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“What happened is you didn’t call me,” I insinuated. “You didn’t text. Nothing like ‘hey Kayleen, sorry my roommate has disastrously bad timing. Why don’t we meet up during the week for coffee, or drinks, or—’”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. By the way his eyes turned up at the corners I could tell he actually meant it. “I— I really wanted to do that.” He was wringing his hands now. “Believe me I wanted to. But I… I couldn’t…"

“Make a phone call?”

“No. I mean…”

“I get it,” I said. “You were writing. You were in the zone.” I grabbed for the doorknob. “No need to apologize, you’re obviously—”

“I mean I can’t.”

I turned back to him for a moment. A new realization dawned on me.

“Ohh…” I sighed. “Girlfriend.” I nodded, feeling just slightly better. “Got it.”

“No, no,” said Chase. “No girlfriend.”

My brows came together for a moment. “Boyfriend?” I asked hesitantly.

“No,” he said with a little chuckle. “Definitely not.”

“The way you kissed me I didn’t think so,” I chuckled back. “But okay. Whatever it is, no hard feelings. I’ll just get back to the kitchen and—”

“Kayleen…”

I stopped talking for once and just stood there, staring back at him expectantly. Chase’s emerald eyes had a pained look to them.

What’s his deal?

Whatever it was, he was struggling with it on some deep, internal level. Like he had something he definitely wanted to say… but for some reason, he just couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, slowly lowering his gaze.

I nodded politely. “You said that one already.”

Half a minute later I was back in the hall, trying to put the whole weird thing out of my head. There was plenty of work to be done in the kitchen. And the sooner I got started, the bett--

“Hey…”

The voice came from a room on the other side of the hall. Nathan stood in his doorway, his long arms stretched overhead. He was wearing cargo shorts, and a threadbare white T-shirt that had seen at least a decade’s worth of service.

“Talk to you for a second?”

I froze in my tracks. His shirt rode up high on his lithe, muscular body, revealing a set of ridiculously sculpted abs. Washboard abs. No, really — the type of abs you could actually do your wash on.

My heart skipped two beats, maybe three.

“Sure,” I said.

Four

NATHAN

She was beautiful more than drop-dead gorgeous. Sexy and sensual, especially around her pouty little mouth.

It was that mouth that attracted me the most. Slightly downturned, with full, luscious lips. The kind of lips you really don’t need to paint, but when you do paint them they look absolutely stunning.

“What’s up?” she asked again.