3
Blake
A cab blows its horn as Lexi and I hustle across Broadway and step up onto the sidewalk by my apartment building, headed toward the Graham Hall courtyard.
Ace texted me fifteen minutes ago to check in and make sure I didn’t need a lawyer or bail money and to tell me that he and Julia were heading to Frat Row to check out a party for a couple of hours before calling it a night. And Lexi, though grouchy, has followed me without complaint from the moment we came to a pizza agreement outside the locker room of Dragon Stadium.
I’m hopeful we’ll have a breakthrough if I just keep trying, but so far, her ice has maintained an impressive resistance to thawing.
I lead the way across the courtyard, slowing slightly as two girls pass, smiling and giggling in my direction. Normally, I’d give them a quick nod or a smile back, but my mind is somewhere else—on the radiating body of my hostage, Lexi Winslow. She’s oblivious to the entire interaction, her expression locked in laser-focus like she’s running through every possible scenario for this pizza plan in her head.
Lexi is a puzzle. Sharp, beautiful, and stubborn as hell—a combination that has fascinated me from the moment I laid eyes on her last fall. She’s different, that much is obvious, but it’s what makes her so magnetic. Her mind works at a pace the rest of us can’t touch, and when she starts rattling off facts like she’s Google come to life, I can’t help but admire it.
We’re steps from the entrance to Graham when she screeches to a halt, stepping out of reach completely.
“I thought we were getting pizza.”
“We are.”
She narrows her eyes. “No. I know all three pizza places on Dickson’s campus, and none is within a third-of-a-mile vicinity of here.”
I laugh, which earns me a glare. “Okay, it’s not an official place, so to speak, but it’s a place. There’s a guy from Chicago who makes deep-dish pizza in his dorm room and sells it on Saturday nights. It’s the best you’ll ever have.”
Her face scrunches in absolute horror. “His dorm room ?”
“Yes. Here in Graham. It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“That’s good. Because it sounds like an FDA violation and a call to the New York Department of Health.”
I smile. “It’s not a restaurant. It’s just a…hobby.”
“Does he have a Home Processor Exemption from Article 20-C?”
“Uh…I doubt it.”
“Then he needs to be registered with the state under New York cottage food laws.” Her voice is pure exasperation, and I can’t help but laugh.
“How do you know that?” I ask. “Did you used to have a food business?”
She shrugs. “I just know a lot of things.”
No argument there. “What else do you know?”
“About New York food law? Or life in general?” she asks, blinking at me. “Because in general is a very broad question that would take me hours to answer.”
I smile, completely intrigued. “I’ve got hours.”
She rolls her eyes so hard I’m worried they’ll get stuck. “You said I owed you pizza, not hours.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“Probably because of the food poisoning we’re both sure to have after the first. Do you know if he even follows the 140-degree temperature regulation? And gloves. Does he wear prep gloves?”
I grin at her, a little awestruck by the sheer level of detail she applies to everything. “Why don’t we go inside, and you can find out for yourself?”
She hesitates, clearly weighing the pros and cons. Her face is so expressive when she’s deep in thought—brows furrowed, lips pursed slightly—and I swear, she has no idea how beautiful she is in these moments.
“Because,” she says finally, “if I go inside and find out he doesn’t, it’ll be a complete waste of time and energy. Not to mention the dangers of going into a random building with a virtual stranger.”
“I’m no one’s stranger. I’m Blake Boden.”
She snorts, and I’m pretty sure it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to a smile from her all night. “Interesting take on reality.”
“I’m just saying, if you need witnesses for my hypothetical crimes, you’d have no trouble rounding them up.”
She sighs dramatically, but there’s something softer in her expression as she relents. “Fine. But if your goal is to make me eat this dorm-room pizza, you might want to knock me out and tie me up now.”
I burst out laughing, shaking my head. “I’ll take my chances.”
Lexi shrugs, resigned. “Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She follows me toward the entrance, and all I can think is that there’s no one like her. Lexi—whip-smart, beautiful, and completely unaware of how fascinating she is to me. It’s probably why I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since the day we met.
She might think she’s untouchable, closed off behind her wall of logic and facts, but I see her.
And I’m not backing down. Not yet.
I pause right outside the door. “Would it make you feel any better if I told you Finn and Ace have both eaten this pizza on multiple occasions and lived to tell the tale?”
She levels me with a look so sharp it could cut glass. “Ace and Finn are hardly my guiding light for sound life choices.”
She has a point. The first time she met Finn Hayes—who she recently found out is actually related to her—he fought an ex- UFC fighter at a Double C event. And she’s known Ace’s wild ways her whole life. Frankly, it’s Ace’s family’s connection to Lexi’s family that got me an invite into Double C in the first place.
“That’s fair,” I agree on a chuckle. “So, what do you want to do? I can take you somewhere else if you really want, but I’m telling you—this is one of Dickson’s finest experiences. You’re going to love it.”
Her eyes drift to the building, scanning the scattered dots of glowing windows like she’s calculating the probability of food poisoning per floor. Her posture is rigid, hands curled into fists at her sides, like she’s bracing herself for war.
Ten seconds pass—ten long, quiet seconds—and then I watch her exhale, the fight deflating out of her like a popped balloon.
“Okay. You’re right. Let’s go visit the… dorm-pizza guy. ” The last three words drip with disgust, but there’s a shift in her demeanor. She’s going along with it.
“Really? You’re sure?”
She sighs dramatically, and I laugh. “Right. Of course you’re not sure. But you will be afterward, I promise.”
Without giving her time to reconsider, I grab her hand—not the intimate finger-linking kind, just a firm, steady grip across our palms—and head straight for the door as it swings open. A group stumbles out—a guy in a massive hoodie and two girls—laughing and jostling into the night.
The guy’s head snaps up when he sees me. “Boden!” he yells, holding up his hand for a fist bump.
I oblige with my free arm, even though I’m ninety-nine percent sure I’ve never seen him before in my life.
“Hey, man. Having a good night?”
“Fuck yeah,” he says back, spinning both girls around and making them giggle.
Lexi watches the entire interaction like it’s a documentary on college-bro behavior, her expression open curiosity. I pull her through the door, and we head straight for the stairs at the end of the hall.
By the time we start climbing, she finally speaks, her tone casual but her eyes sharp. “You just…get recognized like that all the time, don’t you?”
“Depends on the time of year. If it’s football season and we just lost? Suddenly, no one knows me.”
To my surprise, she laughs—a real, actual laugh—and it feels like I’ve just been handed the winning lottery ticket. Lexi Winslow is a steel fortress with a dash of razor-sharp wit, and breaking through even a little is no small feat.
“Fair-weather friends,” she muses, her voice laced with amusement. “A huge part of football, I’m afraid.”
“How many Mavericks games have you been to?” I ask, my curiosity slipping out before I can stop it. Growing up with a pro football team owner for a dad? Mind-blowing. “Just ballpark.”
Lexi doesn’t even hesitate. “One hundred and ninety-two.”
I blink. “One hundred and ninety-two? You kept track?”
“I keep track of a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Everything.”
Her answer is so simple, so Lexi, it makes me grin. “That’s incredible. I bet the average American’s only been to, what, one game in their lifetime?”
She shakes her head like I’ve said something ridiculous. “Probably closer to zero. Maybe point zero, zero something. But only two percent of pro fans have been to a game, and one hundred percent of Americans aren’t thinking about, watching, or fandoming over football. The real number is probably negligible.”
“And yet, you’ve been to nearly two hundred.”
She tilts her head slightly, her expression unreadable. “How many have you been to?”
“Ten. My dad started taking me to one game a season when I turned eleven. Different team every year. He said if I wanted to play in the pros one day, I should know what every team’s atmosphere feels like.”
“You’re halfway there,” she says thoughtfully. “There are twenty-two teams total.”
I laugh, because of course she knows the exact number. “Well, I’m hoping, in a couple of years, I’ll only need to be loyal to one.”
“You’ve got the stats,” she says with a small shrug. “If you maintain performance, there’s no reason you won’t get drafted.”
“You say it like it’s that easy.”
She shrugs. “Relatively speaking, it is. Just like getting into college with a certain high school academic and extracurricular record. There are outliers to every rule, but they call them rules for a reason. It’s statistical.”
I laugh. “You know, I think I’ve been thinking of it like it’s some magical mist or spell or something. Your take honestly makes me feel a little better. It’s the numbers.”
She nods. “Money being the most important number of all. Will you make them money? Your record is like a guideline for the answer to that question. And you have a good record, statistically speaking.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
Lexi shrugs like it’s no big deal, but the corners of her lips twitch, like maybe she’s enjoying this conversation.
When we finally reach the door with the Italian flag taped to it, I pause to knock, but not before flashing her a smile. “So, what do I need to do to get drafted by your dad? Any tips?”
Her soft laugh surprises me. “You’ll have to figure that out yourself.”
Before I can say anything else, the door swings open, and Tony Scalano’s legendary dorm-room pizzeria is revealed in all its questionable glory. The air smells like warm flour and melted cheese, a fine dusting of it hovering in the air like a low-budget food television show set. “That’s Amore” plays faintly from a Bluetooth speaker in the corner, and I glance down at Lexi to gauge her reaction.
Her wide eyes meet mine, a mix of horror and curiosity swirling in her expression. “Your powers of persuasion should be studied,” she mutters. “Because the fact that I’m here right now is a scientific mystery.”
I nod, fighting a grin. “You want to go inside?”
She sighs, resigned but intrigued. “We’re here, I guess. Might as well. Though I’m absolutely certain his Blackstone pizza oven in an enclosed space is a fire code violation.”
“He keeps an extinguisher under the bed.”
“Oh, well. That’s comforting.”
“You’re funny, you know that?”
“Really?” she asks, her eyes lighting up with something softer than her usual sharp skepticism.
“Definitely. Which is surprising, considering how scary you are most of the time.”
Her brow furrows. “I’m not scary.”
“Are you kidding?” I lower my voice and look around to make sure no one else is listening to our conversation before turning my attention back to her. “You run that Double C shit like you’re The Godfather. I’ve never seen so many shriveled balls around me as the night you double-dog dared one of us to fight Donnie Marks. Finn is just crazy enough not to care.”
“Are you scared of me?”
“Yes.” Her expression falters for just a fraction of a second, caught between shock and confusion, but I don’t give it time to settle. I can’t. After tonight, more than ever, I’m determined to make Lexi Winslow mine. “But unlike most people, I like to face my fears head on.”