A Kiss Like This (Kiss and Make Up #3)(8)

Both my roommates nod.

“Well, this morning I could hear them chanting it, and obviously I wasn’t about to be humiliated by walking out into the hall. Especially since I was in Tyler’s room. I mean, can you imagine?”

“You didn’t want them to think you were banging your cousin.” Jenna stifles a laugh.

“That is so not funny,” Meg admonishes. “It’s disgusting.”

“Come on, lighten up. That’s what she was thinking.”

She’s right; I was.

“Do you want to hear this or not?” I grumble, shifting to get more comfortable. “Anyway, the guys are all singing their plagiarized ‘walk of shame’ chant, and the words are just awful. Why girls put up with that escapes me.”

My roommates exchange glances questionably as I continue.

“Anyway, Tyler’s room is only on the second floor, and there’s this overhang near his window…“

“Stop.” Jenna holds a palm in the air, halting my account of this morning’s events. “Stop right there. Do not tell me you climbed out his window.”

“…so I climbed out the window…”

Jenna and Meg both groan, but they lean closer still.

“…and just as I’m about to lose my grip on the gutter guard, this huge, angry guy starts yelling at me to let go. Like, he was really annoyed. Long story short, I fell and he caught me.”

Meg puts her hands up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa—back the truck up. Rewind!”

“That’s insane!” Jenna shouts, excited, and loudly slaps her hand on my desk as she bounces up and down on my desk chair. “Who was it? Who was it?”

“See, that’s the part I’m not sure about. He wasn’t someone I recognized, but I think he’d been at the old Omega house. I think. I mean, I thought he walked back to their yard after…”

Jenna rolls her eyes skyward. “How the hell would you know? You were dangling from a roof.”

“True. He could have been walking home and just passing by,” Meg points out diplomatically.

Jenna rolls her eyes again. “Yeah, right. I’m sooo sure he was just out for a brisk morning stroll on a Saturday at seven o’clock.”

“Some people jog, Jenna,” Meg bites back.

I clear my throat and continue. “After I stormed off, I might have watched him from across the street. From behind a bush.”

“Alright, alright, let’s assume he was at the Omega house. Are you sure you didn’t recognize him from somewhere?”

“No. And trust me, I would have remembered him if I did.” I clamp a hand over my mouth.

“Oh really?” Jenna’s eyebrows shoot up into her dip dyed hairline. “Made an impression on you, did he?”

“Did you catch his name?” Meg asks.

“Was he hot?”

I hesitate. “Yes, I caught his name.” Was he hot? Was he?

They both stare at me, waiting.

“Well? Freaking tell us!” Jenna prompts, losing patience and staring at me like I’m dumb as a box of rocks. Oddly enough, even as my roommates stare at me expectantly, I just can’t do it. I can’t tell them his name.

Or won’t.

Same thing.

Deep down, a part of me wants to keep him a secret. A strange, exciting secret.

Nothing exciting ever happens to me. Like, ever. I’m just not that girl. I’m too boring, too predictable, too quiet, too… everything.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not without my charms. I even possess a myriad of fascinating skills. I’m an amazing painter, for example. I can read a novel in a day if I’m not swamped with studying, and I’m shockingly good at darts.

Not exactly man-bait.

Plus, I’m don’t let it all hang out like most girls do to attract attention from guys. My boobs don’t pop out of my clothes. In fact, there isn’t a single thing in my entire closet that exposes too much skin. I’d much rather use my brain to fascinate the opposite sex. And no guy wants to be fascinated mentally during a house party, or at a bar—nope, he wants to be fondled.

Guys just don’t go for girls like me, girls who wear tucked-in, collared button-down shirts to the bar. Girls who would rather read on a Friday night than go out. Guys don’t go for girls who chastise them for swearing. Guys don’t rescue girls like me when they climb out and fall from two-story windows.

But today… today, I was that girl.

And a guy did.

And maybe it wasn’t just the fall that took my breath away.





CHAPTER 4

Caleb

To clarify, the Omega house is not a fraternity house.

It used to be, until the fraternity, aptly named Omega Gamma Rho and called Omega for short, that had resided here the past fifty years got their chapter and charter removed from campus—dirty rushing, hazing, too many reported cases of alcohol poisoning by parents of pledges—and the house was sold.

To my parents.

And now I live there with my teammates. We still call it the Omega house, even though technically it would be considered the hockey house.

The whole house received a facelift when my parents bought it. The Greek letters have long since been taken down and painted over. Although they don’t expect me to single-handedly maintain the joint, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a certain level of responsibility to keep it in order and decent repair.