to be doing fine at the moment,” I said, scowling at Leo and Tiffany.

“Holy shit. Are you jealous of Tiffany?”

I whipped my head around to glare at him. “What? No, of course not. That’s crazy talk. He’s seven years older than me.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But, you can’t always choose who your heart wants,” he said.

“True,” I said, remembering Drew.

“Come on, let’s go talk to Cuba,” he said, standing and putting out a hand for me. I grasped it, and he tugged, grimacing like I was too heavy.

“Ass,” I said, smacking him on the arm when I got up. Maybe it was weird that we’d settled so fast into a friendship, but I wasn’t questioning it. I needed friends.