And he didn’t know exactly what got into him at that point. It was clear the girl didn’t hear him coming, and for some reason he wanted to show off a little. Make an impression. Get noticed.
He stole across the last few feet of gravel, sneaking up behind her and getting close as he leaned in for the handle of her suitcase, a flippant hello and a flirty smile on his lips. And he was just about to use them, too, but before he could do a single damn thing, a steely grip closed around his wrist.
“What—”
All his weight went out from underneath him, and he was rolling. He choked, lungs empty as his back impacted with the ground, and then he was just lying there, mouth agape and gasping for air, looking up at dark eyes and fair skin and pale, soft lips. Blurry eyes and blurry lips.
He squeezed his eyes shut before blinking them open. Squinting at the face above him, he watched it swim into focus, bringing with it glints of metal from the girl’s piercings, the dark furrows of angry lines between her brows, and… Jesus. Everything hurt. He groaned and shifted just to make sure he could still feel all his fingers and toes.
And, wow, he thought he’d gotten himself into a shitty situation before? Contending with it all while feeling like one giant bruise was going to be awesome.
The girl drew his attention from the sharp rocks digging into his shoulder blades by shaking him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Well, he had been trying to make an impression. Mission obviously accomplished, if not exactly in the way he’d been hoping.
He blinked a few extra times for good measure and lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “Um.” His voice sounded gritty and raw and like he’d just been flipped by a girl who weighed a hundred pounds. “Hi?”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she mumbled under her breath before stepping away and extending a hand.
He eyed her warily and decided maybe he’d just pick himself up off the ground after all that. Holding his palms out to show he meant no harm, he sat up with a groan. The back of his head twinged, and he lifted one hand to grab at it, wincing.
She’d crossed her arms over her chest by that point. “Who are you?”
“Adam.” He jerked one thumb toward the guys’ house across the way. “I live next door. Was going to offer to help you with your bags, but I’m guessing that won’t be necessary.”
“No. It won’t.”
And he didn’t miss the fact that there wasn’t the slightest hint of an apology to her tone, nor any hint that she might be thinking about offering one. It was a little presumptuous to expect one, but saying you’re sorry was pretty de rigueur for attacking a guy who’d come in peace. Or at least that’s how he’d always assumed this kind of thing was supposed to go.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Her expression held, firm and impassive and living up to the promise of all the ways she presented herself. A beat passed, and then another. For the first time, something in her eyes flickered, and the set of her lips cracked. “You really shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“Yeah. Got that.”
“People get the wrong idea, and instinct takes over, and—”
“Right. I said I got it.”
Her mouth snapped shut, and any quiver of vulnerability he might have thought he’d glimpsed disappeared. “Fine. Asshole.”
She had got to be kidding him. “I was trying to be nice!”
“Well, you failed.”
“Sorry?” He waited, but she clearly wasn’t about to reciprocate, and okay, sure, whatever. Except it bugged the hell out of him. Rubbing his neck, he grumbled at her, “Least you could do is apologize for trying to cripple me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Hardly. I’d have to be an idiot to cripple you using a move like that. It was pure self-defense.”
“Used on someone you didn’t need to defend yourself against!” Ugh. He was just blurting stuff out at this point, and that never went well. Nothing he’d tried today had gone well, and he laughed darkly to himself. He just shouldn’t try. “Fine, fine, I get it. You don’t apologize. I hope that works out super well for you.”
“Always has.”
“Great.”
No further insults seemed to be forthcoming, so he ignored her as he stood, dusting off both himself and his pride. God, this whole day—this whole summer—was a mess. If he’d just stayed in Philly, he’d be hanging out with his friends right now, and maybe he’d be working a crap job stocking shelves or something, but he’d be able to go to Shannon’s apartment tonight, and maybe she wouldn’t exactly comfort him or anything, but she’d let him be near her. Feeling not nearly so alone and bruised and useless as he did right now.
Gravel crunched beside him as the psycho started wrestling with her luggage. He rolled his eyes, because the bags were clearly heavy, but before he could take too much satisfaction in her struggle, a tiny plastic wheel rolled over his toe, and he just… lost it.
He jumped back, rounding on her and kicking at the gravel, ready to spit, because this was ridiculous. “Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?”
All she did was laugh, though, and it was hollow and awful, and for half a second he felt bad. “You don’t even want to know.”
His empathy didn’t last long. As she turned around and stormed away, he shook his head. “You’re right,” he called after her. “I don’t.”
Only there’d been something in her expression just then. Something real.
Something that made him wonder if maybe he did.
Chapter Two
“Excuse me?” Jo put her hands on her hips, bristling with the effort it took to keep her voice restrained. Between Roberto, Dr. Galloway, and whoever that meathead had been outside, she’d already fucked up three first meetings today, and goddammit if she was going to overreact and make a mess of this one, too. Especially if the girl standing in front of her really was going to be her—“Roommate?”
“Sorry.” The girl—Carol, she’d said her name was—shrugged. “Six of us and only three bedrooms here, so we don’t exactly have a lot of choice. You could try your luck over at the guys’ house, but I doubt that would fly with anyone.”
She gestured toward the window and the other house across the way. The one that guy was slinking his way back to, and Jo had to force herself not to watch him. Even with the fake little limp he was probably putting on for her benefit, he had an amazing ass. And really broad shoulders, and a trim waist, and she always had been a sucker for the blond-haired, blue-eyed, all-American look on a man. She was even more of a sucker for the chance to mess that kind of perfection up—get that skin all nice and hot and sweaty between the sheets.
She probably would have tried to tap that, too, eventually. If she hadn’t, you know, accidentally flipped him when he snuck up behind her. Or run over his foot.
Fuck.
“Listen,” Carol said, drawing Jo’s attention back. “It’s really not so bad. I know you’re the last one here and didn’t get your pick of rooms, but they’re all about the same, and I’m easy. I sleep like the dead, I promise I don’t snore, and it’s just ten weeks. It’ll be fine.”
Right. Just ten weeks, in a tiny little room in a sweltering house on the edge of what looked like a jungle, rooming with a blonde who apparently thought a sundress was good moving-in-day attire. A blonde who Jo was pretty sure had Katy Perry streaming out of her earbuds.
This was going to go great.
“No. I mean, sure.” Jo forced a little smile, but it might have looked more like a grimace. “I’m just not used to sharing space with someone.” She hadn’t, not since freshman year. What a fiasco that had been. Both she and the poor girl who’d gotten stuck with her had kissed the ground once it was over. But this would be all right. Like Carol had said, it was only temporary. “Besides, we’ll probably be spending most of our time in the lab, right?”