None of his business. I shrugged. “Hanging out with Robin.”

“She’s not just some chick you can screw around with.” Nathan looked and sounded angry.

Robin made a small sound in the back of her throat, but otherwise she didn’t say a word. She looked like she was fighting the urge to cry. She didn’t seem anything like the girl I’d just spent the last forty-eight hours with. She looked like the girl I’d met in Tyler’s living room, tenting herself inside her T-shirt. She was literally tucking her legs into her body right beside me. What the hell?

“Hey,” I said, getting pissed off right back at him. “Mind your own business. You’re embarrassing Robin. You don’t know a goddamn thing about what is going on here, but I do think you know I’m not someone to fuck with.” I’d mop the goddamn floor with him and his baseball scholarship. Thought he was someone because he was going to college. He could fuck the bat he swung to get there.

Since Robin’s hand was tucked away, I couldn’t squeeze it, but I did touch her hip when I stood up. I figured if I moved toward Nathan, he would back up. Which was exactly what he did.

“Does Tyler know?” he asked.

“Does Tyler know what?” My cousin appeared in the doorway, too, and when he saw me, the smile fell off his face. “Seriously? Phoenix, Jesus.”

I stepped forward, but they all stayed crowded in the doorway. “Back up!” I demanded, irritated. “You’re embarrassing her and it’s really starting to make me angry.”

Tyler knew well enough that angry was never a good look on me, so he tapped Nathan and jerked his head toward the living room. Once they cleared the doorway, I turned back to Robin and said, “It’s all good, don’t worry. Be back in a second.” I pulled the door closed behind me so she could recover or whatever. She was starting to freak me out. She looked so upset, way more than the situation merited. We weren’t even naked or anything. It was just a kiss. Well, kisses. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Other than the fact that I shouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t think she really understood that. This was something else.

“Is there where you’ve been the last two days?” Tyler asked me. A pale redhead put her hand on his arm, like she wanted to calm him down.

“Yeah.”

“What about me saying it was a bad idea did you not understand?”

“The why.”

Tyler clenched his fists. “Dude, it’s like you want to screw yourself over. Why do you do that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just hanging out. It’s not a big deal.” But that was a lie. It was a big deal. I knew it was. It was a big deal in that they all knew just as well as I did that she was above my reach, but more important even than that, it was a big deal because I really, really liked her.

The door opened, and Robin appeared, arms across her chest. “Why do any of you care?” she asked in a small voice. Then she went to the redhead and hugged her. “Hey, Rory, welcome back. I missed you.”

Tyler got a sheepish look, but Nathan was still shooting me looks of instant death.

Then Robin went to the blonde and hugged her, too, hard, though she shifted out of the way when Nathan tried to hug her.

I was getting a bad feeling that I really wanted to ignore. “So is this move-in day?” I asked.

The blonde nodded. “Yeppers. I’m Kylie.”

“Phoenix, Tyler’s cousin. You need help unloading stuff?”

“Oh, God, yes, I have so much crap.”

She wasn’t lying. Her car was crammed with boxes, and we unloaded the car in an uneasy silence except for Kylie, who babbled like she had no clue she was with a group of pissed-off people. When both her and Rory’s stuff was in the apartment, my cousin leveled a look at me. “Can I give you a ride back to the house?”

Since I was on day three of the same clothes, I didn’t mind that he was about to go all paternal on me. Whatever. It was his personality, and I had been dealing with it for twenty years. “Sure.”

Robin was in the kitchen helping Rory unpack some bowls or some shit, and I moved toward her. The look she gave me, man, it was like she was being abandoned in hell, and I felt like the worst jerk-off ever. “I need to go back and change. Want to come with me?” I asked, which hadn’t been my original plan, but those eyes were killing me.

She shook her head. “I want to help here.”

Moving my body so Rory couldn’t see or hear, I bent over Robin and cupped her cheek. “What’s going on?”

But she shook her head again.

There was no point in pressing her. She wasn’t going to talk.

“I’ll call you.”

She nodded.

Puzzled, and not liking the change in her, I hesitated but then Tyler yelled for me to come on, so I stroked her bottom lip with my thumb, remembering that amazing kiss, wanting her to remember it, too, before leaving.

“What the hell?” Tyler asked me in irritation as we went out to his car.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t owe him any explanations.

“She’s going through some shit, I don’t think this is the time for you to be dicking around with her.”

Yanking the car door open I narrowed my eyes at him over the top of the car. “I’m not dicking around. We’re friends.” I could see she was going through some shit, and it seemed to have something to do with their group of friends. She didn’t want to live in the apartment and the minute everyone had shown up, her whole attitude had changed. “And how is me hanging out with her any different than you being with Rory or Riley being with Jessica? From what I hear, Jessica’s parents cut her off for dating Riley and you all seem okay with that even though I think that would fall under the category of dicking around with her life.”

With that I climbed in and slammed the door shut behind me. I was thirsty and hot and annoyed.

“Wow. You really like her, don’t you?” Tyler started the car. “You sound about as rational as I did when I met Rory.”

“Nothing I just said was irrational. And it’s fucking hot as balls in this car. Don’t you have air-conditioning?” I kicked off my shoes and stuck my arm out the window.

“Oh my God, your feet smell horrible, man. Look, if you really like Robin, then I can’t say anything about that. It’s just that something is clearly going down with her, and if you were just looking to hook up, I don’t think I can be okay with that. She’s a nice girl.”

“It’s never been my style to go after a chick. They usually come to me. So the fact that I am should tell you something.”

“Yeah, that you’re an arrogant douche bag.” Tyler scoffed, amused.

It wasn’t meant to be arrogant. But it was the truth, like I said. Girls wanted to get a reaction from me, so they flirted hard-core.

“Just you know, maybe take it slow or something, that’s all I’m saying.” Tyler was fumbling in his dash trying to pull a cigarette out of his pack. “Dude, light a cigarette for me.”

“No.” I wasn’t putting that poison to my mouth even for ten seconds.

He made a sound of exasperation. “I forgot, you’re a purist. I respect that about you, but right now it’s not helping my personal addiction.”

“Robin is the only person I’ve ever met who is as clean as I am,” I told him.

“Yeah, about that. She wasn’t always that way. She was a regular on the party scene last year. So maybe it will last and maybe it won’t. Just FYI.”

“I know. She told me that.” But it had me thinking. What had changed?

When we got back to the house, I showered and borrowed more clothes from Riley. I took all the dirty laundry from his and the boys’ room downstairs and put it in the washing machine. Since I was bumming clothes off everyone, the least I could do was wash them. Though I wasn’t sure who the Sexiest Bearcat tank top belonged to. It came out of Tyler’s room, but I couldn’t picture Rory wearing that, but what did I know?

Apparently not much. I sat out on the back patio where there was a decent breeze and I started doing some poking around on the Internet on my phone, checking out Robin’s social media sites.