Be her friend at school, but we can’t risk the bad publicity if she’s trouble. Do you understand?”

My mind races to process. Dad’s running for mayor. Mom wants Mark back in the house.

I’ve let down my brother. They both want me to dump Beth. “You said that you never wanted to be mayor.”

But Mom has wanted him to. Her dad was mayor. Her grandfather was mayor. It’s a tradition she’s always craved to continue.

Neither Mom nor Dad will look at me or at each other, and neither appears to want to discuss his nomination. “About Beth…” I say.

Dad cuts me off. “The girl is off-limits.”

“You should date Gwen again,” Mom says.

“Her father is going to back your father.”

The seat jerks under me when I stand and my sudden movement causes Mom to flinch. I stare at them both, waiting for one of them to make sense of anything they’ve said. When they remain silent, I finally understand why Mark left.

Beth

I DON’T OWN A JACKET. Never have. I always told Isaiah and Noah my body temperature runs hot when actually it runs low. In Kentucky, autumn weather can be a bitch. Hot in the afternoons. Cold at night. This morning, the slick dew covering Ryan’s pasture permeates past my worn shoes to my socks.

Few things suck more than cold, wet feet.

I stop in my tracks. Losing my best friend sucks. I let myself feel the ache, then continue forward. One day Isaiah will realize that we’re just friends. One day he’ll find me—even if I’m at the ocean. Friendships like ours are too strong to die.

Today is parent–teacher conferences and I can’t think of a better way to spend a day free from school than with Ryan. Actually, I can’t think of a better way to spend any day. My time with Ryan is dwindling and I want to make the most of every moment with him.

Thump. I first heard that sound when I came out of the woods. Every few seconds, the sound repeats. Thump. Instead of heading straight for Ryan’s house, I decided to follow the thumps and I’m glad I did when I see beautiful, glistening, sun-kissed skin. Wearing only a pair of nylon athletic pants, Ryan winds back then hurls a ball toward a painted target on a piece of plywood. Thump. The ball hits square in the middle.

“And you wonder why people think jocks are stupid,” I say. Ryan whirls around with wide eyes and I continue, “It’s fifty degrees outside and you aren’t wearing a shirt.”

A cold breeze blows through the open pasture, causing goose bumps to prick my arms. Okay, possibly not the smartest opening line since rubbing my arms would be the definition of both hypocrisy and irony.

Ryan grabs his shirt off the ground and walks over to me. The early-morning rays highlight the curves of the muscles in his abdomen. My heart flutters like a bird shaking water from its wings. God, he’s gorgeous.

Sexy. A vision. Too perfect for someone like me.

“I’m cooling down,” Ryan says. Caught up in staring at his body, I have to pause to remember what I last said. Ryan gives me a cocky smile and to my mortification, I blush.

What is with me and all this blushing?

Ryan caresses my burning cheeks, and my heart trembles again.

“I love it when you do that,” he says.

Pull it together, Beth. This is not why you’re here. Ryan has dealt with enough of my crap over the past two months and for some reason he insists on looking at me like I’m the princess to his prince. He is a prince. I’m not a princess, but I can help with his happily-ever-after before I leave his life for good.

Ryan withdraws his hand, but remains annoyingly close—with his shirt still off.

“Don’t you ever get tired of baseball?” I ask.

“No.” Ryan finally pulls his shirt over his head. “I wake up every morning at six, run two miles, then pitch. There’s not a morning it gets old.”

His routine fits him. Perfectly. But then I think of him at his computer. His fingers flying over the keyboard. His eyes seeing a world beyond the one his body belongs to. “Do you write every night?”

Ryan combs his fingers through my hair and my roots flip over. What normally is a motion that sends tingles down my spine instead brings a sense of dread. His eyes narrow at the roots and I know what he sees: a half inch of golden-blond hair.

He tears his eyes away and does a good job of pretending the malformation doesn’t exist.

“With that short story due? Yeah, I write every night.” Ryan shrugs and stares at the ground.

“And I think I might keep it up when the story is done. I don’t know, maybe start another.”

Good. It’s the image I’ll take with me when I go: Ryan pitching balls in the morning and lost in his beautifully written words at night. I kick at the ground. “Do you have plans for today?”

“I do if they include you.”

I try to hide my smile, but I can’t. “Get cleaned up and pick me up in an hour.”

Tickling my skin, Ryan’s fingers graze the pink ribbon still tied to my wrist. “Yes, ma’am.”

Ryan

“YOU’RE A WUSS.” My little black-haired threat flips through the University of Kentucky student directory. “You can move a car across a pasture, but you can’t see your own brother.”

“That’s different,” I say. “I moved the car on a dare.”

Outside the guys’ athletic dorms, I attempt to stand in front of Beth as she searches for my brother’s room number. Beth wears a cotton Tshirt that hugs her slim form and ends a half inch short of her low-rise jeans. With her smooth skin tempting me in very right, yet wrong, places, I would bet my Jeep that the outfit doesn’t have Scott’s seal of approval.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it, and so does every guy walking in and out of the dorms.

She’s my girl and I prefer to be the only one looking at her.

My girl. We’re not official—not yet—but

Beth said four critical words when she climbed into my Jeep this morning: “I let Isaiah go.”

Which means she’s with me and not him. Later today, I’m asking Beth to make us exclusive.

Beth stabs her finger into the book.

“Jackpot.” She scribbles the room number onto the palm of her hand. “I double dog dare you to talk to your brother.”

“Do you know nothing about dares?” I ask while giving the evil eye to some guy who stares at the contours of Beth’s waist. “You can’t double dog dare unless I turn down the initial dare.”

She arches a brow. “Are we really going to talk semantics?”

I place a hand on her hip and back her against the wall. “That’s a big word, Beth.

Maybe you should explain it.”

A wicked smile touches her lips and raw hunger settles in her eyes, but instead of melting into me as I am into her, Beth pushes me away and ducks underneath my arm. A guy walks out of the building and Beth catches the door before it has a chance to lock behind him.

“It means you’re an idiot if you think I’m going to let you talk your way out of this.”

She gestures for me to enter the lobby and I do. “I wasn’t going to talk. I was going to kiss my way out of it. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since we kissed?”

“If you talk to your brother, we’ll kiss. A lot.”

“How about we skip this and move straight on to kissing?”

She ignores me and studies the large map of the dorm layout on the wall. “I officially dare you to talk to your brother.”

I cross my arms over my chest as my back straightens. Beth officially threw down the gauntlet. “Fine. What do I get if I win?”

Her raven hair cascades like a waterfall as she inclines her head toward me. A sexy glint lights her eyes. “What do you want?”

You. But that isn’t what I permit to come out of my mouth. “I want you to spend the rest of the day with me. No cell phones. No friends.

Nothing but me and you.”

“Deal.”

BETH EXPERTLY MANIPULATES our way past the RA guarding the entrance to Mark’s floor.

I’d call him an idiot, but I’m well aware that she used the same manipulation skills to convince me to drive to Lexington. To my horror, Beth knocks on my brother’s door without asking if I’m ready. Any hope Mark would be in class ends when the doorknob jiggles and Mark’s large, looming figure stands in the door frame.

Beth flashes a wicked smile. “S’up, Mark.

How was the game against Florida?”

He hesitantly grins as his eyes flicker between me and Beth. “I sacked the quarterback twice. Don’t you watch the news?”

She shrugs. “No. I’m pretending to care about football in order to break the ice. I’ll be in the lobby.” Beth nonchalantly walks off the way we came. Even when the door at the end of the hallway shuts, I still watch. After dragging my ass here, I never thought she’d leave me to do this on my own.

Mark steps away from the door and forces cheerfulness. “Do you want to come in?”

“Yeah.” I mimic his tone. Mark and I never forced anything before this summer.

Mark’s dorm room is the same as it was last year. I can tell he has the same roommate by the posters of Star Wars hanging on the wall.

“Where’s Greg?”

“Class. Do you want something to drink?”

He opens a small fridge. “Gatorade, water?”

My mouth tastes like the desert, but I don’t want to prolong this. “I’m sorry.”

Mark closes the fridge and sits on the bottom bunk. His fake smile vanishes and I shove my hands in my pockets. The Band-Aid method sucked for both of us. I wish I could make our relationship strong again. Mark was the first person I told when I pitched a no-hitter, made my first all-star team, and kissed a girl. Now, I don’t even know what words to stutter out next.

“How’re Mom and Dad?” he asks.

How’re Mom and Dad. I can answer that. I take a seat on the two-seater couch next to the bunks. “Okay. Dad’s busy. He’s expanding the construction business and he plans on running for mayor.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” Wow.

“And Mom?”

“Wrapped up in her social clubs and events like normal. Lunches. Dinners. Teas.” I pause, wondering if I should say what I’m about to.

“She misses you.”

Mark leans forward and holds his hands together between his bent knees. “Does Dad ever mention me?”

The hope fighting to surface on Mark’s face makes looking at him painful. If I answer with a plain yes, I create false hope, or I could tell him the truth. None of the answers are ones I want to give. “Did you ever want to do anything besides football?”

Mark scrapes his knuckles against his jaw before snatching a book off his bed and tossing it to me. I catch it in midair. “Quality Lesson Plans for Secondary Physical Education?”

“I’m an education major.”

“Since when?”

“Since….” Mark drums the fingers of his clasped hands once. “Always.”

Faking interest in the pages, I flip through the book. “I thought you were pre-med.”