For the first time in his life Quentin found himself dreading the summertime. Because starting this very day, Ms. LeFievre was officially on summer break, and there would be no break from her hotness.

“Hey, Quentin,” she said, leaning against the doorjamb and biting off the end of her Popsicle. She was still whispering, her eyes on the door Quentin had just closed.

“Hey, Cat.”

Her big brown eyes flicked to his for the first time since he’d turned around. “Did your superhot roomie leave for work yet?”

Quentin suppressed yet another sigh.

“I was thinking,” she continued in a low voice, “that I might try to synchronize our exits today, maybe walk him to the train.”

See, this, this right here, was exactly why Jared was an absolute numbskull. Because if he opened his eyes just the tiniest bit, he could have Cat LaFievre on a silver platter, Popsicle and all. Instead he was in there, tangled up in the sheets with a woman who’d once thrown a gyro at his head because he sat on the remote and changed the channel in the middle of a TV show she was watching.

Instead of acknowledging that Cat had the hots for his dummy of a cousin, Quentin chose to shift the subject. “Where are you off to so early in the morning? I thought you were on summer break?”

She contracted into herself, one hand on her heart and her eyes squinched closed, the Popsicle lolling dangerously in her fingers. “Oh, my God. That sounds so good it hurts. Say it again, big boy.”

Quentin pinched his lips together but couldn’t keep his cheeks from rising. She was so ridiculous. He didn’t resist the urge to play. Leaning forward, he lifted one eyebrow and used his deepest, sexiest voice. “Summer break,” he crooned.

She shivered theatrically. “That’s the stuff.”

He couldn’t help but laugh.

Smiling right back at him, she finished off the Popsicle and cracked the stick in two. “Yup. Officially on break. I was gonna head out to Fort Tilden beach this morning before the crowds descend.”

“How do you get out there?” He adjusted the strap on his messenger bag and cocked his head to the side, his interest piqued.

“The train to a shuttle bus, it’s not—oh, I see what you’re doing.”

He flushed. “What?”

“You’re totally pretending to have a normal conversation with a neighbor but actually you’re nerding out. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your public-transportation obsession.” She ticktocked her finger back and forth and gave him a knowing look.

He flushed even more, which he knew was painfully obvious on his complexion. He had coppery hair and pale skin. Even the slightest blush and he was roughly the same hue as a can of coke. “It’s not an obsession,” he insisted, fiddling with his messenger bag again. “It’s my job.”

“Uh-huh. Says the guy with a train set in his bedroom.”

Aaaand here they were, back to the reason he’d been attempting to avoid her for the last three months.