I grunted, hating that she was right. I took a few moments to admire Fin from this distance. His hair was tussled and a little wild from sleep, his eyes were still tired-looking, but heavy lidded and sexy as hell. He was wearing a long sleeved Under Armor shirt and running shorts. His well-muscled but slender legs were tanned and perfectly shaped from knee to ankle. Ugh, he was gorgeous. Fin’s lips slowly curved into a smile as if he was just realizing we were in his space too and that I was ogling him. I waved my outstretched hand at him in a goofy wave and then turned around so I could stretch my other arm. Also so I would stop staring at him before I started drooling.
“Well, let’s get out of here,” I whispered. “Beckett runs in the mornings too and I don’t want to run into him while Fin is just over there.”
“Not just over there anymore,” Britte grinned.
“Ellie,” Fin called out from behind me in greeting.
“Fin,” I mumbled into my stretch.
“Just finish a run?” Fin asked with a gruff morning voice.
“Yep,” I answered, sticking to the one syllable words.
“I thought you usually ran in the evenings?” Fin pressed, coming to a stop next to me. He was flanked by two of his friends, guys I recognized from the restaurant the other night.
“Oh my gosh,stopstalking me!” I cried with real exasperation.
Britte broke into laughter behind me.
“I don’t think we’ve had a chance to meet,” Fin addressed Britte with a charming smile. She stopped laughing and grinned back.Traitor.
“Britte Nichols,” she reached out her hand and shook Fin’s with mock professionalism. “Ellie’s bff.”
“Nice to meet you, Britte Nichols. This is Jameson McKay and Charlie Ryan.”
“We areFin’sbff’s,” Charlie, who was taller than even Fin and had even unrulier, wild light brown hair, smiled. He was extremely tanned, and well built. I knew he ran track with Fin, just from the t-shirt advertising the win at Regionals last year. If I had to guess, I thought maybe a jumper? His legs were insanely toned under his athletic shorts, and he was so freakishly tall. He wasn’t as hot as Fin, but he was still good looking. His best feature had to be his eyes, a light mossy color of green with a dark rim of black around the edges.
“Good for you,” Britte laughed lightly. She was flirting. And I didn’t really blame her.
“We’ve seen you a lot recently but we haven’t met you either, Ellie,” Jameson reached out his hand to me. He was about Fin’s height, lighter skinned with reddish brown hair. His eyes a startling blue, his physique just as toned as his friends. Even though his skin color was pale, it was clear and nice. His cheeks were reddened just a little bit from the wind and the look was overwhelmingly attractive on him.
I stuck out my hand, letting him shake it, but I didn’t really know what to say. It wasn’t exactly nice to meet them. They came prepackaged with Fin, and somehow acknowledging them as friends made me feel like I would never get rid of Fin.
Noticing my standoffish attitude, Charlie jumped in with, “We’re obviously the better half of Hunter though. We promise we don’t usually stalk females like criminals.”
“Usually?” I asked, reluctantly letting go of a small smile.
“Well, we did help him with you,” Charlie admitted and I lost my smile immediately.
“He’s lying!” Fin cut in, shooting Charlie a scathing glare. “Don’t be a prick.”
This got snickers out of Jameson, Charlie and for some reason Britte. But Charlie held his hands up in surrender.
“I’m just messing with you,” Charlie laughed. “And him.” he jerked his thumb at Fin.
“So what year are you?” Jameson asked Britte which launched them into the five-standard get to know you questions of college students across the world. There was a universal conversation that happened between all single college-aged students: What’s your name? What’s year are you? What’s your major? What do you want to do with that? How can I get you back to my place? How much alcohol will it take to get you naked? Or something along those lines… It might have different faces, but essentially every get to know you game was the same.
While Charlie, Britte and Jameson launched into a round of that, Fin tugged my arm so that we were back away from the group a little bit.
“You still haven’t texted me back,” he whispered in an unpleased voice. “Did you give me a fake number?”
A snort of laughter came forward before I could stop myself. I hadn’t guessed he would assume that. “No, I got your texts.”
“Oh,” he sounded put out, almost like he hoped I had given him the wrong number. “So, you just weren’t going to get back to me?”
“I was,” I assured him and then with a teasing voice I said, “eventually.”
Fin’s head snapped toward me so that his gaze raked over me. So cocky, so self-assured, he had no idea what to do with a girl that was not interested in him.
