“Nice,” she said, running her hands across the faded, dirt-brown upholstery. “Vintage. I’m pretty sure I saw this at the Idaho Youth Ranch thrift shop last week.”

“I will neither confirm nor deny that. You want something to drink? I have water and beer.”

“How about a beer?” she said. I grabbed a couple cold ones and came back to sit next to her on the couch. It felt good to have her here. Good and weird and wrong, all at the same time.

“You want to watch a movie or something?” she asked, nodding toward the TV. I had a decent one, too. Giant-ass flat-screen—homecoming present from the club.

“Sure,” I said, reaching for the remote. I didn’t have cable, but Ruger had set up some kind of box thingie for me so I could stream stuff. “Whatcha in the mood for?”

“Not horror,” she said quickly, and I laughed again, remembering that first evening I’d spent with her at Pic’s house. She’d been so young and scared and vulnerable . . . I’d wanted to eat her up.

I still wanted to eat her.

“I can’t believe that you and Puck were supposed to be watching over me, and then you put in a slasher movie. That’s not how you make a girl feel safe.”

“No horror,” I agreed, although the thought of holding her for a couple hours while she was scared shitless appealed way more than it should. Watch it, asshole. “How about Star Wars?”

“You like Star Wars?”

I shrugged. “Everyone likes Star Wars. You know, I’m pretty damned sure Han Solo was a biker.”

She giggled. “A space biker?”

“See, when you say it like that it sounds stupid.”

“I wanted to be Princess Leia. She’s badass,” Mel said, taking a deep drink of her beer. I watched as her lips wrapped around the neck, her throat swallowing. That was a little too sexy for my comfort. She set the beer down on the coffee table with a clink, then let loose with the biggest burp I’d ever heard.

“Fucking hell,” I said, stunned. “I didn’t think girls could burp like that. Shit. Impressive, Mel. Very impressive.”

She grinned.

“We’re friends,” she told me. “And friends don’t need to worry about this stuff. Let me guess—you’ve never had a female friend before?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “I think I’m a little scared.”

Scared and turned on, which was unfortunate.

“You should be. I can do the whole alphabet.”

Damn. I kinda wanted to see that.

“So, we watching that movie or not?” she asked.

“Um, watching it,” I said, flipping through the search options to find Star Wars. I hit play, leaning back against the couch as words started scrolling across the screen. Mel was less than six inches from me. Close enough to reach over, shove my hands into her hair, and kiss the hell out of her.

Instead I just sat there, horny as hell, watching Luke Skywalker whine about power converters.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked.

“Fuckin’ great.”

MELANIE

The sunlight hurt my eyes.

I blinked, trying to remember where I was, because I definitely wasn’t home in my room. The bed felt weird, and the water-stained ceiling above me wasn’t familiar, either. I turned my head to find Painter sleeping next to me, his face just inches from mine, and it all came back.

He looked softer asleep.

I mean, he was still the same big bad biker, but there was nothing mocking or calculating on his face right now. Not only that, he looked young. He was older than me, but not by much, and right now he could almost pass for a high school student.

My eyes trailed down, and sadly I discovered he was still fully clothed. So was I, apparently, because my underwire was poking me something fierce. Also needed to pee in a major way. This was a problem, because if I moved, Painter would wake up and turn back into a scary biker on me.

I wanted to reach out and trace his face with my finger, feel the little bristles of his morning beard. But we were friend-zoned, and despite what we’d pretended last night, in the friend zone people don’t touch like that.

His eyes opened.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

We stared at each other for a few seconds, staying quiet.

“You sleep okay?” he asked. “I carried you in here, figured you’d be uncomfortable on the couch. Then I crashed here, too, because that couch is shit. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, it’s all good,” I said, willing myself to make the best of things. So maybe we weren’t meant to be a couple. Didn’t mean I’d stopped liking him as a person—he was still the same guy who’d sent me cartoons and jokes and pep talks when I was frustrated with one of my classes. “As a friend, I’d hate for you to have shitty sleep.”

He grinned. “Appreciate the thought. You wanna go get some breakfast?”

I looked around, wondering what time it was. Where was my phone? Something chimed, and he reached over, picking his up off the floor—the bed was really just a mattress, I realized.

“I gotta go,” he told me, frowning. “Something’s come up.”

“No worries,” I said, thinking wistfully of breakfast. I’d decided one benefit of the friend zone was you could pig out all you want, and I was hungry for biscuits and gravy. All I had at home was cereal.

“I’ll give you a ride home,” he said, rolling off the bed.