“All right. Then Claude or Otis can drive your friends home, and if your roommate will pack some things for you, he’ll bring a bag back.” He waits for a reply, and I can tell by the vibe he’s putting out that he very much wants to be with me tonight.

“It’s okay,” Gina says, shrugging. “I’ll happily be driven home in Saint’s car.” She smirks.

Sin watches me, his green eyes reeling me in, pulling me under. He looks expectant and . . . adorable and . . . irresistible. Ohgod. Is this going too fast for us having just started back up?

No way.

Or . . . yes.

Maybe.

“Rachel.” He steps closer, and I can see he understands my hesitation—we’re supposed to be taking it slow—and his voice low as his lips brush my ear. “You don’t want to leave any more than I want you to leave.”

“You’re asking me to sleep over again?” I put an inch between us to search his face. “Your friends are still here—”

“You want my bed more than yours right now, and I want you in there.”

God, I’m in so deep. So very deep I’m almost frightened but he makes me reckless enough to want to go even deeper.

“Okay,” I say, smiling at him a little.

“Okay?” His eyes lighten at that, and he tips my chin up and firmly kisses my mouth.

It’s so warm, so absolutely perfect, his mouth, that I smile against it and tell him, only so he hears, “I’ll be in your bed.”

And him, only to me, lips grazing my earlobe: “You won’t be alone there for long.”

I head to his room, first check on my present, then drop down on the side of the bed that I always end up on, taking a minute to think about today.

When he smiled?

I think the jerk tapped a vein and injected me with pure happiness.

I think of me and him, and sports, and how his passion flared, and how we as people go crazy over the stuff we love.

Which reminds me . . .

I need to start a new article. As I try to stay awake and wait for him, I pull out my cell phone and write down notes and ideas in an email to myself.

I write about the stuff we get crazy over. Obsessed. Like our favorite sports teams. The Cubs can lose a thousand times and we still love them. They can fuck up, and we still believe in them.

I take down a lot of ideas while absently listening to the men laugh in the living room, somehow specially attuned to Malcolm’s laugh. I like his laugh more than any other. It’s deep and it resonates in his chest, but it’s never too loud or obnoxious. Another obsession.

Smiling while I reread the email with ideas, I send it to myself and text my mom, who usually paints until very late during the weekends.

Are you up? I try.

Just finished cleaning up the studio, she replies. Off to bed! Everything all right??

More than all right. Mom! You’re going to get to meet him!! I don’t need to tell her who “him” is; she knows exactly who’s got her daughter hooked.

Almost instantaneously she writes back, WHEN? Are you bringing him over for dinner?

Don’t worry about that, I can order something for us and bring it over.

My phone rings. I pick up to hear her immediately chiding me. “Rachel, absolutely not. You’re not gonna bring anything. It’s gonna be homemade and delicious! He’s your first boyfriend!”

“Well, he’s not . . . kinda, I hope so.” I exhale and shake my head. “Don’t call him my boyfriend yet, I don’t want to jinx it. We’re still working things out. Make your yummy peppermint chocolate pie for me.”

“What does he like? Fancy things?”

I laugh just as the men outside release a round of simultaneous laughter. “No, Mom, he enjoys normal things. He likes . . . me.” And I’m so vanilla to a physical man like Sin. “Don’t worry, whatever you make is fine.”

“When are you coming?”

“You tell us when,” I counter.

“Fine, give me a week or two to prepare.”

“Okay. Love you, Momma.”

“Rachel.” She stops me from hanging up. After a deep, excited breath, “I look forward to meeting this man I’ve heard about.”

God, the things my mother must have heard. Probably that he’s a manwhore.

“He’s not a saint, Momma,” I quietly tell her. “But I like him very much.”

After a couple minutes of hearing the men banter, I start to get sleepy, but the anticipation of knowing Saint is coming to bed soon keeps me from fully relaxing. I study his big bed underneath me. I consider pulling back the comforter and stripping to my undies. Would that be too slutty? Yeah. Yeah it would be.