“Not any more than any other person who likes women and has excellent taste.” I pull a new stack of papers over to my side of the table, so desperate to end this conversation I’ll happily go back to scoring seventh graders’ grammar. Because there’s no way Jack Thomas feels anything even close to love for me. Most of the time I’m not sure he even likes me. The man runs out of the room after a mere five minutes of conversation. It’s as if he can only manage the bare minimum of politeness before needing to be free of me. He probably goes to bed every night wondering why the fuck he ever let me move in.

Gemma sips from her coffee, a knowing smirk plastered all over her face. “I like him.”

“Jack’s a great roommate.”

“He’s adorable.”

“He’s definitely not my type.”

“As far as I’m concerned, that only speaks in his favor.”

I let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Gem. I’m not hooking up with my nerdy roommate. Ever. Seriously. Let it go.”

She shrugs and turns her attention back to her essays. “Okay. Then maybe I will.”

My pen jerks to a stop on the paper, resulting in a long red line, straight through this kid’s whole quiz. “I’d really rather you didn’t.” And I’d really, really rather she didn’t. “But only because my roommate hooking up with one of my best friends could only lead to trouble, right? When you inevitably break up. I’d have to move again, and really, this place is just too good to give up. So I’d have to choose, you or the house, and honestly, Gem, where I’m sitting right now, it doesn’t look good for you. So you might want to consider if hooking up with Jack is worth losing me as your friend before you make any rash decisions.”

Gemma is fighting back a huge smile, and I know she’s about to get all up in that the lady-doth-protest-too-much business, which obviously cannot happen. I can’t even let myself question why the idea of her and Jack makes me want to puke up my coffee.

“But speaking of hookups, do you think Nick and Harley are hanging out without us right now?” I am nothing if not a master deflector. “Did they finally bite the bullet and go for it?”

Gemma purses her lips like she might not let me off the hook, but the chance to gossip about our two besties and their possible love story is too tempting to resist. “Do you really think they’d do that without telling us?”

“Um, yes. One hundred percent. They’d actually be idiots if they did tell us. At least at first.”

Gemma frowns. “If they move in together, can I come live here?”