Page 2 of College Boy

“You do?” Sasha sounded surprised.

“I knew it when I called you,” Emma sighed, the sounds of college revelry as loud in the neighboring backyard as if it was in her very living room. “I guess I just needed someone to talk me out of it, that’s all.”

“That’s what I was supposed to be doing?” Sasha chuckled quietly.

“Well, you’re usually my voice of reason at work, so...” Emma was already shrugging off her terrycloth robe, searching her bedroom closet for something appropriate to wear to break up a college party in the middle of the night.

“I guess I hang up my reasoning skills when I clock out, boss.” There was a quiet chuckle, a few cheery “good lucks” and then Emma was alone, slipping into yoga pants and a pullover hoodie as if to camouflage herself when the neighbor kid, Reggie, opened up to find her standing there on his doorstep with her well-rehearsed ultimatum. Knock it off or expect a visit from the cops next. She girded her loins, laced up her shiny new sneakers and then? Spent the next two hours debating her decision.

Chapter Two

Mitch

“Uh ... hello?”

Mitch Carlson stood half-in, half-out of the front door, struggling to believe the vision standing in front of him. “I’ll say,” spat the sexy firecracker in the snug hoodie jacket and clingy yoga pants, peering gently up at him with fire in her eyes and venom on her tongue.

“You’ll ... say ... what?” Mitch opened the door a little wider, revealing a living room full of passed out freshmen in various states of comfort and undress, the remnants of that night’s party.

It was creeping up on 3:00 AM, but the sexy spitfire on his reluctant host’s welcome mat looked raring to go, as if up for a midday run. She shook her head, a sleek dirty blonde ponytail swishing along her shoulders as she not-so-gently pressed the door all the wider. Mitch watched her cool brown eyes widen at the spectacle, the first night of spring break claiming half a dozen revelers who, up until roughly an hour ago, had been downing shots, setting off firecrackers and making out like their very lives depended on it.

“You’re not Reggie,” the sexy cougar in the doorway announced, inching her way inside as he stood in awe of her ripe, curvy derriere as it flexed and flounced a step or two inside the foyer.

“You’re right,” he murmured, afraid to speak too loudly lest he wake the partiers back up and ruin this private moment with Little Miss Sex Pot. “I’m Mitch. And you are?”

“I’m Emma,” she huffed, looking every bit like an Emma at that very moment, nostrils flared, hands on her hips, wide dark dyes flitting from frat boy to coed, from overturned whiskey bottle to crumpled red plastic cup and back again. “Your next-door neighbor.”

“That explains the righteous indignation,” he muttered as she inched deeper into the living room, fuzzy pink slippers crunching over bottle tops and crumpled cigarette packs. “Can I help you?”

“Not anymore,” Emma huffed, peering more closely at the frat boy passed out on the couch. Brody? Mitch struggled to recall his first name. Or was it Brady? They’d only spoken briefly on the ride to Reggie’s house from Coastal College. “Now that you’ve quit causing all that ruckus over here.”

Mitch followed, but not too terribly close, afraid Emma might turn on him at any moment and unleash the fury clenched in those balled-up fists clenched tightly at her side. “Believe it or not, ma’am,” Mitch said quietly, knowing he’d erred the moment that last word left his lips. “I’ll have you know I did no ruckus-ing, had nowhere near any shenanigans, and caused not a single, solitary peep.”

“Ma’am?” Emma seethed, turning on him with renewed ire. “Just how old do you think I am?”

Mitch stifled a grin as he nodded toward her fuzzy pink slippers. “I mean, not old, old obviously, but old enough to own a pair of those puppies,” he pointed out.

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