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Without wasting another second, I roll off my chair onto my hands and knees on the non-beer-splattered side of the Astroturf and begin crawling toward the opposite side of the roof. The exit down the east stairwell is creepier than the one by our apartment—the kind of place where a used condom or random drug paraphernalia on the steps isn’t unheard of—but that’s fine.
I’m not scared of gross things. At least not gross things that stay put in one place. A used condom with legs would be repulsively terrifying, but thankfully the universe spared us such an abomination. If it will also, in its universal mercy, see fit to spare me any interaction with Sam, I silently promise to be a better person.
Just let me make a clean getaway and I’ll shower at least once every three days, volunteer at that summer coding camp for underprivileged kids I decided I was too depressed to attend and stop eating yogurt straight out of the container.
I’m pretty sure no one likes the honey Greek yogurt except me, but on the off chance one of my roommates decides they want to slap some yogurt on top of their cereal instead of using milk, I owe it to them to keep my germs to myself. And I will.
Please, universe, spare me utter mortification on my birthday and I’ll be so tidy, sweet, and non-goblin-ish you’ll hardly recognize me!
I’m five feet from the stairwell and silently adding a promise to stop hiding Harlow’s flattening iron—even though the smell of burned hair makes me sick and her gorgeous, flowing locks look so much better with a little curl in them—when a deep voice from behind me rumbles, “Jess?”
I freeze, my stomach snarling into a cramped knot as a cold sweat breaks out over every inch of my skin. I squeeze my eyes shut, praying I’ll miraculously become invisible if I stay still and silent, but when I open them again, Sam is squatting right in front of me in all his buff and leather-wearing glory, watching me with a confused smile.
“So…this is a bad surprise, and I should have called first?” he asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Sitting back on my heels, I pull in a shaky breath. I rack my brain for something semi-cool to say, something that might explain why he caught me crawling away from him like a dog who got caught eating tennis balls again, but all that comes out is a soft squeaking, gulping sound.
Sam nods. “Yeah. I hear you. It’s been a long time.”
“Six years,” I force out. “It’s like you dropped off the face of the earth after graduation. Your cell number stopped working and all your social media and gaming profiles went dark. You never even put up a Job Shop profile after college or anything. I thought you’d become an international criminal. Or a spy.”
His glittering eyes lock more firmly on mine, summoning a strange, fluttering feeling to my throat. “So, you missed me? Is that what you’re saying?”
My cheeks heat as I cross my arms over my chest. “I was worried. That’s all. I have a very full life and three wonderful best friends who are always there for me. I don’t waste time missing people who don’t miss me back.”
“Who said I didn’t miss you back?” he asks, his expression softening, making him look more like the boy I remember, the one who was always there with a joke or a bag of gummy worms or a game hack he’d only share with me.
The fluttery feeling in my throat moves lower, until it’s vibrating between my hips, causing very disconcerting sensations in my V-Card region.
And just like that, I know I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to say the quiet part out loud and make everything awkward as hell.
I try to stop myself, I really do, but before I can slap a hand over my stupid mouth, my lips blurt out, “So are you here for sex or is there another reason for this blast from the past?”
CHAPTER TWO
Samuel Salvatore Burgos
A man even more hopelessly
in love than he realized…
And just like that, I’m hard.
Ridiculously hard.
Embarrassinglyhard.
But hell, I’ve been dreaming about this girl since we were teenagers, and my first look at her in six years was a sexy-as-sin view of the backs of her bare thighs as she crawled away from me on all fours. And now she’s looking up at me with that familiar, “don’t bullshit me, Burgos” look on her insanely cute face and I’m…
Well, I’m as helpless against her as ever.
Meanwhile,she’sas immune to my new charms as she was to my old ones.
In the six years since I hugged Jess goodbye at graduation and left for undergrad in the UK—hoping some distance from my first and only crush would convince my heart to move the hell on already—I’ve put on thirty pounds of pure muscle and grown into my bushy eyebrows. I’ve also gone prematurely gray, like my grandfather, leaving my temples and beard streaked with silver that my last girlfriend swore was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.
I never imagined being a young guy with gray would be a turn-on for anyone, but I have no reason to believe she was lying. Whether I’m stepping into a bar or a business meeting, I see the way female heads turn to watch me cross a room. Women notice me in a way they never did when I was a lanky, code-writing obsessed teenager, and the fact that I’m worth a few billion has very little to do with it.
I’ve kept my success so quiet only my family and a handful of my original angel investors know that Best Nest is my creation. My app has revolutionized the online world, allowing users to avoid being tracked or targeted by advertisers, bad actors, or their own government, while customizing their browsing experience to a level no one could’ve imagined possible three years ago. But almost no one knows I’m the face behind The Paradisus Corporation, and that’s the way I like it.
