When it comes time for Jenna to leave on Sunday morning, I sob and cling to her the way I did my mother’s leg the first day of kindergarten. Luckily, she is crying as hard as I am, so I don’t feel like a total loser. I really wish I could tell her what is going on with me. I need her advice more than ever about Shane and Fletch.

I go back to bed for a couple hours and when I get up, I’m confronted by a shirtless Fletch in the kitchen. He’s just back from a run, and sweat is running down his muscles in little rivulets. The scent of his workout is clean, masculine. Damn those pheromones. My core tightens, clenching around air, and I want him so bad.

He pulls the orange juice carton out of the fridge and starts drinking it right out of the container. I watch his throat working until he lowers the juice and sends me a direct stare. “So, you have a date tonight?”

Bucket. Ice-cold water. Poured over my head.

That’s how I feel.

My veins turn to ice and any and all sexy time feelings I might have been entertaining are flash-frozen by the tone of his voice.

I raise my chin. “That’s the rumor.”

He sneers at me. “Going to add him to your notebook, little bit?”

Blowtorch. Flamethrower. The ice melts, and I’m suddenly going up in flames. Frustrated rage fills my veins, my head. I want to howl like a wolf at the full moon. I take a deep breath, trying to hold on to my sanity. I do not like these crazy conflicting emotions or the ride they are taking my body on. I opt for something logical to say and aim for a neutral tone. “You never call me “little bit.”

He shrugs. He must not see that my blood is roiling to a boil. That I’m about to tear my skin off my own bones and dance like flames in a bonfire. God, his eyes are cold.

Breathe. “Should I have told him no? Even as you were telling me to go out with him.”

He shrugs again. “You’re a free agent. You can do anyone you want to. Take all your newly tested hypotheses to the next jock. Gonna give him your V-card, or is that for me and Shane?”

It feels like he hit me. Like his words are a physical punch. I’m unable to think or process, and I hate him for that. Thinking and processing is who I am, and he somehow took that away from me. I’m just in wordless shock for a few minutes.

His face is blank. Emotionless. I don’t even know this guy. Did I ever?

“What?” he asks, shrugging in dismissal at me.

“Why are you doing this?”