I'd agonized all week about which photo of Tate was my favorite.

They'd used one of mine of him sinking his winning putt in the school newspaper, but it wasn't the one I liked the best.

I decided on the one where his hat wasn't casting shade over his face. He was looking up into the sun, his heterochromic eyes on display, as he watched his ball hit the green on the sixteenth hole. Everything about it was classic Tate—no emotion showing and fully focused.

I'd had it tucked away in my purse ever since I'd heard about the party Seth was throwing at their house.

The one Tate wasn't at.

The one where I was avoiding Matt like the plague, but he still managed to corner me when I came out of the bathroom.

"Boyfriend left you all alone for the week?" he asked after pushing himself off the wall in the hallway.

Too bad they'd had their game at eleven that morning.

"Hey, Matt," I deadpanned and quickened my pace.

He spun me around by the hand and said something I couldn't make out over the speaker blasting to my right.

I can't hear you, I mouthed with a sarcastic hand around my ear.

I never wanted to hear him again really. He repeated himself louder, and I only made out the word you. I found myself daydreaming how nice it would be if I could overlay his voice with static at will and give him polite I-don't-really-give-a-fuck nods until he went away.

He snaked his arms around my waist and pulled me tight into him. I squirmed, trying to make him let go.

"Will you let me talk? Please," Matt said with his cheek on mine.

I dropped my arms by my side. "What?"

"I fucked up, Devin."

I fucked half the cheerleaders, I corrected him in my head and went with, "That's the understatement of the year," out loud instead.

He swayed his hips, bringing mine with his. I tried to root myself to the floor.

"I have always liked you. I know I didn't show you that. I was scared. You were so emotional, so invested, and happy. You did so much for me. I was scared I was going let you down; fuck it up. I self-sabotaged myself, and in the process, I fucked up even more. But I never once didn't like you."

Ugh. I felt my heart soften. I was such a sucker for all of his bullshit. For everyone's bullshit.

"Matt, I never stand up for myself. So I'm going to start. I forgive you, and I'm truly happy for you if you've changed, but you aren't going to change enough for me. Now, let me go."

He pulled back, eyes studying mine, as the bass from the speakers vibrated against my skin. His eyes were glassy, his eyebrows hanging heavy over them. He glanced at my lips, lost in his thoughts, emotions raw in his features.

"If you kiss me, I will slap you."

Matt snapped out of it and released me. He dropped his jaw a millimeter to say something I didn't want to hear. He changed his mind.

Friends? he mouthed.

"Friends." And I smiled because I meant it. I know, I know—but I was back to my usual sparkle.

Seth caught my eye over Matt's shoulder, staring at me like I was the devil in a bubblegum pink dress. I smiled dryly at him too as I stepped around Matt, who was still staring at me in a way I didn't appreciate, and left both of them standing in the middle of our dancing drunk friends.

I grabbed my purse stuffed under the coffee table and headed up the stairs to hide. Tate's room was on the third floor by itself. I reached the landing, and my heart sank.

He had a keypad.

I knew Tate though.

I tried his birthday—1029—but it flashed red. Too obvious.

I tried when he won the championship, but that flashed red too.

It couldn't be my birthday, could it? I shamelessly tried it—0324—nope. I laughed ridiculously at myself.

Oh, wait. What was the code to his phone again?

0605? No, 8.

I punched in 0608. The light turned green, and the lock whirred.

I suddenly felt like I was doing something I shouldn't be. I'd been in Tate's old room hundreds of times with and without him, but now I felt like maybe I was disrespecting his privacy. All I wanted was to hide the photo somewhere, and that wasn't so wrong.

I swung the door open. His same gray upholstered bed sat against the far wall. His bed was perfectly made like the weird neat freak he was. I walked over to his dark wooden desk and pulled open the middle drawer. Three silver pens rolled forward. I wondered how long it would take for him to find the photo there, so I decided against it.

His bookshelf had one shelf half-filled with golf books and half with great literature. I ran my finger over The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Alchemist, and The Interpretation of Dreams.

I loved all those books, but in recent years, when I read, I wanted to smile, I wanted to escape. My bookshelf and my Kindle were filled with fluff. Beautiful and cheesy and smutty fluff.

But real life was more like the books that Tate read. People make shitty decisions, and it doesn't always work out in the end. Life could be depressing, so I tried to combat that as much as I could.

I guess it could be seen as naive.

I slipped the photo of Tate in between two golfing books where it could be seen if you looked close enough. Then I picked up Lord of the Flies, climbed onto Tate's bed, and started skimming.

I'd read the book in a banned books class in high school. It was one of the most fascinating classes I'd ever taken.

I was daydreaming about one my passionate English teacher's lectures, when the lock on Tate's door brought me back to the present moment.

Well, shit. My mind blanked. Either Seth or Tate or some girl was about to find me strangely sitting there in Tate's bed alone. I decided against popping up. There wasn't enough time, and I thought it might be weirder if I made it seem like I had been caught doing something.

I saw his suitcase first.

Then Tate's arm and body followed.

Our eyes connected the second after he shut out the rap music behind him. I caught the happiness in his face for the briefest unit of time ever measured—a zeptosecond (which I know thanks to physics, even if numbers are boring)—before he cleared his emotions. He wasn't fooling me.

"Hey," I smiled. "Just admit you're happy I broke in here."

A deep, smooth, warm laugh that Tate rarely gave came up from his throat. "You sound like my therapist."

Air rushed into my lungs. "That's actually why you left?"

"Are you going to spear me to death?" Tate asked, looking at the book in my hands and ignoring my question.

I shook my head and threw it to the end of the bed. Tate smiled. His hand released its death grip on his suitcase, and he climbed onto the bed next to me. His eyes mapped my body as I lay my head on the pillow beside him.

"What else does your therapist tell you?" I pressed.

"That I deny myself pleasure and happiness," he sighed and ran his hand across my waist, over my hip, and settled on my upper thigh. "I like your dress."

"Thanks," I managed to say without a breath.

"Will you make me happy for a little while?"

I nodded against the pillow. Whatever Tate meant by that, I was more than willing to oblige.

"Lie here with me," he said as he lifted me swiftly with his arm strength and rolled onto his back so I straddled him. He ran his fingertips lightly up my thighs, pushing my dress up against my hips. "I'm supposed to try to let myself be happy."

He placed another pillow behind his back to prop himself up. I glanced at his lips uncontrollably, but he ran his thumb over mine and shook his head.

"Just talk to me."

If happiness for him was having my body in a pink dress pressed against his and reciting the dictionary, I'd do that forever.

I created four goosebump paths in his forearms with my fingernails as his hands continued to rub over my skin.

God, this was so easy with Tate.

"I missed you this week," I whispered.

"I missed you," he whispered back. "What'd you do?"

"Sunday I went to Millie's soccer game and made up with Alice. Really made up with her," I added because I didn't think the first time at the beach had really counted.

Tate focused on my eyes. He wouldn't look anywhere else.

"I edited some pictures." I smiled, resisting the urge to give away the hiding spot of my favorite one.

"Of me?"

"Yeah. Did you see the one in the school newspaper?"

"I haven't checked my mail yet, but I save all of your pictures from the newspaper."

"You do?" I asked curiously. I slid my hand under his T-shirt and kneaded my fingertips into his abs.

"Of course. I have a subscription only because of you." Tate raised his eyebrows and smirked. "I have a box somewhere in here with all of them. I'm surprised you didn't find it when you were snooping."

I scrunched my nose up and swallowed. "I wasn't snooping."

Tate let his eyes wander down my neck in a moment of weakness. I stopped breathing. He was looking at me like he could breathe me in and make me disappear into thin air.

He lifted his hand and placed his palm against my sternum, feeling my heartbeat. His fingers dropped and lightly brushed my cleavage before he sucked in a breath and his hand fanned out over the entire side of my rib cage. He pulled me down against his chest.

"This feels too good," he groaned into my hair. "You feel too good."

I rested my chin on my hands on top of his chest and nodded.

Everything about this was way too good. Why would he deny himself any of it? I knew I couldn't have if I tried.

"How much have you had to drink?" Tate asked me seriously.

"One beer like an hour ago. I'm not even tipsy," I assured him. "So why do you deny yourself pleasure?"

"My therapist, Amy, says it's because I think I don't deserve it," he said like he doubted her.

"What do you think?"

Tate pushed my hair behind my ear. He twirled a blonde strand around his finger and shrugged, technically not answering my question. "This is a start."

"And I thought about you all week," I confessed. "What did you do?"

"I watched us kiss—twice—before deleting it. Then I got the next flight home." His hands swept down my back and cupped my ass.

I pouted. "I wish I could've watched it."

Tate chuckled and shifted underneath me, trying to adjust himself and how turned on he was. There was no hiding it, but if Tate didn't want to kiss me then nothing was going to happen. Someone always had to go the remaining ten percent.

"I visited with my dad. I talked with Amy. I went to some appointments. I played golf and swam in our pool. Then I flew back here today."

I couldn't tear my eyes off of his lips as he talked. When he stopped, I looked up into his blue eye to see his pupil dilate fiercely.

"Why have you been looking at my blue eye lately?"

I paused. "Because I never noticed before how you look at me like you are using all of your strength not to devour me." I tightened my thighs around him. "And I like it."

Tate furrowed his brow and wrapped his huge arms around my back. "You were never supposed to change your mind about golfers, Devin."

"So you just decided to suffer in silence?" I questioned him. "For years?"

"That's all I know."

"That doesn't sound like the Tate I know."

His eyelids snapped close as he took a deep breath. I had a feeling he was trying to keep me from reading his emotions. But if I had to guess, I would've guessed sadness or regret.

"Tate?"

He fluttered his eyes open.

"This might sound really self-absorbed, but you didn't leave because you tried to kiss me, right?"

Tate's lips formed a no, but no sound came out. "I... had made a decision, and... I thought it might be the wrong one."

"I didn't want to lose you, Tate. Our friendship was worth more than a fling."

He nodded and cupped my cheek.

"What did you do last year?" I whispered.

"I went to a lot of therapy," he confessed.

It wasn't the whole story, but I couldn't go for it all in one swoop. I ran my hand through his hair.

"And why don't you want to kiss me now?" I said, maybe too silly for the moment.

"I need time," he replied. His eyes traced my lips. "If I taste you again, I really won't be able to stop."

"And that's a bad thing?"

There was an internal war between the brown and the blue. Uncontrollable, raging lust that would have made my panties drop if I'd been standing up versus powerful, headstrong judgement that I couldn't decipher the origin of.

I arched my hips, which had a mind of their own. They'd been on top of Tate's for too long, not getting what they wanted. A feather tickled my insides from between my legs up to my belly button.

He groaned softly in his throat. "Fuck, I don't know. Yes. It might be. I can't think straight," he whispered, gripping me in the creases of my upper thighs. His four fingers dug into my hips and raked me across his hard-on. "I can't just have you once. I'll never get enough. And it's not fair to you."

"Why are you so convinced you can't make me happy? Don't I get a say?" I said between heavy breaths. I couldn't think straight either. He had struck a match between my legs with all of the friction, and it was burning.

He shook his head. "I need time."

I raised myself onto my elbows, my cleavage spilling out of my sweetheart neckline. "We have all the time in the world," I countered, lowering my voice.

Something made Tate switch a flip. I'd say that Tate was definitely a boobs guy.

Before I could react, he tangled one of his hands into my hair, pulling my head back. "Fuck, you are the sexiest thing I've ever seen." He sat us both upright and placed his soft lips against the skin of my upper chest.

Goosebumps spread.

Tate pulled back to look at them. "Those are mine," he whispered against them—creating more—before he ran the tip of his nose over them. He worked his mouth down between my boobs, his tongue swirling into the soft flesh. I gasped and ran my hands up his back underneath his shirt and clawed at his shoulder blades.

He skimmed up to my neck and sank his teeth into my skin where my pulse was out of control. A guttural sound escaped from his throat as he sucked my neck. He held me so tight against his body I couldn't move, taking what he wanted, what he said he always thought about. But I was desperate for more.

Everywhere I needed more.

"Tate," I moaned.

He pulled back to look at me.

"Devin," Tate warned like it was my last chance. Like I could walk out of there and all would be forgotten. But even as he said it, he looked at my lips and licked his own. His breathing was erratic. "Forever wouldn't be enough time with you."

A knock on his door filled the room. Tate's eyes drained, trance broken, but still stuck to mine.

"Tate, you in there? Someone said they saw you come in."

Fucking Seth.

Tate's chest was rising and falling at an astonishing pace. We were that close. One more minute and our clothes would have been off. We both knew it.

"Yeah," Tate said loudly.

We were strangely stuck in the same position. Half knowing Seth could just be told to go away. But Tate's breathing was slowing, and he was regaining control. He kissed me hard, pushing his tongue desperately into my mouth; knowing he could take a little more because there was someone on the other side of his door to stop him. I pushed back and moaned softly into his mouth.

His kisses were going to end me.

"You taste like cotton candy," Tate said into my mouth and sank his teeth into my bottom lip.

Shit, uncontrolled Tate was probably now my favorite Tate. Screw serious or silly Tate. I wanted this man who was going to destroy me.

"Can I come in?" Seth asked.

"I'm sorry," Tate whispered against my lips before he repeated a loud, "Yeah."

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. Sorry for what? Everything about his body language was telling me that I couldn't possibly untangle myself from him. He was holding me against him like he wanted to live in that moment for eternity. But he also looked relieved that the universe had interrupted his rampage.

The lock churned open, and Tate loosened his grip around me and sat me next to him like I was as heavy as a golf ball.

"I thought maybe you picked up a girl on your way from the front door to your room," Seth laughed as he opened the door. He froze when he saw us before he tried to regain composure. "I guess I was right."

"We were about to come down," Tate said.

"I just wanted to check on you. See how your week went," Seth replied and shook his head. "We can talk later. Sorry."

Tate slid off the end of the bed and held out his hand to me. "No, it's fine. We were just headed down."

Tate slipped his arm around my shoulder as we walked past Seth, who I refused to make eye contact with, and out the door.

"Did you get organic beer?" Tate asked over his shoulder.

"I got a six pack just for you in the fridge." As Seth closed the door behind him, I heard him mutter, "You're welcome," but I didn't think he was talking about the beer.