“Angie,” I repeated, firmly cementing the first brick of the wall I was building around myself. Then I’d stood up and gone inside.
Uncle Jahn hadn’t bothered me for the rest of that day or the next, though I knew he was worried and confused. When Saturday morning came, he told me that he was having some students from the graduate-level finance seminar he taught as an adjunct over for burgers by the pool, and I was welcome to join them. My call.
I’m not sure what compelled me to emerge from the dark cave of my room that afternoon, all I know is that I came down in my ratty cutoffs with Uncle Jahn’s ancient Rolling Stones T-shirt over my bikini top. I thought I’d stay for an hour. Have a burger. Remind myself not to sneak a beer, because that was the kind of thing Lina would do, not Angie.
But when I actually got down to the pool deck, all thoughts of beer and burgers evaporated, replaced by pure, decadent, desperate lust. And not the teenage crush kind, either. No, I saw Evan Black shirtless and in swim trunks that clung in a way that made my sixteen-year-old hormones light up. His wet hair was swept back from his face, and he was brandishing a metal spatula as he stood by the grill, laughing with two other guys, who I later learned were his best friends, Cole August and Tyler Sharp.
All three seemed younger than the other four students who also populated the lush backyard. I later learned that I was right. The others were in their last year of grad school, whereas Evan was still an undergrad who’d been given special dispensation to take the class. And Tyler and Cole weren’t even enrolled at Northwestern. Tyler was a freshman at Loyola. Cole was a year older than Tyler, and had just come back from some sort of art internship in Rome. They’d come with Evan who, along with the others, made up the whole of that summer’s seminar class in finance.
Together, Cole, Tyler, and Evan were a smorgasbord of hotness that even my reasonably inexperienced eyes were more than capable of appreciating. But Evan was the only one that I wanted to take a bite out of.
I heard my uncle call my name, and the three of them turned to look in my direction. I stopped breathing as Evan’s gaze swept toward me, his expression never changing as he looked me over and then, oh-so casually, went back to flipping burgers.
I’m not sure what sort of movie I’d had running subliminally in my head. Something wild and romantic, I guess, because the moment he turned away, I felt a hot wave of disappointment wash over me. And that, of course, was immediately replaced by mortification. Could he tell what I was thinking? Was he going to think of me now as Jahn’s gawkish niece? The one with the schoolgirl crush?
Holy crap, the idea was horrifying.
“Hey, Angie,” Jahn called, his words jerking my posture straight as effectively as a string pulling a marionette. “You joining us for burgers?”
“I—” My words had stuck in my throat, and I knew I couldn’t stay there. I needed space. Hell, I needed air. “I—I think I’m coming down with something.” I blurted the words, then turned and ran back into the house, certain that my burning cheeks were a fire hazard.