For me, as a scholarship student, who worked her tail off to have a seat at this table, it’s my life. I was raised by a single mother, my dad skipped town before I could walk. I want to succeed not just for myself, but so I can help my mom the way she has always helped me.
Andy though is one of those golden boys who always wins. Gets first place. He’s homecoming king and star quarterback. And now he seems to have taken an interest in me. Sure it was a bet, but I know there was a spark between us.
Wasn’t there?
The question has been buzzing around in my mind ever since I lost the bet. He’s not the kind of guy anyone would imagine me dating. And I’m certainly not his type. He goes for blonde cheerleaders and flexible gymnasts. Not lit majors who moonlight at the library.
“Hey, Ava,” Connor says when I walk through the front door of the frat house. With a bowl of cereal in his hand, he wiggles his eyebrows at me. “I hear our boy, Andy is finally going to mess that pretty little bun of yours up. You ready to get dirty?”
I roll my eyes at him.
“Leave her alone.” Andy walks into the room, and that warmth I felt in my core the other night begins to burn because the man is shirtless.
Holy hell. Joggers slung low on his hips, I can see every cut, every ripped muscle, every delectable inch of bronze skin that looks good enough to eat. He gives a small smirk as he approaches.
The man knows he’s a god.
“Cute,” Andy says, reaching out and giving my bandana a small tug.
“I think our boy was hoping you’d show up in one of those little maid outfits,” Connor says, slapping Andy’s back.
Andy’s expression turns dark. “I said leave her alone.”
“Someone's grouchy.” Connor puts one hand up in surrender, before walking away, munching on his cereal.
“Sorry about him.”
I shrug. “I live next to a frat house, I’m used to it.”
Unexpectedly, he takes my hand, “You ready for this?”
Not even close.
I should pull back, but I don’t. I just nod, allowing the warmth of his touch to travel up my arm, and fill my entire body as he leads me upstairs. But when he opens the door to his bedroom, I’m shocked by what I find inside.
Connor wasn’t wrong, Andy’s room is a mess. But not the kind of mess I expected, with empty pizza boxes, and beer bottles lying around. No, the room is littered with books. Sure, clothes, sports gear, and towels are also lying around with no particular home, but it’s the books that draw me.
“Bad, right?” he asks, wincing when I glance up at him.
I shrug, moving into the room and crouching down to pick up a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which actually looks read, and not like he’d only been using it as a doorstop.
“You read this?” I ask, shocked since I barely got through the twelve hundred page book myself when I had to read it for a literature class.
He rubs his neck and nods. “My mom has a thing for Russian literature, so I kind of picked it up from her.”
“But you’re in Kinesiology, right?”
“It’s the program they put me in when I got a scholarship here.” He shrugs. “Guess they thought it’d be easier for a dumb jock.”
His words are light, but I can hear the tension in them. Not knowing how to reply, I look around his room.
“So, where should I start?” I ask, needing to say something concrete because I feel like if I don’t, I’m otherwise, on a slippery slope. I’m in Andy Stafford’s bedroom. With him. I remember his text, you can polish anything you’d like, and my eyes lower to his groin. I swallow, hard.
He gives me a cocky grin and I feel my core tighten. This is not the plan. The plan is: get in, get out, go home and study.
But Andy is stepping closer to me and all I can think about is all those other girls before me. Girls he has kissed and taken to his bedroom. This very bedroom. And I’m scared.
Not that he is going to kiss me. But that I will like it as much as every other woman. Andy has a reputation as a player, sure, but he also has a reputation for knowing his way around a female body.
He’s a foot away from me and our eyes lock and I think this is it. He is going to kiss me. Leaning in, I can feel his hot breath, smell his cedar-scented cologne, his manly musk... his. Oh, god, I want this. Why do I want this?
But before his lips brush against mine, he whispers in my ear. “I’ll go grab you a broom.”