“They don’t?”
I pause. “No, they do. That’s fair.”
He laughs. “Tell me.”
I shift in my seat under his intense, sultry gaze. “I guess I’m just wired to get off on statistical analysis. Most of life is totally uncontrollable, so I like feeling like I can at least try to control something by finding patterns and statistical probabilities about what’s to come. I don’t only make spreadsheets about football. I do it about everything. Even weird stuff. But making them about football is my favorite. Doing that, I’m sure I feel the same way you did when swinging around on those uprights.”
Luca places his elbow onto the desk and his cheek in his large palm. “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve made a spreadsheet about?”
“Hmm.” I twist my mouth. “Well, I kept a detailed ‘romance spreadsheet’ for a while.”
“Sounds hot.”
“It wasn’t. I compiled data on my dating life to see if I could find any patterns so I could then make all necessary adjustments and save myself some time going forward.”
Luca chuckles. “Yeah, maybe not so hot.”
“Not at all.”
“Did I make it onto this romance spreadsheet, by any chance?”
He looks hopeful, so in any other situation, I’d tell him the truth. That, in fact, yes, he was the inspiration for me to startit in the first place. As it is, however, there’s no freaking way I could possibly admit that.
I shake my head. “I started it after graduating from college—when I got to MIT. But even if you’d made it in there, it wouldn’t have stroked your ego, like you’re thinking. It wasn’t a diary or a repository for my feelings. It was all about data collection.”
Luca looks deeply amused. “Data about what, specifically?”
How did I get to talking about this?“Just, you know, my romantic tendencies and patterns. I detailed the red flags I’d initially missed and tried to tie them to other telltale factors so I didn’t miss them again. That sort of thing. I was hoping the whole thing would help me ultimately recognize the perfect boyfriend and/or life partner when he finally came along. ‘Perfect’ as in for me. I know there’s no such thing as a perfect person, objectively.”
Luca drags his teeth over his lip. “Did you ever find him—this perfect-for-you guy you were searching for through detailed data compilation and analysis?”
Those eyes. That smolder. When Luca looks at me the way he’s doing now, with all that heat and longing, I feel it physically between my legs—in the simmer that arises in my veins and the warmth and dampness that announces itself in the cotton crotch of my panties.
Pressing my fingernails into my palms again, I manage a calm reply. “If I’d found him already, I would have mentioned him to you long before sitting down with you in a dark classroom at night with nobody else around.”
Luca’s chest heaves. Clearly, he’s feeling the crackling energy in the air, the same as me.
I take a deep breath. “Eventually, I scrapped my whole analysis because I couldn’t find any meaningful patterns. In the end, I realized feelings, or the complete absence of them as the case may be, aren’t mathematically explainable.” I sink mynails even deeper into my palms, feeling overwhelmed with attraction and lust.
“What a coincidence,” Luca whispers, his soulful eyes locked with mine. “That’s exactly why I stopped working on my romance spreadsheet, too.”
I can’t help smiling. “We really shouldn’t be wasting our valuable time talking about non-football-related things. The first round of cuts is coming soon, so we should use every available minute to—”
“But fun is fuel, Coach. And this conversation is fun.”
“What’d I say about you saying that to me, Ninety-Five?” I’m trying to deflect from the magnetic pull I’m feeling to Luca’s lips right now. The throbbing between my legs. The pounding of my heart. But it’s not working.
Suddenly, Luca’s eyes drift pointedly to my lips, and his chest rises and falls sharply. “You’re pretty fucking awesome, Chelsea Parker,” he whispers, his voice thick with sexual heat. “You’re so fascinating to me. Most girls keep a diary about their romantic exploits, but not my mathlete. She keeps a detailed spreadsheet.”
My mathlete.That wording, along with the affection in Luca’s tone, send my heart rate spiking. When I gather myself, I say, “I keep a diary, too. That’s where I record my feelings so I have an organized place to stow them and move on.”
One side of Luca’s kissable mouth hitches up at that. Plainly, what I’ve said has amused him. He returns his cheek to his large palm, his smolder slowly replaced by twinkling eyes. “Why do you think you haven’t had luck in the romance department?”
I try to take a deep breath, but I can’t fill my lungs to full capacity. “My calculations actually shed some light on that, somewhat. Basically, I was able to determine there’s literally nobody in the entire world who’d be a perfect fit for me, romantically.”
He laughs.
“I’m not joking, unfortunately. My two greatest passions aren’t normally combined inside one person, let alone a woman, which means finding the man who’d be compatible with me to the extreme would be like getting struck by lightning. Basically, I’m too weird to find anyone who’d be a perfect fit for me—someone who’d genuinely enjoy both sides of me. I’ve met plenty of guys who pretend to be interested in me and what interests me, but in the end, it’s always pretty clear they’re just telling me what I want to hear to get into my pants.”
