“Failure costs more,” I say to myself, and it comes out like a growl.
I lock my truck, because of course I do — because control is the one thing I can still pretend I have — and march back into the building. The hallway seems longer than it did five minutes ago. My boots echo with each step and I feel like I’m in my own funeral march. My nerves buzz beneath my skin. I pass my door and keep going because my pride is already dead in the parking lot.
I stop in front of Evan’s door and lift my hand.
Then I hesitate.
Because this is the part where my brain offers me a dozen ridiculous alternatives; maybe I can drive the truck with sheer willpower; maybe I can bribe the professor and he’ll let me take the test next semester; maybe I can fake my death and move to Canada.
I knock anyway.
Once. Twice. Hard enough that my knuckles sting.
Silence.
I knock again, sharper. “Evan!”
Footsteps. A pause. Then the sound of a lock turning.
The door swings open.
And my brain empties as if someone pulled the plug.
He’s shirtless.
Shirtless, wearing only checkered boxers slung low on his hips. Hair messy, as if he dragged his hand through it in hissleep. There’s a sleepy crease on his cheek like he was face-down on a pillow two seconds ago.
And he is — unfairly — built like a man carved out of trouble and granite.
For a heartbeat, I forget my name. I forget my test. I forget oxygen.
Evan blinks at me, eyes scanning my face like he’s trying to figure out if I’m on fire.
“Morning,” he says, then he looks me up and down. “Molly, are you okay?”
I open my mouth and nothing comes out. Why the fuck did he have to answer the door shirtless and scramble my brain half an hour before my accounting test?
He leans a thick shoulder against the doorframe, still half-asleep, still somehow too calm. “It’s early. Did something happen?”
I stare at his chest as if it has personally offended me. Then I remember my manners and just how much I hate it when men stare at my tits, and I force my eyes up to his.
“Yeah,” I manage, and my voice sounds strangled. “Something happened.”
His brow lifts. “Okay…?”
I swallow hard and make myself speak before I lose my nerve completely.
“My truck won’t start.”
Evan shakes his head and blinks. He looks awake now, almost alert, with concern cutting through the sleep. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” I snap, because panic makes me mean. “My fucking truck won’t start and my test is in thirty minutes, and I—”
He pushes off the frame like he’s about to move, then pauses, eyes flicking down the hall. “You want me to look at it?”
I should say no. I should say I’ll figure it out later and have one of the many mechanically inclined bikers I work with fix itfor me. I should say I’d rather walk barefoot across broken glass than ask him for anything.
But the clock is a knife at my throat.
