Page 33 of College Boy

She pushed him away, surprised by her strength. Though she shouldn’t have been. After being without him for the last five weeks, she’d found strength she never knew she’d had before. Funny, that being without her boytoy lover could impact her in ways divorcing her ex hadn’t.

Not even close.

“I guess we were making up for lost time?” Emma offered, as if to understand the insatiable way she hadn’t been able to keep her hands off of Mitch ever since he’d pulled into her driveway the night before.

“Either that,” Mitch offered, leaning against the sales counter and raking his hungry eyes over her standard work uniform—fadedPB & Crayt-shirt and army green capris. “Or you really, really like me?”

“Nope,” she teased, enjoying the innocent look on Mitch’s face as he waited on every word. “Must be making up for lost time!”

They chuckled easily, inching back into each other’s favor after being apart so very, very long. Emma had looked forward to his return, obviously. But hadn’t thought it all the way through. The sex part was easy. Acrobatic, sweaty, sticky, sometimes physically exhausting, but easy. This part, though? The hanging around? The talking? The connecting? After five years on her own, after five years of speaking in quick soundbites to her coworker and business partner alone,thiswas the hard part.

“Well...” Mitch peered down at his shoes, wriggling spanking new sneakers one over the other and back again.

“Well what, New Guy?”

He glanced up, smirking that sexy, crooked, thick-lipped smirk. “Which is it, Em? New Guy? Or College Boy?”

“Can’t you tell?” she explained patiently, as if she was still schooling him on how to evenly spread out the organic chunky peanut butter on the fresh-baked honey whole wheat bread. “You’re New Guy here, on Snack Street. And College Boy in my bed.”

He nodded, seeming to think on her reply for a second. Then he glanced back down at his feet, remembering why she’d called him one of those names in the first place. “Stop avoiding the question,Mitch.”

“Oh, I’m Mitch now? Am I in trouble?”

“Only if you keep avoiding the question,Mitch.” In between mock scolding her newest food truck employee, Emma reached into the glass cooler beside her to pull out two adult root beers, the perfect end to another long, hot summer day working inside the sweltering food truck. She cracked them open with a practiced ease and handed one over to Mitch, who took it gratefully.

They clinked bottles and drank long and hard of the rich, sweet, heady brew before sighing contentedly. “So?” she pressed. “What gives?”

“Nothing much,” Mitch sighed, setting the bottle down beside him. “I just...” He glanced away, peering at the rows of assorted gourmet peanut butter stocked on the shelf beside him as if not seeing a single one of them. “I’m not sure if you realize this, but ... there are about seven colleges within an hour’s drive of Flamingo Shores.”

“Nice.” Emma was still sipping her spiked root beer, nodding approvingly as she imagined her newest coworker without his clothes, sweaty and standing above her while she knelt between his legs, giving him the best welcome back present she could think of. “You mean, like graduate schools or...”

His delayed response finally got Emma’s attention. Make that,undividedattention. “No,” he murmured, softly, as if already apologizing for something. “I mean, for now. Soon. Next semester, in fact. Senior year.”

Emma’s questioning eyes narrowed as the words dawned on her. “But ... what about Coastal College?”

“What about them?” Mitch practically scoffed. “I mean, other than they have a pretty rad Continuing Education Department. You know, the kind that helps you transfer your credits so that you don’t actually lose any when you ... you know?”

“Transfer?” Emma’s interest was piqued. “To where, exactly?”

Mitch smirked, looking warm and hot under hisPB & Crayt-shirt collar. “Well, that all depends on how long I can work here.”

“As long as you want, silly.”

“Long enough to earn my degree at ... Flamingo Shores State?”

Emma heard the words, even saw Mitch’s lips moving as he said them, but something about the combination had her suffering through a seven-second delay. “You mean, that campus out near the stadium?”

“You mean ...theirstadium? Fortheirteam? The Flamingo Shores State ... Flamingos?”

“Is that what they’re called?”

“Jesus, Emma.”

“Well, I mean...” Her voice trailed off, eyes focusing on Mitch’s shy but prideful smile. “You’ve already done it, haven’t you? Transferred, I mean?”

“Are you mad?” Mitch replied, answering her question with one of his own. As if to seal the deal, he scrunched up his pretty, suntanned face and really turned on those soft, quiet, puppy dog eyes for good measure.

“Mad isn’t quite the word I’d use,” she murmured, holding off her true emotions for as long as she could.

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