“She’s twenty-two,” Adrian said shortly. That was the most important fact he needed to remember about her.
“That’s not a personality trait,” Tom protested. “You’ve been out with her a couple times. Does she actually look like her profile photo?”
“That’s not a personality trait either,” Adrian groused. It was eight in the morning. He didn’t want to be awake, but Tom had to be back at his restaurant by two.
“That’s a yes,” Tom said smugly. “But is she relatively normal? Do you like her?”
Adrian scowled and looked down the street. He had noidea what she was trying to accomplish via her relationship with him or where she’d gotten her money from. As best he could tell, she’d been 100 percent honest with him while withholding her most pertinent biographical details. But even if he firmly disregarded her lovely eyes and long bare legs, it was hard not to be charmed by the way Caroline veered from awkward to blissfully unaffected without transition. And even though she’d only known him a week, she was up at eight on a Saturday, helping him move. Of course helikedher.
“She’s twenty-two,” Adrian reminded him yet again. “She’s way too young for me.”
His roommate laughed. “Twenty-two is fine though. Half your age plus seven, right?”
“How did you pass college math? That would be twenty-three. And still gross.”
“Rosie let me cheat off her in math,” Tom said proudly. “Also, you were a total slut at twenty-two. I wasthere, Gandalf. Twenty-two is grown-up. What’s actually wrong with her? Is she super pretentious? Is that why she’s paying someone to take her out to the symphony and stuff?”
“No,” Adrian defended Caroline automatically. “She’s not.”
Tom gave him a lopsided grin. “So she’s nice.”
Adrian gritted his jaw. “Yes, she’s nice,” he admitted, even ifnicedidn’t quite cover the breadth of her personality.
Tom’s face bloomed with triumph.
“And twenty-two,” Adrian amended.
They heard Caroline’s SUV before they saw it, because a Tahoe made a lot of noise going over the cobblestones of their side street. It was forest green, slightly battered, and at least a decade old. Like many things aboutCaroline, it made no sense to him: What kind of graduate student had thousands of dollars to spare but spent it exclusively on arts patronage?
She pulled up, nearly scraping the curb, and hopped out to open the custom sliding passenger door. It was clear that she was a morning person from the bounce in her step and smile on her face. Adrian froze in place, suddenly wide awake, heart kicking into gear as he took Caroline in.
Tom received a bright white grin and an enthusiastic handshake before she told him to mind the wheelchair ramp. Adrian got a more subdued nod and a searching look, like she expected him to be emotional about moving the last set of random knickknacks out of his ex’s place. Over his objections, she helped stack their packing materials in the rear of the SUV.
“Careful, watch out for the coffee,” she chirped. “I picked up some Dunkies. There’s cream and lots of sugar, hope that’s okay.”
Tom climbed through the side door past a collapsed wheelchair ramp and a full gym bag. Adrian took the passenger seat, kicking aside some student detritus: folders, water bottles, a shopping bag full of hair ties and lip balm.
“Sorry it’s a mess,” Caroline said as she came back around to the driver’s seat. She actually did sound sorry.
“No, this is soniceof you,” Tom said, leaning hard on the adjective as he passed Adrian one of the coffees. “Tom Wilczewski,” he introduced himself. “Soglad to meet you.”
When Adrian turned back to accept the drink, Tom gave him a wide-eyed look of intense interest, like a kitten that had just sighted a dangling hair ribbon. It made Adrian immediately wary. Tom inclined his head towardCaroline where she sat in front of him and lifted his eyebrows even higher.
Are you kidding me?said his expression.
Adrian took his point: Caroline was wearing exercise clothes, which was a perfectly reasonable choice if she thought she was going to help carry a bunch of things, even though Adrian didn’t plan to let her. But her exercise clothes consisted of bright yellow running tights, a matching sports bra, and a white hooded windbreaker left unzipped. No shirt. And why would she need one when it was so warm outside?
That was all well and good for her, but she looked like a literal beam of sunshine, bright and blond and happy in the gray morning. Adrian couldn’t help but be dazzled. Her leggings left absolutely none of the round shape of her ass to his imagination, and three or four inches of her tanned, muscular stomach were completely exposed, even when she was sitting. If he looked. Which, Jesus, he absolutely should not have looked, and neither should Tom.
“Um, you’re welcome to put something else on the radio,” she said as Adrian squinted hard at the bricks of the building out the passenger window, willing his mind to get out of her sports bra. “I thought this would be appropriate. She had some bad break-ups too. Did you know that?”
“I love Taylor Swift,” Tom said, leaning in between the front seats. “Poet of our generation.”
“Yes! Exactly!” Caroline said, pleased, putting the SUV back into drive. “Where to?”
Adrian took a long, bracing gulp of the coffee, even though he usually took his black.
“Go east on Storrow,” he muttered.
