“Yeah. It was good kissing.” He shakes his head and laughs. “God, that sounds lame. The kissing was amazing. Really. I don’t know why I’m acting like a stick in the mud. Shane is so good about keeping things casual. I’m sort of a control freak.”

“You and Shane are very different. But I see how your friendship works. You’re good for each other. It’s a good balance.”

“Well, anyway, I’m sorry. Hey, I’m starving. Let’s make cookies,” Fletch suggests.

“Cookies?” That is a strange and unexpected segue.

“Yeah. You know, round disks of dough with chocolate in them?”

“Fletch, I have no idea how to bake cookies.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“What? Just because I’m a girl I should know how to bake?”

“No.” Fletch moves me out of the way so he can grab a bowl from the cabinet behind me. “Because you are a scientist.”

I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “You lost me, Fletcher.”

“Cooking is science. Don’t you ever watch the Food Network?”

“No. Do you?” Jeez. It’s pretty much ESPN at all times from what I’ve seen.

He begins pulling things out of the cupboards. I can’t believe the kitchen of these college dudes contains cookie-making ingredients.

“Can you get two eggs and a stick of butter out?”

There is no book visible, nor is he consulting his phone. “You know the recipe by heart?”

“I bake cookies all the time. It’s very relaxing.”

I set down the ingredients he asked for. “I don’t suppose you crochet too?”

He picks me up like I weigh less than the canister of flour and sets me on the counter next his workspace. “Pay attention. I’m going to wow you now.”

I pretend to be skeptical, but my pulse tells another story. I’m in a constant state of wow, actually. I can’t stop feeling his hands on me. His tongue in my mouth.

He puts the wet ingredients together and begins mixing them when he asks me the scientific formula for the baking soda.

“NaHCO3.” Duh. That’s like junior high chemistry.

He adds the other ingredients. Asking me “chemistry speak” for each one. Like, the sugar is sucrose, the flour is gluten, and the butter is fat. When he gets to the chocolate chips, he doesn’t give me a chance to answer—he just puts two in my mouth.

As the chocolate melts in my mouth, I can’t help but think about those kisses. The ones we are not talking about. But we talk about other things. Jenna comes up, and her name douses my libido for a bit. I can’t imagine she would be on board with me kissing her older brother and his best friend. Especially not together. At the same time.