“If it’s any consolation, I was rooting for you.” His expression is strangely genuine.

I pull my hand free and shift away, confused. “Oh, come on, Dax.” I can’t tell if this is all an act, or what. “If you were rooting for me, why did you hand in my paper late?”

“What?”

“Just before finals I ran into you on campus and asked if you’d handed in your term paper yet. It wasn’t due until the next day, but I knew you had a habit of handing things in early. I asked if you could hand mine in for me because I had to miss class the next day.” I remember how frantic I’d been and how perplexed Daxton looked at the time, much like he is now, likely because most of our conversations took place in the form of classroom debates.

“I handed them both in that afternoon, though.”

I remember the day I got the paper back with the late marks taken off. The paper was worth 50 percent of the final mark, so the deductions were a huge blow to my pristine record. I was so confused at first, until I noticed when it had been handed in. “It went in a day late. It was stamped, Dax. There’s no point in lying.”

“But I—” Daxton’s eyes fall closed and his jaw tics. “Fucking Felix.”

“Who?”

Daxton rubs the space between his eyes. “My friend Felix McQueen. He was in our class.”

I recall the name, but not the face that went with it. “That doesn’t really explain anything.”

He sighs and looks at the sky. “Not to you, but it does for me. I remember that day, because I was shocked that you’d ask me for a favor like that, knowing how much your grades meant to you. I was actually hoping to run into you because I’d finally grown some balls and I was going to ask you if you wanted to exchange numbers or go for coffee or something. But you seemed so upset, I figured I’d wait, and then I didn’t see you again until I walked into your office with my parents.” He huffs a little laugh and grows serious again. “Anyway, after class, Felix said he was handing in his paper, and I had study group at the library. I wanted to get the papers in before the office closed for the day, you know, because of the stamp.” He shakes his head a little. “So I gave them to Felix, yours and mine.”

“Except mine didn’t make it,” I supply. I remember the sinking feeling when I got it back, how devastated I was, not just because of the late mark deductions, but because I’d felt betrayed by someone I thought was my friend.

I don’t know whether to trust what he’s telling me or not. He’s an actor by nature. He could be making this up to keep me in his corner. All of this could just be for show. Just as my being here is steeped in ulterior motives, although I’m struggling to keep that in perspective.

“Well, this explains the way you reacted to me when I first saw you again after all these years.” He rubs his fingers back and forth across his bottom lip, pensive. “I didn’t know, Kailyn. I mean, I guess it all makes sense. After that you just disappeared. I expected I’d see you on campus again, but I never did. Not even at graduation.”

“My dad had a heart attack. That’s why I couldn’t turn in my paper. All I could focus on was getting to the hospital, especially since we’d lost my mom during my undergrad. I was terrified I was going to lose him, too.” At Daxton’s horror-stricken expression, I continue. “He recovered, but it weakened his heart. He wasn’t doing well around graduation so I skipped it. A year later another heart attack took his life.”

“I’m so sorry, Kailyn. There aren’t even words. If I’d known, I would’ve said or done something. I would’ve gone to the professor and explained.” Dax reaches out as if he’s going to touch me, but I stiffen and he stills. “If I could undo it I would. I’m so sorry I took what you worked so hard for away from you.”

“Well, you didn’t, Felix did.” My GPA had been less than a point below Daxton’s at the end of the year, and when I did the calculations, without the late marks, I would’ve just beaten him. But this puts it all into perspective and once again changes my view of him. Holding a grudge over something like this seems trivial and pointless.

“I will gladly junk punch him for you.”

I laugh a little. “I don’t need you to do that for me.”

“I might actually need to do it for me.” He tilts his head. “If I could go back, I would’ve handed that paper in myself.”

“I thought we were kind of friends back then, you know? Like we were competing with each other but still on the same team, if that makes sense.” We’re both clearly driven and career focused. Or at least Dax was until recently.

“And now?” He stretches his unoccupied arm across the back of the couch and twists a lock of my hair around his finger.

“And now what?” I don’t know what’s happening here. Or maybe I do, but it doesn’t fit with the plan I have. And suddenly the attraction I’ve been fighting since he dropped back into my life isn’t something I feel compelled to deny anymore.

“Are we friends?” Dax leans in closer, dragging his tongue across his bottom lip. I track the movement, wondering what I have a million times as an infatuated girl. Season three, episode two was his first on-screen kiss. I’m sure I watched that episode a thousand times as a teenager. Which is just . . . mortifying.

It’s different now, though. I’m attracted to the man I’ve gotten to know, the one who clearly loves his sister and will do anything for her. The one who gets riled up and riles me. The same man who knocked me over in the quad all those years ago and who told me I had pretty eyes.

I hitch a casual shoulder, the nonchalant gesture a contradiction to what’s happening in my head. I still manage to come up with a saucy reply. “I guess. I mean, I did help you navigate sanitary napkins today, so I suppose that could qualify as friendship.”

He keeps leaning in, and I find myself mirroring that movement, as if a magnetic force is pulling us together. “Sometimes when you got to class first, I’d sit behind you on purpose.”

“To irritate me?”

“No, because I liked the smell of your body wash, or your shampoo, whatever it was—it was uniquely you. And whenever I was close to you, you seemed to give the best answers, as if you had something to prove. It made me sharper. We would’ve made an awesome team.”

Mere inches separate us, his fingers laced with mine, my heart beating a staccato, frantic rhythm, while anticipation makes my skin tingle and my mind hum with possibilities.

“When you didn’t like what someone had to say on a particular subject, you’d either flip your pen between your fingers or bite the end and leave behind tiny teeth marks. It used to drive me insane. You still do that, by the way.” Dax caresses my cheek with gentle fingers. “Tell me we’re on the same page, Kailyn.”

“I think you need to be a little more specific.” I’m not putting myself out there first.

He sweeps his thumb across my bottom lip and edges closer. “You’re good at reading body language and situations. What do you think I want right now, Kailyn?”

“To kiss me.”

His grin is almost wry as he untwines our fingers and both of his palms smooth up the sides of my neck, thumbs following a slow path along the line of my jaw. My stomach dips and clenches.

How long has it been since I’ve been kissed? How long since I’ve been this excited by the prospect?

“And you, what do you want, Kailyn?”

“To be kissed.”

His lips brush over mine and I latch on to his wrists, an anchor in a storm I want to be swept up in. The firm press of his mouth against mine fills me with longing. Daxton’s low groan follows, and then his tongue sweeps my mouth, soft and searching.

I’m falling and floating. Spinning out of control as he angles my head, deepening the kiss. Desire blossoms and takes hold. I want it. Him. And I’m worried this is only happening because we’ve slipped into the past, to a time where the biggest complication in life was getting the best mark.

But I don’t stop it, even if I should.

I give in to the ache of yearning. The explosion of senses; his smell, his taste, the warmth that grows hotter, igniting embers to flame.

One of his hands drops, taking mine with it. I clutch his thigh as his fingers curl around my hip, urging me closer.

The buzz and ding of a phone pierces the hazy cloud of lust, and I pull back, breaking the connection for a moment, but Daxton is right there, crowding my space, his fingers in my hair, twisting in the strands, tugging gently as his lips meet mine again. He nibbles this time, sucks my bottom lip and groans, tongue sweeping out, again and again and again.

But the ping, ping, ping of incoming messages is a bucket of cold water on my sensibility.

I put a palm on his chest, and push. “Is that yours?”

“It’s not important. Just ignore it.” He lifts my hand and kisses my knuckle, following with a light bite.

I feel it through my entire body, the bolt of lust, the rush of heat between my thighs. Even still, I recognize I’ve complicated so many things with one act of impulsiveness. One kiss that shouldn’t have happened, but did.