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“I really don’t.”

“I meant,” Jesus! Rox is like a dog with a bone; she isn’t going to drop this. “Why don’t you ask him out?”

“Out where? To study? I told him I would get a study group for final⁠—”

“No! Out. Like on a date.”

“Date?” I frowned. Then for some reason, because I was the biggest nerd known to man, I snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Yeah right, what?” Roxie’s head tilted, and her bright green eyes locked with mine.

“I just…” My words drifted to nothing.

“You’re a perfectly beautiful, seriously smart twenty-one-year-old⁠—"

“Virgin,” I cut in. “I’m a perfectly boring twenty-one-year-old virgin,” I corrected.

“I’m more than sure Trevor would be up to help you out with… your situation. If that’s what you wanted.” She wagged her brows, and I shook my head.

“Shut up.” I giggled and picked up the remote control, turning on the TV.

“I’m serious!” she huffed. “Didn’t you notice the way he was looking at you?”

“He wasn’t looking at me any kind of way. Plus…” I opened and shut my mouth, pressing my lips together.

“Plus, what?” she asked. I turned to look at her. The smile on her face dissolved. “I swear on everything that’s holy, please don’t say my stupid, pigheaded cousin’s name.” My cheeks flamed with heat, and I glanced away, paying attention to the baseball game on TV.

“That’s what you were going to say, weren’t you? Adam?” she asked, again unable to let things go. The girl was destined to be an attorney with how she argued. I told her she should change majors all the time, but she kept saying that wasn’t for her.

“I—" There was no use in lying, so I simply shrugged, not bothering to meet Roxie’s way-too-perceptive gaze.

“Adam,” she groaned. “Does this mean you’re ready to finally talk to him? Tell him how you actually feel?”

“How I actually feel?” I pressed my fingers to the center of my chest. “I don’t know what you⁠—"

“You’re in love with Adam, and Adam’s been in love with you since high school.” This wasn’t the first time Rox had said this, and as much as her words always made my heart skip with possible hope, I squashed it every single time.

“That’s not true.” I pouted and glanced at her. Her brow rose higher as if silently saying really? “It’s not,” I lied through my teeth as my heart rate started to pick up speed. “Plus… it’s almost been a year since…” My heart ached at the memory of the stupidest fight Adam and I had ever had.

“He misses you,” she said softly for the umpteenth time since Adam and I had stopped talking.

“No, he doesn’t.” My nose stung. “He probably doesn’t even remember me.” I smiled weakly at her, and her tough, bad-ass girl façade cracked. Her green eyes softened and she leaned in close, taking my hand in hers.

“Now, we both know that’s not true,” she argued softly. “You two have been best friends since you met freshman year.” I opened and shut my mouth before I shrugged and looked away.

Adam. My eyes shut, and I could see him plain as day behind my lids. Adam and his chocolate-brown eyes that felt like they understood and saw me more than anyone else in the entire world.

Adam and his long, strong inked-up arms that, when they wrapped around you, felt like he wasn’t just holding you close, shielding you from anything that could hurt you, but made you feel so safe and cherished you almost felt invincible. Like no matter what, you could do anything as long as you put your heart into it.

Adam and the way he smelled like sunshine and freshly cut grass and something I knew had to be uniquely him, because no matter who I met during the last year, no other guy even came close to his scent.

“It doesn’t matter.” I swallowed. “Plus, I can’t ask Trevor on a date. I’ve never been on a date.”

“We both know that is not true,” she murmured under her breath, but I chose to ignore it because I was not about to get into that argument with her.

Rox had been Team Callie and Adam since we’d met our senior year in high school at one of Adam and her family’s events. She swore up and down every dance or formal or party I ever went to with Adam in college, to say the least, had been just that, but we were both too oblivious and obtuse to realize it.

I wasn’t stupid enough to lie to myself. That’s what each outing had felt like when Adam and I had hung out. Until we stopped hanging out. When that happened, it had broken my heart. Friends, including Rox, tried to set me up with different guys, but no one had ever come close to making me feel what Adam did.