Page 20 of Take Me Home

“Any relationships since high school?”

“Nothing serious.” She lifted an enormous, dripping bite into her mouth and hummed a throaty moan of approval that tickled the hairs on the back of Ash’s neck and made him reach for his water.

“So what do you do for human contact when you’re not third-wheeling it to basketball games with your ex and her fiancé?” she went on, oblivious to the distress she’d stirred in him.

“I can get my own dates.” At her skeptical squint, he added, “It was easier when I had more classes outside architecture. I’m barely on main campus. And I’d feel weird asking out someone at the café or city hall.”

“So, how do you date?”

“Apps a couple times,” he admitted. “Maggie and June occasionally play matchmaker with their friends. And friends of their friends. I’m kind of a project for them.”

“Your sisters want you to sleep with their friends?”

He was mid-sip, and the water shot straight to the back of his throat, down his windpipe. He coughed and sputtered, eyes watering.

Hazel laughed delightedly and thumped his back. Once he recovered, she said, “I tried apps, too, but between the dick pics and knowing Sheffield’s students might find my profile, every new DM gave me hives.”

“So, how doyoudate?”

She ducked her face. Was that a flush climbing up her neck? Ash leaned his elbows on the table on either side of his plate, more curious now than when he’d lobbed the question back at her.

“I haven’t in a while,” she said, wary of his interest. “I see Sheffield’s students all over the place. I don’t go to bars anymore, or restaurants, or movies. I—” She shook her head. “God, why am I telling you this?”

“Tell me.”

“You’ll think I’m weird.”

“I already think you’re weird, Hazel.” At her scowl, he raised his palms. “In a good way.”

“Fine. But you can’t judge me.”

He crossed his heart.

“I told you Intro to Psych has a ton of students, right? I know a lot of them now because I’ve tutored them one-on-one, but I haven’t memorized the faces of all two hundred. I definitely couldn’t have picked most of them from a lineup back in October. Also, I used to have this…casual thing with a friend. But he moved after graduation, so it had been a while since…”

She shot him an uncertain glance, gauging, he guessed, his reaction to her having a fuck buddy. He rolled his hand over at the wrist. “You’re a normal, hot-blooded twentysomething. You have needs.”

“Gross.”

He laughed. “And what happened? You swiped right on a student by accident?”

“Worse.” She groaned dramatically. “Okay, so I went to the Fox one night, and there was this guy. He had just gotten this ridiculous tattoo of a pug with an overbite. Its face frowned deeper when he flexed his arm.”

“Classy,” Ash deadpanned.

“It was funny. And he was cute. We danced.” She shrugged. “He was cute,” she said again.

“Hold on. Are we talking dimples-and-muscles cute or, like, vulnerable-kitten cute?”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“We made out, and I was going to leave with him. But I went to the bathroom, and when I came out, he was gone. The next day, I was collecting quizzes in class, and there, to my shock and horror, was Pug Boy.”

“Yikes.”

“So, not only did he ghost me, but he was also afreshman. Imade out with basically a child. After I panicked about whether or not I could get fired or kicked out of my program or, I don’t know, charged with a crime, I realized that, even though I didn’t recognize him, he absolutely knew who I was. Not only do I sub in on lectures, but every other class, Dr. Sheffield has some technical problem and beckons me to the front to fix it. He makes this awful joke about how he’d be lost without his trusty teaching assistant and how theTandAstand for tech and audio. You can imagine how the boys have latched on to that.”