Page 23 of Patrick

Her answer makes me equally pleased and uneasy. “Maybe you shouldn’t disregard⁠—”

“What are you trying to say, Trick?” She suppresses a smile, maybe seeing through me straight to my unease and enjoying it. There’s nothing worse than a chick who has you on the ropes. Not that it’s a familiar situation for me. In fact, the last time it happened may have been with this particular chick. Shit.

“I’m not confessing to anything crazy, but I’m not a saint.”

“Have you had a threesome or been to an orgy lately?” she says with a straight face.

I cough as I choke down my surprise. “No. Not even—where did you hear that?”

She sighs. “Girls can be wicked gossips.”

“Ricci and Nina.”

She nods. “And their friends. But they’re now my friends, so they’ll be eliminating you as a subject of their gossip from now on.”

“You seem pretty confident about that.” But when isn’t she confident?

She nods. “Never mind them. Let’s talk about us. This is our chance to get to know each other better.”

I gulp, automatically searching for a way to stall because when a girl says that, it’s always about feelings and always painful.

“Before we do that, I have something for you.” I slip out of my hoodie and pull the gift from the pocket. The bow gets mangled, and I realize I should have done that the other way around. “Shit,” I accidentally mutter out loud.

Glancing at her, I notice she’s squelching a laugh at my expense. Because I’m acting like a fucking clumsy freak, like a seven-year-old trying to flirt with my hot teacher.

Without a word, because I have no idea what to say now that it’s time to give her the gift, and in spite of the reassurance of Pammy Pledge, I’ve lost all my confidence. Maybe it was only bravado. Straightening the bow, I hold the gift out to her, managing to keep my hands from shaking and a smile on my face.

A surprised oh shapes her perfect lips as she glances at it and then back up at my face. Her expression says everything, and my confidence surges, swelling my ego—and also my dick.

“You brought me a book—and you wrapped it.” If the appreciation in her voice is only half real, I’m still a lucky S.O.B. “A book is such a romantic gift, and it’s wrapped so prettily.”

“Not as pretty as you.” I must have lost my head and all my cool with it. Could I be more corny? I try for redemption with a wink and a smirk.

But as she opens the gift quickly—without tearing the paper because she possesses some kind of neatness talent—all redemption of my cool caves because she’s about to discover I’m the ultimate corndog.

“A book of poetry!” Her expression, her whole self, bursts like confetti exploding, making her gratitude a celebration and making all other thank-yous I’ve ever received seem bush-league by comparison. When she flings herself into my arms, I’m ready—and not ready.

Am I selling her a con with Pammy’s idea of romantic poetry?

With her arms around me and her perfect warm curves pressed against me, I automatically wrap my arms around her and take a deep inhale of her gloriously girlie scent. If you could smell the color pink, this is what it would be like, sweet and heady and dizzying with a special buzz that promises mind-blowing sensual rewards, aka, sex.

“Trick—I mean Patrick, I’m truly impressed at how deeply thoughtful you are. I have no idea how you knew this gift would suit me perfectly.” She pauses like she’s deciding how much of herself to give me. “You’ve touched me.”

I clear my throat before I say anything stupid—like how I haven’t even started touching her yet and just wait. “I can’t take full credit.” Why the hell I’m copping to that, I’m not sure, but this is a small campus and… Hell. I need to be honest with her. “I wanted to get you a book of poetry, but I had some help picking it out.”

“Not one of your hockey friends?” She looks like this would be too shocking to be true.

“No.” I chuckle at the instant image of Bog reciting poetry in his ragged sweats, holding the book with his arm covered in tats of the original six NHL teams.

“Who helped you?”

Her prompt pops the bubble of the disturbing picture in my head. “A nice girl—a grad student who works at the UNH bookstore. Pammy Pledge. You’d like her.”

“I think I already do. Is she a friend of yours?”

“She is now.”

Fifi laughs. “Let me look at it.” She thumbs through some pages with that sweet giddy smile and a flicker of something in her eyes like she’s harboring secret naughty thoughts. Although that could be me wishful thinking. Again.