Grabbing my backpack, I swung it over my shoulder and started for the door as soon the professor dismissed us.

“Blythe. Right?”

I paused. Someone had said my name. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in any of my classes. I turned around to see that the owner of the feminine Southern drawl was a striking redhead with breathtaking green eyes. Her hair was long, but she had it pulled over her shoulder in a low ponytail. The Bon Jovi T-shirt she was wearing looked like it was vintage.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied.

Her smile was one of those that shouldn’t be attractive because it was so big, but somehow it fit her and made her even more of a head-turner. Two guys had actually just walked by and looked her way. She seemed oblivious, though.

She held out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Low Hardy. Trisha and Rock are really good friends of mine. And Amanda is my sister-in-law. I saw you at Daisy May’s party, but I had just walked inside when you were defending Krit and then leaving.”

I shook her hand and felt a small little bubble of excitement that someone knew me. Had I made enough connections in town that people were starting to actually know who I was? The idea that I was fitting in for the first time in my life was thrilling.

“It’s nice to meet you, Low. Sorry, I didn’t get to meet you at the party. I wasn’t, uh, well, I was learning. Friendship with Krit is a learn-as-you-go thing,” I explained.

She studied me for a moment with a pleased smile on her face. “I can only imagine,” she replied.

The urge to defend him rose up in me again, and I had to shove it down. She was agreeing with me, not attacking him.

“You going to lunch?” she asked. “I normally head home right after class because I hate leaving Eli with a sitter too long, but today his daddy is home with him so I have a little time.”

We walked out together, and I glanced down at my phone. “I have to be at work in twenty minutes. It’s a ten-minute drive, so I can’t today. I would like to sometime, though,” I told her.

She reminded me of Trisha. There was no judgment in her eyes, and she wasn’t sizing me up.

She just accepted me and wanted to get to know me.

“I’ll see if Marcus can stay home one day next week. Or better yet, you can come back to my place after class and have grilled cheeses with me and Eli,” she said, smiling.

Eli had to be her son. She didn’t look old enough to be a mom. I started to respond. but the words fell away when my eyes locked on the tall beautiful man leaning against my car with his arms crossed over his chest and his sunglasses covering his blue eyes.

“Oh, looks like you got a visitor,” Low said.

Krit dropped his arms, and I stood there and watched as he made his way over to me. His long legs were in a pair of faded jeans, but his muscular thighs could be seen through the snug fit as he walked. This was what a swagger looked like. It was something not many men could do, but when Krit walked, girls stopped and watched. I couldn’t even get mad at them. He was impossible not to look at.

Krit’s eyes stayed on me as he wrapped an arm around my waist, making me want to melt after that performance. “Hello, Low,” he said, glancing over at her with a smile. Then he turned back to me. “Hey, love.”

He called females love. I had heard him do it before, and he had called me that before he even knew me. But something about the way he said it to me now, the way his voice dropped when it curled around the word, meant more. Or maybe it was my wishful thinking.

“Hey,” I replied, knowing that I was staring up at him like I was completely mesmerized. I couldn’t help that. though. I was.

“It was nice meeting you, Blythe. We’ll do that lunch next week. I’ll see you later,” Low said, reminding me that she was still there.

I jerked myself out of the Krit haze I was under, and turned back to her. “Oh, yes, I look forward to it. And it was nice meeting you, too.”

Low’s grin was one that was both pleased and knowing. She wasn’t making fun of me for being so obvious about my feelings for Krit. It made me like her even more.

“See you, Krit,” Low called out.

He nodded at her briefly then looked back at me. “Low’s in your class?”

“Yeah,” I replied a little too breathlessly.

“She’d be a good friend,” he told me, then leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. I molded into him readily, letting him taste and nibble my lips before I enjoyed the feel of his tongue and the bar in it that excited me.

When he pulled back, I wanted to grab his head and force him back down.

“Missed you when I woke up. You should’ve woken me. I’d have helped you get dressed,” he said with a naughty smirk.

I squeezed the arm that I was holding onto. “You were sleeping so sweet. I wasn’t messing that up.”

He cocked his pierced eyebrow. “Sweet?”

He didn’t like being called sweet. Well, too bad. He was sweet. Especially right now, coming to see me because he hadn’t been awake this morning. “Yes, very sweet.”

“I think I lose badass points for sleeping sweet. I need to fix that,” he said, then bent down and kissed me again. “But first I want to take you back home and keep you locked up in my arms all day.”

Home. He was calling my apartment home a lot now. Not my home, just home. And he wanted to spend the day with me. And he was at the parking lot of my college campus. What was going on?

“Krit? Why are you here?” I asked.

He frowned for what seemed like a minute then ran his thumb over my lips with a soft caress. “Because I missed you.”

I got that. He had told me that. But why did he miss me now? “You never missed me before?”

Something flashed in his blue eyes. They were more expressive than he realized. “I’ve always missed you. Don’t think I didn’t. I just didn’t let myself act on it.”

He had always missed me. Were we still just “going with it” like he had said when I asked him about us?

I nodded, not wanting to make him answer anymore questions. When Krit had to say too much or was pushed too hard, he ran. I loved that he had come to see me today. I didn’t want to ruin this. So I kept my questions to myself.

“I’m glad you came,” I said instead.

He tucked his hands into the back pockets of my jeans, pressing me closer to him. “Me too,”

he replied.

I would have been happy standing there like that with him for eternity. However, I had a job to get to. “I have ten minutes to get to work,” I told him with a sigh.

A scowl crossed his face. But he knew I had to work today. I had left him a note. Besides, he knew I worked Monday through Friday.

“Will Linc be there?” he asked in a deep gravelly voice.

Linc. Oh. Oh. Butterflies went off in my stomach and tried to beat their way up into my chest. Krit was jealous of Linc. I shouldn’t have been excited about it, but the fact that I was capable of making Krit jealous made me giddy. I hadn’t wanted to make him jealous. I just hadn’t thought I ever could. It meant he cared—enough.

“He doesn’t normally come to the office. He sometimes brings me sweets from the bakery, but not every day. And he never stays. He just drops them off and says hi. But I doubt he’ll do that anymore … after I told him . . ,” I trailed off. I couldn’t tell Krit that I’d all but told Linc that I’d kissed him. That would sound like I had been trying to make Linc jealous.

“Finish that thought, love,” he said, tightening his hold on me by squeezing my bottom.

Crappity, crap, crap. I didn’t want to finish that thought. But he wasn’t going to let this go. “I explained to him that you were my friend, and he might have taken it as you were more than that, and so he left and hasn’t been back or called or anything.”

A pleased grin slowly transformed Krit’s face. “You told him what, exactly?”