Jessie nodded, so I continued.

“But me?” I said, resting my ankle on my knee and fiddling with my shoelace. “I’ve just always been different than the two of them.”

Her gaze zeroed in on my laces as I wound the string around my finger, and then up to my eyes. “What do you mean?”

Was I really that different? Or was I really just a ticking time bomb, waiting to detonate?

“Let’s see,” I said, relaxing back into my seat. “They’re both very driven, natural-born leaders, but . . .”

She nodded, waiting on me. “They can be total pricks . . . and cocky as shit.”

Her hands braced the steering wheel like I had stunned her, but I couldn’t help myself.

Besides, Jessie had met Luke on a couple of occasions up at the bar. He’d joke that he was slumming it to show up at Zach’s and he was usually with a girl or a couple of his boys from the team. He was mostly polite to my friends, given the manners my parents had instilled in both of us, but he was never especially friendly.

Unless he was with the guys from the frat house. I partied with those dudes sometimes and probably went to too many of their parties. But I liked hanging with Bennett, Jessie, and their crew most of all. Probably because I didn’t have to pretend to be anybody—they didn’t require it of me.

“It’s definitely true that you’re different from you’re brother, Nate,” she said in a low and soothing voice. Almost like she felt the need to talk me down. “And from what I’ve seen, that a good thing.”

My eyes met hers and I gave a slow nod.

“You’re not cocky. Except when you’re just messing around.” Then her lips quirked up. “Otherwise, you’re just a regular boy next door.”

“I wouldn’t call me regular, sweetheart,” I said going for humor but falling flat. I just didn’t have it in me right then.

“Oooh, Mr. Mysterious,” she said. “Does this have anything to do with jumping out of planes or . . . maybe some handcuffs?”

My entire body grew warm. Time for a subject change.

“What kind of CDs do you have in this rusty old ride?”

Chapter Seven

Jessie

As Nate rifled through my CD collection, I wondered why he seemed so dang uncomfortable about my question. It was like all the play had gone out of him as soon as I mentioned his family.

I’d met his brother on a couple of occasions and he seemed like an arrogant ass, but I’d never tell Nate that. Instead, he called him out himself. And included his own father in the mix. Even going so far as to call him a prick. I couldn’t help wondering what their history was and what it would be like to grow up with that kind of father—a drastic difference from my own.

I figured this whole time that Nate was just going to college on his daddy’s money and having a good time. He was cool to hang around with and he never seem to mind that I called him Square, but now I was even further intrigued that there was more beneath the surface.

My brother and I were raised in a loving home where money was always tight. My mother practiced Reiki at a wellness center and my dad was a freelance photographer, taking jobs where he could, usually for the local newspapers. When it came down to it, having money was nice but it wasn’t everything. I’d turn down a million dollars in a heartbeat to have my daddy walk back into my life.

As Nate held up an older CD he said, “You like Nirvana?” I needed to ask myself why the hell I cared about Nate’s past. Sure we were friends, more casual than anything, because we hung around the same circle. Truth be told, I guess I really didn’t know very much about him. And now I was on a road trip with him and more curious by the minute.

As I slid the CD from his fingers and glided it inside the stereo slot, I felt the urge to push him for more information but I didn’t want to seem too nosy. Stepping into his apartment this morning, where he seemed to be just another messy boy, made him even more endearing. I’d admit that while using his bathroom, I pictured myself in in that girl’s place again—Nate busting through the door and pushing me up against the sink.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t been with dominant guys before. I’d met plenty. But it was the combination of Nate’s clean-cut side with that roughness I’d witnessed in the bar that completely threw me for a loop and had my stomach in knots while I was just sitting beside him.

As he fumbled around and replaced my CDs in their cases, barely making eye contact with me, I had this impression that he was standing on the edge of a crevice and considering whether to open himself up—show himself to me. It was as if he just didn’t know how, or even whether he should. Something about that made me want to be the one to push him over the brink.

What the living hell was wrong with me? I had never been attracted to a guy like Nate. But his blond hair looked all messy today, like someone had run their fingers through it, his thick eyelashes were blinking away at my musical taste and his full lips were screaming to be licked. God, I was a hot mess.

And when he’d admitted that not one trace of a tattoo peppered his skin, I couldn’t help wondering what a body like that looked like in the flesh.

What was one to do with such a blank canvas? I might want to do something drastic, like mar him with my teeth. That thought made a bubble of laughter spring up inside my chest, because I was being absolutely ridiculous.

“What’s so funny?” Nate asked, his fingers tapping a beat against his thigh. In fact, his knee had been jiggling away practically the whole time we’d been in the car.