Me: We just finished pizza, and I’m not sure what we’re going to do.
Lanie: Well, whatever you decide to do, have fun … but not too much fun—it’s only Thursday. LOVE YOU!
I put the leftovers away, toss our empty boxes into the compost bin, and head upstairs. Once dressed and ready for bed, I start reviewing lasagna recipes. Lasagna has always been one of my favorite comfort foods but making it has always intimidated me. Right now, overcoming one of my fears seems essential to my sanity.
I grab my notebook and read over recipes and reviews, jotting down tips and ideas from over a dozen of the best-rated lasagnas before falling asleep.
I awaken with a start. My bedroom is too bright and my eyes are too well-rested. I glance at my alarm clock and notice it’s flashing from a power outage.
I quietly curse and push off my blankets as I grab my cell phone, knowing I’m late before it confirms my first class starts in just twenty minutes. I scramble to my closet and pull on a pair of shorts and a tee before dashing across the hall to brush my teeth and wrangle my hair into a knot before heading back to my room where I shove my laptop and textbook into my bag and struggle to find a matching pair of shoes.
Downstairs, I drop my bag into an empty chair and cross to the fridge, looking for something to eat because while coffee is my life juice, breakfast makes me functional. Everything that stares back at me requires time and heating, two things I don’t have, so I grab a cold coffee, close the fridge, and pull open the bread drawer.
“I heard you’re the one I have to thank for letting me move in.” The deep voice catches my attention before Hannah’s giggle throws me for a complete loop. Hannah hasn’t giggled once in the year I’ve known her.
My roommate steps out of the doorway beside me that leads down to the basement, grinning at a guy that towers over her. I notice his smile first. It’s practically magnetic, pulling my attention and focus to note that his lips pull slightly higher on the right side and though his lips are probably too thin for most to consider sumptuous, he has great lips that are only enhanced by the squareness of his unshaven jaw. He has the mouth of a model. Of men that are given ridiculous titles like‘sexiest man alive’. He has a mouth made for sin.
His eyes shift to mine under heavy brows that somehow make him seem even more masculine. His eyes are a vibrant, dark shade of blue that’s striking and nearly as distracting as his mouth.
“I didn’t know you were home,” Hannah says. “Nolan this is Hadley. Hadley this is Nolan. I thought you had an early class?”
My heart arrests in my chest. Nolan. Roommate Nolan. Katie’s brother Nolan. Impulsive Nolan. Of course, he can be reckless and feed on temptation—with looks and muscles and lips like his—god, even his hair is perfect—he can afford to be impulsive.
Sweet baby Jesus, why does he have to look so good?
I pull my gaze away from Nolan and work to clear my thoughts of the inhumanly nice features. “My alarm didn’t go off. The power must have gone off last night. It was flashing when I woke up.”
“Sorry,” Nolan’s voice is a deep baritone that makes something—everything—inside of me take note of him again. “That was my fault. I was trying to see if a fuse was blown downstairs and flipped the wrong breaker.”
“They weren’t marked,” Hannah adds, as though defending his actions, and I realize how close she’s standing to him, recall the way she didn’t protest him moving in, how she was giggling just seconds ago. Does she have a crush on Nolan?
I shake my head to rid the thoughts that threaten to spiral to me into memories of last year. This isn’t last year. Nolan isn’t Ezra, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to be April. No way. “It’s fine.” I hold up my coffee and dry bagel. “I have to go.”
“You don’t use your cell phone as your alarm clock?” Nolan asks.
Lanie teases me that my insistence to have an alarm clock makes my soul older than hers, but I like the routine of setting it each night. It helps me mentally prepare for what I’m going to face the next day. I don’t share that detail though and instead shake my head. “No.”
“I have a study group until eight,” Hannah says. “And Katie’s staying at Carsen’s.”
I nod and grab my bag as I glance at the microwave to check the time. Panic has me taking three steps to the door as I make a mental note of where I’m going and what lot will be closest to my class.
“She stays there a lot?” Nolan asks.
Hannah glances at me and then at Nolan. “I should get ready for class.” She’s lying. This is when she starts her yoga followed by meditation, but neither of us is about to dive onto this grenade: Hannah because she’s an only child and me because, well, I’mnotan only child.
“I’m late. See you both later.”
“I think I might be blocking you in,” Nolan says, following me to the door. If my hands weren’t full, I’d have kept a comfortable cushion between us, but with my bagel in one hand and coffee in the other, he catches up to me as I struggle to open the door. The hint of his cologne, spicy and citrusy settles in my nose—it’s bergamot. I’d know the scent anywhere because it’s our signature scent, the one we use when new houses are completed before shown. Memories tangle with the present as I realize he even smells freaking good.
“Thanks,” I say, keeping my gaze on the door as he opens it.
Heat greets me, and the fresh air dilutes his scent, allowing me to think a little clearer and focus on my primary goal: getting to campus.
“Sorry again for the power outage,” Nolan says.
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll see you around.” That itch that lives under my skin becomes increasingly noticeable as he heads for a large white truck double parked at the edge of our driveway that’s blocking both Hannah's and my’s cars, the bed of it filled with moving boxes and trash bags. His gait captures my full attenion. He moves like a lion. Like someone who is fully confident in their own skin. It’s an attractive and enviable quality that has my gaze shifting to his butt. He’s wearing gray sweatpants, making my ability to perv out a little too easy. I can’t recall the last time I checked out a guy’s butt, I’ve never really been into asses, but like everything else on Nolan, his ass is amazing perfection.