“I’ve honestly never heard anyone put it that way before,” I told him, picking up my silverware. “Most people want to be the center of attention all the time.”

“I’m in the military, and I have a huge family back home that I go to see whenever I can,” he said seriously. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t have a whole lot of spare time.”

“It’s not that I don’t have a lot of spare time,” I said, beginning to eat. “I don’t really have any spare time.”

“You said you stop here for coffee once in a while, right?” he asked. “So I’ll stop in with you. You don’t want to cook? Let me know, and we can grab a quick bite somewhere and then you can go home and get things done. It doesn’t have to be hard.”

I thought about his words. The idea was tempting, but I still hesitated. “I only have six months of school left, Alex,” I said, meeting his eyes. “And I don’t know where I’ll be after that.” I had to put that out there. I wasn’t sure what his end game was—a relationship or just a little fun. If he was looking for something long term, I didn’t know if I could agree to that with everything up in the air.

“I don’t want to be fuck buddies,” Alex said, his voice so quiet that I could barely hear him. “If that’s what you’re thinking. I’m getting too old for that type of thing. I want to spend time with you, as much as I can get for however long it lasts.”

“Just friends?” I asked with completely feigned nonchalance.

“Oh, hell no,” Alex said quickly. “I want you. That’s just not all I want.”

I smiled. “Sweet talker.”

“Give it a chance?” he asked, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled at me. “If at some point you decide that it’s not working, we’ll walk away. No harm, no foul.”

I stared at him for a long moment. It had been so long since I’d been this attracted to someone. It wasn’t just Alex’s looks that had me rethinking my stance on dating; it was everything else, too. His protectiveness at the party and the way his fingers felt threaded through mine, the way he opened doors and insisted on walking me in, and even the way he tilted his head when he was listening intently to what I said all seemed to pull me further and further into his orbit.

“Okay,” I said nonchalantly.

“Yeah?” he asked with a huge smile.

“Yeah,” I replied, smiling back. My stomach felt as if it were filled with a thousand butterflies.

*  *  *