Page 67 of Blocked Score

A shadow crosses over Lane’s sleep-clogged eyes, but it’s hard to read.

“It was,” I begin, but then stumble over my words—because it waswhat? “It didn’t mean anything. We weren’t thinking straight. Maybe we both had dirty dreams and they made us lose our minds momentarily.” I try to force a laugh, but it sounds shrill and too high. “It didn’t mean anything,” I repeat, wondering who I’m trying to convince. “Let’s not think about it again. It was just a weird one-time thing.”

Lane’s lips tug down. It’s easy to read the disappointment in his eyes. I get it. Maybe he thought we’d regularly hook up from now on. That he’d have a convenient booty call literally next door.

That’s probably exactly what he wants. But a no-strings-attached friends with benefits deal with Lane is never going to work for my heart.

“Weird one-time thing,” Lane repeats my words with a flat inflection.

I nod. “Right. Let’s just forget it happened. I don’t want things to change between us.”

Lane’s silent for a beat, his glare boring into me. Then he shrugs, and something changes in his demeanor like a switch was flipped.

“I’ve forgotten about it already. What were we talking about?”

I force a smile, because that should be exactly what I want to hear, but I only wish I could ignore how damn disappointed I feel.

Maybe I should goon a date.

My life has been nothing but a whirlwind since arriving in Cedar Shade.

Moving into my first place, the flood, seeing Lane again, moving in with him, adjusting to living with a house full of hockey boys while getting used to classes at a highly rigorous college, becoming friends with Harper.

I haven’t had a thought to spare for dating or hooking up or anything like that.

But maybe it’s time.

I mean, who am I kidding? There’s no maybe about it. I’m a twenty-two-year-old college student. Of course I should be dating. The utter lack of it in my life is probably partially why I get wound so tight around Lane.

If I had a boyfriend, or even a regular hook-up partner, I would’ve had a different bed to go to than Lane’s last night, and I wouldn’t have ended up coming all over his fingers and making my heart even more confused.

“Hey, Scarlett, what do you think about a double date?”

My brow leaps at Harper’s question as she sits on the other side of the table from me at Last Word, the café-slash-bookshop downtown.

It’s like she’s read my mind—or maybe fate is giving me a push in the right direction.

“Like, us going on one?” I ask.

Harper nods. “Yeah. There’s this guy I’ve been sort of flirting with in my psychology class. He mentioned a friend of his who broke up with his girlfriend at the end of last semester and is ready to start dating again. Kind of implied that if I had a friend the four of us could go out together.”

An instinctive hesitantly tugs at me, but I push it away. One date is one date, and I need to make the first step. Put one foot in front of the other. Being stagnantly single while I pine hopelessly after my roommate isn’t a healthy situation to trap myself in.

“What the hell?” I say. “Let’s do it.”

34

LANE

“Your pubic hair would not hang down from your junk like a beard if you stopped shaving.”

“Why not? Sure it would. That’s what happens to the hair on your face and head. Why would your pubic hair magically just stop growing?”

“It’s not that it stops growing. It falls out before it gets that long.”

“What? That doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s because, like, the hair follicles are weaker down there or something.”

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