“I did tell her I was seeing somebody.” He reached up and wrapped one of my curls around his finger. “It made me happy to hear you say so too.”

I swallowed. “Yeah?”

He leaned in just a hair, then took a step backward, folding his arms across his chest. I felt his absence immediately, a feeling I knew he was counting on. The man had flirting down to a finely honed science. I couldn’t have formed a coherent sentence if I’d had to. “I also told her there was a very specific reason I have to give this relationship”—he motioned back and forth between us—“a chance.”

I pushed my hair behind my ears and tried to shake the fuzz out of my brain. Stupid man and his flirty charms. I crossed my arms, mimicking his stance. “And what’s that?”

“Well, I mean, somebody’s gotta knock you off your soccer high horse.”

“Ha!” I lunged forward and gave him a playful nudge. “How are you the man for the job? Seems like last time we played, the only person getting knocked out of the saddle was you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Oh, you are so going down.”

He was easy to be around. We never ran out of stuff to talk about, which saved us from any awkward silences. But mostly it was fun. More fun than I’d had with a guy in a long time. We didn’t even do anything significant. Flipped channels. Watched the tail end of a soccer game. Made fun of all the bad hair on old-school reruns of nineties sitcoms. Around Jamie, I didn’t worry about anything. Not impressing him. Not whether or not my breath was bad. He was completely comfortable. I’d never had that with a guy.

It was after midnight when he finally stood to leave. He reached for my hand and pulled me up beside him. “I’m really glad we got together,” he said.

I smiled, pushing my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “Yeah. Me too. I’ve never had so much fun doing absolutely nothing.”

“We should do it again sometime.”

“We have to keep you true to your word, after all,” I said. “You did tell Katie’s sister you were seeing someone.”

“That I did.” He tugged at my elbow and pulled my hand free, sliding his fingers down my arm until our hands were clasped.

He wanted to kiss me. I could tell by the way his eyes kept darting down to my lips. I was in—all in—but I wasn’t going to stand there all pansy-eyed while he made his move. I leaned up and took hold of Jamie’s tie, giving him a gentle tug. When our lips touched, he pulled me close, wrapping his arms all the way around me.

I could feel him smile as we broke apart. “You just stole my move,” he said.