He’s been out of the Air Force for four years now and had pretty much been off the grid until this last fall when he moved to Austin and started working at UT as a personal trainer. Candice had flipped out over having her cousin near her again. And I’d just straight flipped out. But then I saw him. He looked like freakin’ Adonis standing there in his god-like, too beautiful for his own good, glory. Every straight female in a mile radius seemed to flock to him, and he loved every second of it.
That is why I refused to go on a date with him.
“Rachel.” Candice snapped.
I turned my wide gaze to her.
“Did you even hear me?”
“Not unless we’re done talking about Blake.”
“We are if you’ve decided to say ‘yes’ to him.”
I rolled my eyes, “Why is it so important to you if I go on a date with him or not?”
“Because he’s been asking you out all year! He’s my cousin and you’re my best friend and I love you both and I want to see you two together.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure you and Blake are the only two who feel that way. I have absolutely no desire to date a guy that has women literally hanging on him all the time.” Stupid Air Force turning him into sex on a stick.
Suddenly she was sporting her signature pouty face. “Rach? How much do you love me?”
“Nope. No, I’m not going.”
“Are you saying you don’t love me?” I was already shaking my head to say no when she turned on the puppy eyes and continued, “So will you please do this for me? Pleeeeaaasse? I thought you were my best friend.”
I can’t even believe we’re doing this right now! “If I go on one date with him will you drop this forever?”
She squeaked and did a happy clap, “Thank you, I love you, you’re the best!”
“I didn’t say I would, I said if.”
“But I know you’ll go.”
“He works for the school!” I whined, going back to my original argument. Even though he wasn’t a professor at UT, he did work there as a personal trainer and helped out in the athletics department. Since I was majoring in Athletic Training and Candice in Kinesiology and Health Ed, we saw him almost daily in classroom type settings. That just—didn’t sit right with me.
“Rachel,” she sighed and twisted back around to face me. “Seriously that is getting old. He already checked it out and it’s a non-issue. Stop acting like you don’t want to date him.”
“I don’t! Who wants to date a man-whore?”
“He isn’t a—well . . . eh.” she made a face. “Well, yeah.”
“Exactly!” Blake was rumored to be screwing most of the females he trained as well as . . . well . . . he was rumored to be screwing pretty much any female he passed. Whether the rumors were true or not was up for debate. But seeing as he didn’t try to squash the rumors, and the horde of bimbos was never far from him; I was leaning toward them being true.
“You haven’t dated anyone since Daniel, you need to get back out there.”
“Yes I have. Candi, just because I’m not constantly seen with a guy like you are, doesn’t mean I don’t date.”
I had gotten kind of serious with Daniel at the beginning of our second year here. But apparently six months was too long to make him wait to have sex and he ended up cheating on me. I found out two days after I’d given him my virginity.
Asshole.
After him I’ve gone out with a few guys, but they didn’t last much longer than a date or two and an “I’ll call you later”. Not that there was anything wrong with those guys, I was just more interested in being done with school and Texas than getting my “MRS” degree or risking catching a disease.
I sighed to myself and headed toward our door.
“Are you going to find Blake?!” Candice was bouncing in her seat and her face was all lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.
“What—Candice, no. It’s after midnight! I’m just done talking about this. I’m going to wash my face so I can go to sleep. And I’m not gonna hunt him down either, if he asks me out again, then I’ll say yes.” I grabbed my face wash and was reaching for the knob when someone knocked on the door. I don’t know who I was expecting it to be, but I wouldn’t have thought Blake West would be the one standing there in all his cocky glory. From the look on his face, there was no doubting he heard part, if not all, of our conversation. What the eff was he doing in our dorm?
He pulled one long stemmed red rose –that was unexpected– from behind his back, looked over my shoulder and his cocky smile went completely serious. “Hey, Candi. Do you mind if I steal Rachel for a few minutes?”
I turned around to look at her and she was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Traitor. I looked back at Blake and he let out a short laugh at my question mark expression.
“That is, unless you’re busy or don’t want to. It looks like you were headed somewhere.” He looked pointedly at the hand that wasn’t holding onto the door.
It took me a few seconds to look down at my hand and realize he was looking at my face wash. “Oh . . . um, not. No. I mean. Busy. Not busy. I’m not busy.” Wow, that was brilliant.
Blake’s lips twitched and his head fell down and to the side to hide the grin he was failing at keeping back.
Trying not to continue looking like a complete idiot, I took a deep breath in and actually thought about my next question two different times before asking it. Okay fine, I thought about it four times. “So, what can I do for you?” Yeah, I know. Now you understand why that required a lot of thought.
“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes.”
“Uh, you do realize it’s almost one in the morning, right?”
His head lifted and he looked slightly sheepish. That look on this man was so different than anything I’d ever seen and I almost didn’t know how to respond to it. “Yeah, sorry. I think I fought with myself for so long on whether or not I should actually come up here and talk to you, it got a lot later than I realized.” He jerked the rose up in front of him like he’d just remembered it was there, “This is for you, by the way.”
“And here I was thinking you just walk around holding roses all the time.” I awkwardly took the rose from him, looked at it for a few seconds, then let it hang from the tips of my fingers. “So, Blake . . .” I trailed off and searched his eyes for a second before his flashed and he took a step back.
“Can I talk to you out here for just a minute? I promise I won’t keep you long.”
Yeah, well, the fact that I’ve turned you down for the amount of time it takes to make a baby and now you’re standing at my dorm room door at one in the morning is kind of creepy. But of course, we have history, you’re incredibly hot now and I’m thinking about as clearly as Candice does. So, sure. Why the hell not? I followed him out into the hall and shut the door behind us, but stayed pressed up against it.
“Rachel,” he ran a nervous hand through his hair and paused for a second, as if trying to figure out what to say, “the school year is about to end and you’ll be going back to Cali over the summer. I feel like I’m about to miss any chance with you I may have. And I don’t want to. I know you liked me when we were growing up. But Rach, you were way too young back then.”
“I’m still five years younger, that hasn’t changed.”
He smirked. “You and I both know a relationship between a thirteen and eighteen-year-old, and a twenty-one and twenty-six-year-old are completely different.”
So? That doesn’t help my argument right now. “Well you and I have both changed over the last eight years. Feelings change –”
“Yes,” he cut me off and his blue eyes darkened as he gave me a once over. “They do.”
I hated that my body was responding to his look. But honestly, I think it’d be impossible for anyone not to respond to him. Like I said. Adonis. “Uh, Blake. Up here.” He smiled wryly and dear Lord that smile was way too perfect. “Look, honestly? I have an issue with the fact that you’re constantly surrounded by very eager and willing females. It’s not like I’d put some claim on you if we went on a couple dates, but you ask me out while these girls are touching you and drooling all over you. It’s insulting that you would ask me out while your next lay is already practically stripping for you.”