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I returned his smile. “But you tell it so well.”
Laura groaned. “Someone please tell us how you two know each other.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth, holding back another laugh. “We met for thirty seconds in the elevator at my dorm.”
“I don’t even know her name,” Ben confirmed.
I held my hand out. “I’m Tali.”
He slipped a warm hand around mine and held it for a long moment. “Ben.” My heart picked up a notch. He wasn’t really my type, but he was cute and giving me flirty eyes.
“Tali is my best friend,” Tino announced.
Ben’s eyebrows quirked. “You move fast. First day on campus, already got a new best friend.”
I shrugged. “It’s my natural charm. Can’t help it. Except on elevators. I’m just the worst in confined spaces.”
He chuckled, lifting his drink to his lips. “Ah, good to know it wasn’t me.”
We talked music for a while, voices raised over the drowning cat sounds blasting from the stage. Ben and I shared a lot of the same favorite bands, so I had fun bouncing back and forth with him. I was tipsy, floaty, happy by the time Meathole finished playing and Tino took Laura and Nina on another drink run to the kitchen. Ben and I sat down on the low brick wall on Tino’s patio, both turning sideways to face one another.
“How have I never seen you around?” he asked.
“I haven’t been around. My parents made me live at home last year. I’m fairly sure you picked up on my brand-new vibe.”
He grinned. “Maybe. You were almost shaking on the elevator.”
“You and your friend aren’t like the boys I know back home. Plus, imagine spending nineteen years having ‘boys are only after one thing’ drilled into your head. That sticks.”
Ben waggled his eyebrows. “That might be true about boys, but I’m aman.”
God, he was so handsome, and his smile was a showstopper, but I kept finding my eyes wandering, seeking out hazel eyes.
“Are you sayingmenaren’t after sex?” I countered.
“Oh, no, I’m definitely not saying that. But real men want more than that.”
“Sparkling conversation?” I asked.
“That’d be nice,” he said.
“So, where’s your girlfriend, Ben?”
He lifted a shoulder, blue eyes soft on mine. “Still working on that.”
“You know what advice my mom gave me before she left this morning?”
“Tell me.”
“She said, ‘Natalia Marie, don’t tell your father I said this, but I want you to play the field. Kiss a few frogs. Don’t marry the first man who falls at your feet. Be young and free.’ Then she gave me a rape whistle.”
Ben’s blond eyebrows pinched in the middle. “That is...interesting advice.”
“I’m taking it. I’m finally on my own for the very first time. I don’t want to be tied down. I want to figure out who I am without anything holding me back.”
He nodded, turning away to scan the crowd. “I guess that’s pretty admirable.”
I chuckled. “You guess, huh?”
