‘I say let him hang.’ Ellie shrugged. ‘When I shut Adam out, that pushed him to make his move.’

‘Wasn’t that your tumor?’

Els glared at her. ‘The tumor was a catalyst, but believe me I was wearing him down with my absence before all that.’

Hannah bit her lip at Ellie’s tone. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound cavalier about your tumor.’

‘Forgiven.’ Ellie blew air out between her lips. ‘So? What are we going to do? About Marco, that is?’

For a little while we sat around debating the best move, all of us considering it seriously, since it was plain as day that this was no ordinary crush for Hannah. This mysterious Marco guy, whoever he was, meant something to her, and I wanted a description so I could go into D’Alessandro’s and check him out. Hannah did not seem interested in playing games with him and was leaning more toward Jo’s advice to try and get him to talk to her. As the girls left the room ahead of me at Elodie’s call upstairs, I was suddenly hit with a realization.

Hannah, a girl who was yet to turn seventeen, had more of a love life than I did.

‘And isn’t that just depressing,’ I muttered, as I walked downstairs.

‘What’s depressing?’

I turned at the sight of Cole coming out of the toilet, his eyebrows raised in question.

‘Tortoises,’ I answered immediately, lying because the truth was just embarrassing and way too complicated to explain to a fifteen-year-old boy. ‘They’re so grumpy-looking.’

Cole eyed me like I was nuts, which I might just be. ‘You’re a little weird, Liv. You know that, right?’

I nodded in resignation and started walking toward the dining room.

‘But you’re wrong about tortoises.’

Affection rushed through me, and I turned to him with a questioning smile. ‘I am?’

‘They’re not grumpy. They’re just contemplating things. That’s why they take their time getting places. They’re constantly thinking things through.’

My grin widened and he smiled back at me. ‘It’s official. You are just as big a geek as I am, Cole Walker.’

He grunted at me. ‘Aye, if cooler than ice is now being mistaken for geek.’

Laughing, I followed him in to dinner. ‘You’re spending too much time around Nate. His cockiness is wearing off on you.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re reshelving history books, are you?’

The familiar smooth voice surprised the heck out of me, and as I jerked my head back to stare up at Benjamin I felt my tongue immediately twist itself into a knot.

It was Monday afternoon and I’d taken a moment away from the quiet help desk in the reserve section to reshelve returned books. Benjamin had crept up on me as I sat on my haunches, putting a few books back on the bottom shelf of the last book stack in the room.

His green eyes were friendly and inquiring. ‘I’m looking for a book in this section.’

Taking a deep breath, I tried to remember everything Nate and I had gone over, and yet sitting at this guy’s feet I still felt incredibly inadequate. This was supposed to be my moment. I was supposed to start flirting and begin the first day of the rest of my life.

Instead I managed to unknot my tongue as I stood up, my hand reaching for the trolley of books and articles as though it would prop me up. ‘What are you looking for?’

He glanced down at a piece of paper in his hands and then gazed directly into my eyes. ‘Sex Crimes, Honour, and the Law in Early Modern Spain.’

As soon as the word ‘sex’ fell from his mouth, my cheeks blazed.

His lips quirked up at my prudish reaction, and I ducked my head over the books on my trolley in humiliation and started searching through them. ‘Um’ – my hands were shaking from the horror that I was still as socially awkward as I had been two weeks ago – ‘here it is.’ I grabbed the leather-bound book and quickly held it out to him, unable to meet his eyes.

‘Thank you.’ He exhaled. ‘I thought I wasn’t going to get my hands on it.’

I didn’t say anything, just nodded.

‘Okay. Well, thanks.’

I nodded again and waited for his shadow to move away. As soon as his footsteps faded I lifted my head and stared at the space where he’d been.

It was official. I was a loser.

And Nate was totally wasting his time.

For the next few days I avoided having to listen to my own thoughts. At work that was pretty easy because I kept myself busy, and was constantly in Angus’s face asking him for more tasks. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he thought I’d started a diet that consisted only of Red Bull … or crack. Considering he hadn’t done a random locker check, though, I was guessing he was erring on the side of Red Bull. Or, you know … just plain crazy.

That night I had dinner with Dad and Dee and didn’t go home until I was so tired I practically collapsed on my bed as soon as I got inside the apartment. Tuesday night I did a little shopping after work and bought a bunch of comedies on DVD. I didn’t want depressing, maudlin, or angsty. I wanted my mind off anything that could possibly take me back to that one minute of absolute loserdom in the reserve section with Benjamin.

By the time Nate arrived for our lesson on Wednesday night just after eight o’ clock, I was ready to quit.

So much for grabbing life by the balls.

Knowing Nate could eat an entire supermarket after judo class, I’d laid out a bunch of snacks on the coffee table and had a Steve Carell movie playing in the background. When he walked in, his hair still wet from the shower he’d obviously quickly taken before coming over, I studied his confident swagger as he entered my apartment. Nate didn’t just walk; he prowled. This was a man confident in his body and he knew how to use it.

God, I envied him.

‘Babe.’ He grinned at the food I’d laid out for him and quickly sat down on the sofa to be nearer to it.

‘Beer?’

‘Please.’

I brought him the beer and flopped down beside him.

Nate instantly raised a questioning eyebrow, unsurprisingly reaching for a mini chocolate donut first. He had a bit of a sweet tooth. ‘What’s with you?’

Watching him munch on the donut, I debated whether to tell him or not. Before he’d walked in I’d been ready to hold my hands up, apologize, and explain it had all been a waste of his time. Now that he was here, however, I started to wonder if he’d be disappointed in me. It didn’t say much about me if I gave up on myself so quickly, especially when Nate was refusing to do so.

‘Benjamin came into the library on Monday.’

He gestured for me to go on as he took a swig of beer.

‘It was a car wreck, Nate. He asked for a book called Sex Crimes, Honour, and the Law in Early Modern Spain and I blushed from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair.’

Nate winced.

‘He tried to speak to me, and I was so mortified that I’d blushed I just kept looking at my feet like a five-year-old crushing on her ten-year-old neighbor.’

‘Crap, what is it with this guy?’ Nate asked, settling back against the couch.

‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘I think it’s a mental block.’

‘A mental block?’

A mental block indeed. It wasn’t that hard to understand why I couldn’t flirt with Benjamin. The reason why was the reason I’d been avoiding thinking about the whole thing for the past few days. It was just too depressing. ‘A mental block,’ I repeated. ‘It’s the bit that comes after the flirting that is causing my mental block.’ I lowered my gaze, nervously twisting my fingers. ‘If the flirting worked and I somehow managed to get a date with Benjamin … I’d be terrified.’

‘Terrified?’

‘It’s the no-experience thing, Nate. It makes me feel inadequate, unsexy. It doesn’t matter how much you tell me that I’m attractive, or how much we work on silly flirting, that inexperience is always there, taunting me. It’s stopping me from doing anything.’ Feeling my cheeks burn, I prepared myself to explain to him just how bad the situation was. ‘I’ve kissed two guys, Nate. Two nights of kissing. That’s it. And one of those nights I was spectacularly drunk and I lost my virginity. Two guys in my entire twenty-six years on this planet. I don’t even know if I’m a good kisser or not.’

The apartment was silent except for the murmur of the movie. I’d turned the volume down when Nate buzzed up, and now it was just an annoyance in a tense moment.

‘Nate?’

He shifted a little closer, studying me carefully. ‘It’s easy enough to find out.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Kiss me.’

I jerked back. ‘What? No!’

He smirked. ‘I’ll try not to take that personally.’

‘No.’ I hurried to reassure him. ‘It’s not that you’re not kissable, you know you are, you handsome bastard, it’s just that you’re Nate. We’re friends. It might get weird.’

He grinned at my answer. ‘Liv, we’re grown-ups. I think we can handle an experimental make-out without freaking out and gabbing to all our friends about it.’

I made a face at him. ‘Funny.’

‘Well.’ He gave me a ‘what are you waiting for’ look. ‘Kiss me.’

The pulse in my neck began to throb. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Completely.’

My eyes dropped to his mouth. He had a great mouth. Kind of a perfect mouth, actually. ‘Now?’

‘Now.’

Trembling, I shimmied across the sofa so our knees were touching. ‘Just kiss you?’

I saw a dimple flash but ignored the fact that he was laughing at me. I was too busy hyperventilating over whether or not I was about to give Nate Sawyer the worst kiss of his life.

My chest began to rise and fall quickly as I scrambled to catch a proper breath.