“We’re just friends. I like you a lot, and you’re a great guy. Excellent, really. Any girl would be lucky to have you.” I sighed. God, I sucked at this stuff. “But I’m kind of with someone else right now.”
He stiffened. “The surfer?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed back my arguments that Finn was more than a surfer. More than what Cory decided to label him as. He was smart, funny, handsome, brave…
Cory chuckled and his shoulders relaxed. “Good.”
I blinked at him. “Good?”
“Yeah.” He stared at his impeccable nails. “It won’t last, and when it falls apart, you’ll come back to me.”
“That’s a really shitty thing to say,” I snapped, heading toward the doors. “He’s a great guy.”
Cory’s mouth pressed tight. “He can be great all he wants, but it still won’t work. You aren’t the same type of people.”
“You’re wrong.” I stopped walking. “You don’t know him like I do.”
“No, I’m not wrong,” he said, his face red. I opened my mouth to slam his opinions to the dirt, but he didn’t give me a chance. “You’ve got plans in your life that don’t include a surfer boy who has no immediate goals in his life besides when he should catch his next wave.”
“He has a great job. He’s a Marine.” I took a breath. “How dare you pretend that’s not a career.”
Cory rubbed his temples. “He’s got nothing to offer you, really. Can’t help you study. Has no knowledge of what you’ll be doing with your life. Won’t get along with your father. He’s a rebellious stage in your life. Nothing more.”
“I don’t need him to help me study. I’m fine on my own.”
“Sure you are,” Cory agreed, nodding. “But that’s not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that you two have nothing in common. The things you like about him now? The stuff you think you admire most because he’s so different?” Cory leaned in, latching gazes with me. “That’s the stuff that will make you hate him later.”
Could he be right? Would I eventually hate Finn’s laid-back lifestyle? His quest for fun? The way he laughed as he surfed, his eyes lit up and his laugh blending with the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore? “You’re wrong.”
“No, I’m not. I learned it in psychology.” He nodded his head toward the dorms. “Speaking of the devil…”
Finn came up to my side and cleared his throat. He wore a light yellow shirt with a surfboard on it and plaid shorts. His shades were firmly in place, and his short curls were a little messy. Not messy enough, though, due to his haircut. “I was starting to think you forgot about me.”
“No. No, of course not. I’m just a little bit late because I got in trouble.”
“You?” Finn raised a brow. “How could you have gotten in trouble?”
“We’ll talk about it later.” I knew I should get ready for the quiz tomorrow, but I didn’t want to give up time with Finn. I could make time for both. “Come on.”
Finn took my hand and nodded at Cory. “Later, Cody.”
“My name’s Cory,” Cory said, his voice hard. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Finn said, his tone completely innocent.
Even I believed him…almost.
Cory grabbed my arm as we passed, and Finn stiffened next to me at the touch. “Are you going to study?” Cory asked.
“Yeah. Later.”
Cory flexed his jaw and let go of me. “Fine. See you later.”
“What was that all about?” Finn steered me toward his bike.
“Nothing. We have a quiz coming up. I’ll study later tonight.”
He stopped walking and looked over his shoulder at Cory. “Are you sure? Your grades come first. Maybe you should go with Golden Boy.”
Golden Boy. Why did that name ring a bell? I shook my head, shaking away the niggling sensation that I’d heard those words before. “No, I’ll be fine. You promised me cheeseburgers and milkshakes, and I intend to collect.”
He wrapped his arms around me and tugged me close. “First, you need to pay up.”
He lowered his mouth to mine, giving me a passionate kiss that quite literally knocked the breath out of me. I curled my hands into his shirt, trying to urge him closer, and he moaned before breaking off the kiss. Before I could so much as blink, he slid the helmet over my head and reached for his.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.”
I bit down on my lower lip. “Oh? What is it?”
He sat down on the bike and looked straight ahead before slamming on his own helmet. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
Chapter 17
I pulled the bike up to the curb and closed my eyes, relishing the way her arms felt around me. Loving the fact that I could show how much I liked it when she clung to me, now that we were together. Now that she knew how I felt about her. I tore my helmet off, and then picked her up, setting her on my lap.
She shrieked at the sudden movement and flung her arms around my neck. Her sweet ass pressed down on me, making my c**k hard, but I wasn’t looking for that right now. I just needed to hold her because I f**king could. “Hey, babe.”
I gently removed her helmet and set it aside. The way she looked at me…
I loved it.
I could get used to seeing that same light shining in her eyes for the rest of my goddamned life. And that’s what I wanted. Not a short period of her life. I wanted forever. Even though I knew, subjectively, that we were doomed from the start. I’d started this relationship with lies, and it would end the second the full truth came out.
And even if I hadn’t lied to her, she was too young to even contemplate forever. A baby, practically. When I’d been nineteen, the furthest thing from my mind had been love or settling down with someone. To her, this was nothing more than the obligatory college fling.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked breathlessly.
I snapped myself out of whatever unicorn land I’d been stuck in. “Like what?”
“Like I bit you or something.”
I snorted. “You can bite me anytime you want, babe.”
She slapped my arm, but I barely even felt it. She was like a mosquito bite on my arm. “Keep it up, and I just might. And I bite really hard.”