I GUESS MAYBE I was that girl.

As I walked toward Slate, I told myself that no, I wasn’t that girl. But with each step, part of me wanted to be. Besides, he had to care something for me. He was here, wasn’t he? There was a party going on in his frat house and he was here. For me. That wasn’t what anyone expected of Slate.

What if he was that guy and didn’t know it? What if we had both been lost until now?

“Where’s your phone?” were the first words out of his mouth when I was close enough to him.

I hadn’t been expecting that question. “Um, my purse,” I replied, glancing down to make sure my wristlet was still attached to my wrist.

“Check it.”

Check it? My phone? “What?” I asked, still not following this conversation.

He took a sip of his beer, then pointed at my purse with the tip of his bottle. “Check your phone, Vale.”

I pulled my phone out anyway and glanced down to see five missed calls from Slate. “Did you need me?” I asked, looking back up at him.

“I needed you to answer your phone. I get a message from a drunk Everly that you’re out at a club and said to tell me hi. Did you think I wouldn’t call you after that?”

I didn’t think Everly would tell him. I gave a slight shrug. “I didn’t think you would. No.”

“You’re with Charlie again. So you decided you’re gonna date?”

I wasn’t dating. I was with Charlie and Mae.

“Mae invited me out tonight. Otherwise I’d have been in my room alone all evening. Charlie met us here.”

Slate took another drink and studied me a moment. It made me want to fidget. I wasn’t sure what he was doing here, but my traitorous heart was hoping.

“Vale,” he said slowly with intent in his eyes. “Did you want Everly to tell me you were here?”

Yes. No. Yes. Crap!

I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to lie, and the truth was impossible to say.

“Why, Vale?” he asked, as if I’d given him an answer.

“Why what?”

He reached over and brushed my cheekbone just under my eye. “I didn’t need a verbal answer. Your eyes told me. Now I’m asking you why.”

Because I was hurt would not be coming out of my mouth. I had too much pride for that. No matter what girl I ended up being.

Slate grinned and shook his head. “Come on. Tell your friends good-bye and let’s go. Just you and me.”

The girl I thought I had been would decline and stay here. The girl I was pretty sure had been hiding inside me my entire life nodded.

Mae walked up to us. I turned to her and I guess it was already all over my face. She looked let down but accepting. “Go on. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said before I could say anything.

“I’m sorry,” I said, because I was sorry I was leaving her. I just couldn’t tell Slate no. Not when I’d wanted to be with him all night anyway.

“I get it. Go” was her response.

I quickly hugged her and pulled back. “Tell Charlie I said good-bye.” I glanced over her shoulder to see him dancing with a new girl. I was glad he wasn’t waiting around.

She glanced back at him. “Don’t worry about him. That charming nice-boy routine is just that—a routine. He’s a player of the worst sort.”

I doubted that, but I smiled and turned back to Slate, who sat his beer down then reached for my hand. This was a first. We’d never held hands before. His fingers intertwined with mine, and as innocent as this was, it made my heart flutter and I felt a goofy grin light up my face. I was glad he was focused on the exit and not me. I’d be embarrassed to be caught grinning like a fool.

The night breeze was refreshing after all those people and the smell of alcohol. I inhaled deeply and tried to calm myself. I’d held hands with Crawford all the time. It was something we had done as long as I could remember. But I’d never felt like this when we did. Had I even paid attention to it then?

Slate walked over to the taxi line and held open a door for me. I had been expecting his black Jeep to be parked out here somewhere. “I’ve had too many to drive.”

And once again, Slate Allen didn’t add up. He was a frat boy who got blow jobs in libraries, yet when I was around him he was responsible. Another part of him I wondered if only I got to see.

He climbed in after me as I slid over. “Pancake Haven,” he told the driver, then looked at me. “We need to talk and I need some food.”

“Why did you leave your party?”

He leaned back and stretched out his legs in front of him the best he could. “Because you wanted me to.”

That wasn’t fair. “I didn’t say that.”

He chuckled. “No, you didn’t. But sometimes, Vale, you don’t have to say it for me to get it. You found out about the house party. I hadn’t mentioned it to you and you went off to a club where you ignored my text and phone calls. You wanted me to come to you. So I came.”

Was he right? Had I done that? I didn’t think so.

“Your brother is in my fraternity. I was respecting him. Having his little sister there at a party with drunk guys everywhere would have made him nervous.”

“I would have been with you” came out of my mouth before it should have.

“I had a date,” he replied.

Oh. Well, that’s what I figured anyway. “Where is she now?”

“I left her with a brother.”

Now I felt terrible. My ignoring him had messed up his night. Yet he was still with me. Taking me to get pancakes.

“I’m sorry” was all I could say.

“Are you sure?” he asked. He sounded amused.

“Yes.”

“Mmmhmmm,” he replied with a smirk just as the taxi pulled in front of Pancake Haven. Slate paid the driver, then leaned over me and opened my door. “I’ll follow you out,” he told me.

I didn’t want to talk anymore. I wanted to go hide in my room for the next four years.

The Pancake Haven smelled of butter, syrup, and fried potatoes. Slate led me to a booth farthest from the door. I didn’t make eye contact with him until the waitress walked up and asked us what we wanted to drink. I went with coffee, since I figured I wouldn’t sleep much tonight anyway.

“I don’t date, Vale. I hook up. It’s the way I do things,” he said as the waitress walked off.

I nodded. I had nothing to say to that.

“You and me … we click. I enjoy being around you. I like you. I liked you this summer in the hospital. But you’re a dating kind of girl. All you’ve ever known is a relationship. I can’t do that.”

“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself.

He sighed and leaned back in the booth. “Because it’s not me. I like freedom.”

He was honest and I had no right to judge. “Okay.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, that’s all you’re going to say?”

I shrugged. “What else is there to say?”

He ran his thumb along his jawline as he studied me. “I still want to see you.”

“We’re friends. We can stay friends. Just because I think I may eventually be ready to date doesn’t mean I can’t be your friend, too.” Where had that come from? Seriously, had I just said I was going to date? What was wrong with me?

A frown line appeared between his brows. “Date?”