Out on Good Behavior (Radleigh University Book 3) (12 page)

I’m not sure who’s more nervous for this dinner, me or Lizzie. I’ve been ordered to stay out of the apartment while she gets everything ready, so after work, I have lunch with Samara before logging some time in the studio. But now I’m smeared in paint and pretty desperately need a shower, so Lizzie’s just gonna have to deal.

“You’re not supposed to be here!” she yelps as soon as I close the door behind me. I see immediately why she’s panicking—the apartment is an unholy mess.

“Just need a quick shower and a change into dinner-appropriate attire,” I say, holding up my hands. “But…” I sniff. “What burned?”

“Ah, that would be the toasted coconut, I think,” says Connor, “but it might be salvageable. Just a little crispy.”

“Is ‘crispy’ another word for charred?”

Before Lizzie can respond, a beeping noise sounds from the oven, and she races toward it, flecks of batter flying off her tank top. Connor doesn’t look much better, dusted with flour and elbow deep in vegetable peels. I take that as my cue to get out of the way, and in no more than twenty minutes, I’m clean, dressed, and getting shoved back out the door with soaking wet hair and a makeup-free face.

I grumble all the way back to Cait and Sam’s room, but the last vestiges of my annoyance melt away when Sam pulls out a hairdryer, sits me down in her desk chair, and proceeds to work through my damp tangles with a gentleness that makes me purr.

Which is probably what makes Cait declare that she’s gonna go to Mase’s and meet us at the apartment.

To Lizzie’s credit, when we arrive at the door to the apartment an hour later, it smells like heaven. The butterflies in my stomach momentarily get distracted by the scent of spicy fried food, but I’m brought back to reality by a gentle squeeze of my fingers.

I don’t have to ask Sam if she’s nervous; she’s radiating it. I turn and take her other hand, a weird, indefinable ache cresting in my chest as I look at her. “Hey,” I say softly.

She smiles. “Hey.”

I’m wearing wedges and she’s wearing ballet flats, which means I’m the perfect height to kiss her, and I do. “This is gonna be fun. Probably.”

“You are not the greatest at inspiring confidence,” she says, but she’s still squeezing my hands, so I’m thinking I don’t actually suck at it. I don’t get to respond, though, because the door flies open and all five feet eleven inches of Cait Johannssen fill the frame.

“I told you guys I heard people making out!” she calls over her shoulder.

Samara turns bright red. “We weren’t—”

I shove Cait’s shoulder and she laughs and steps aside to let us in. The air is heavy with the delicious smells of spice and fried dough, and my stomach immediately rumbles in response. Connor and Lizzie are in the little kitchen, and they wave hello before quickly turning back to whatever’s sizzling on the stove. Mase greets us from the dining table, which has the little bistro table from the patio shoved up next to it. He’s pouring wine into glasses, and without missing a beat, he switches to a bottle of cider for the last glass. Next to me, I feel Sam relax a little more.

Yes, our friends are nice
, I say with a squeeze of my hand.

They really are
, she says with a squeeze of hers.

“Fuck!” Lizzie yelps, making both of us jump, and I look at her just in time to see something go flying from a pan. I open my mouth to ask if she’s okay, but before I can, she looks over at us and her eyes widen. “Are you guys holding hands?” Lizzie squeals. “Oh my God that is afuckingdorable.”

“Lizzie,” Cait warns sharply.

“What? They’re cute!” She bends to check something in the oven, then curses and changes the dial. “I’m allowed to say when they’re being cute.”

Connor shakes his head wearily and flashes us an apologetic look. “You know, Frankie, I'm still thinking about your art show. That was really impressive.”

Much as I appreciate his effort to change the subject from spotlighting me and Samara and our now awkwardly clasped hands, this one isn’t much better for me. “It was no big deal.”

“Oh my God, are you kidding?” Samara turns to me, fixing me with an intense gaze. “Frankie, it was brilliant. How can you say that was no big deal?”

“She always does,” Cait says dryly. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Someday they’ll ask Frankie to paint over the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and all she’ll say about it is, ‘Whatever, Michelangelo’s dead so they clearly just picked some rando’,” Lizzie adds.

I can’t help laughing, even through my blush, but Sam’s still looking at me with a mixture of sadness and horror. “Do you really not get how talented you are?” she asks in a soft voice that stirs up an ache somewhere I didn’t even know I had feeling. Suddenly, this is too much and I need to breathe.

“I save my cockiness for other skills,” I say, planting a loud kiss on her cheek. Thankfully, she flushes with a shy smile, breaking the little bit of tension. Which is of course when Lizzie says, “Aw, you guys are, like, puke levels of cute.”

“Dinner had better be really good if we’re going to endure this much harassment,” I warn Lizzie with narrowed eyes.

“Some of it definitely is,” she says confidently.

“I assume we’re just not supposed to ask about the rest?” Mase frowns down at the wine glasses. “Maybe we should start here.”

“Solid plan,” says Cait, coming up behind him and snaking an arm around his waist to get a glass. They hand them out to the rest of us. “Should we toast to something?”

“To Lizzie’s cooking skills,” I say quickly before any of them can try to center me and Samara again.

“Hey, just Lizzie’s?” Connor protests.

“Sorry, sorry—to Lizcon,” I amend.

“Lizcon?” Connor wrinkles his nose. “That sounds like a gathering of people who dress up like reptiles.”

“Agreed,” says Lizzie. “Cozzie is a way better portmanteau.”

“Cozzie is a pretty great ship name,” Samara agrees with a nod.

“Ship name?” Mase looks at the rest of us like we’re speaking in tongues.

“You know, like couple names,” says Sam. “Like, y’all are obviously Case.” She gestures between him and Cait with her cider glass. “Or Mait. I guess both work.”

“Ooh, or Claw!” Cait wraps an arm around Mase’s biceps and looks up at him adoringly. “I know I said I’d never get used to people calling you ‘Law,’ but this actually makes it seem worth it.”

“I’m suddenly vastly aware of how much estrogen is in this room,” says Connor.

Lizzie raises her glass. “To my occasionally sexist boyfriend! Who, to his credit, totally cooked and cleaned today.”

“To occasionally sexist Connor,” the rest of us declare over his protests, then drink. I let my gaze stray to Samara’s throat as she swallows her cider, then up to her mouth pursed on the cup. She catches me watching her and bites one of those pink-glossed lips.

Yeah, okay, I can make it through this dinner.

“Okay, sit! Sit! Max designed us place cards,” Lizzie says proudly.

“Max is her youngest brother,” I explain to Samara as we take our seats at the little bistro table, leaving the normal-size seats to Lizzie and the above-five-ten crowd.

Her lips twitch. “Cute.”

“So tell us about what we’re eating,” says Cait as she refills her wineglass. “It smells awesome. Decidedly
not
like it follows my diet plan, but awesome.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome for not feeding you steamed green beans and a chicken breast exactly the size of a deck of playing cards, or whatever,” says Lizzie as she walks out of the kitchen holding a platter of what look like fried dumplings. “Trust me, pinsec frito are better than whatever kale smoothie you were planning on having for dinner.”

“I believe it,” I murmur. “They smell amazing.”

“They better, seeing as they took forfuckingever.” She puts them down in the middle of the larger table, and Connor places a bowl of dipping sauce next to them. “I was not blessed with dainty chopping hands.”

“Good thing they have other uses,” I say with an obnoxious wink at Connor as the rest of them help themselves. Mase passes me the platter and I hold it out for Sam before helping myself to one of my own, followed by a dollop of the sweet and sour sauce.

“Damn, these are really good,” says Mase. “I gotta admit, I did not know you could cook.”

“She seduced me with bacon mac ’n cheese, in fact,” Connor says warmly.

“Is this crab
and
pork?” Cait asks. “God, you’re trying to kill me.” Not that it stops her from taking another one.

As everyone gushes over the food—with good reason; it is
damn
good—I watch Sam take her careful little bites, daintily cut by knife and fork. It honestly didn’t even occur to me to use flatware, but everything she does is controlled, pristine, polite.

What if she’s like that in bed, too?

Fuck.

What if we’re not sexually compatible? What if she insists on eye contact at all times and calling it “making love”? She’s an amazing kisser, and she didn’t exactly seem restrained that night behind the gym, but making out is making out—what if sex is a whole different ball game?

“You okay?” she murmurs in my ear, breaking the anxiety spell. I blink and realize her plate is empty, and everyone else is taking seconds or thirds and listening to Lizzie and Connor talk about their Filipino restaurant tour of the city this past summer. Which gives me a brief flash into my own upcoming NYC trip, with my art history class. I hadn’t thought of bringing Sam with me; hell, I hadn’t thought of being tied down for that trip at all…

I realize she’s still waiting for a response, and I say, “Yeah, fine,” while squeezing her knee, though I’m not sure if it’s to reassure her or myself. Then I join in the conversation like an actual human, and when the pinsec frito platter dwindles to nothing but flakes of gold, I jump up to help Lizzie serve the next course.

At least she doesn’t notice I’m being a total space case; she’s too distracted by her own cooking. “Fuck, I think I burned the garlic in the chicken and pork adobo,” she mutters as she pushes a dish around in a pan. “Does this smell burnt to you?”

It kinda does, but it also looks delicious and I have no doubt she worked her ass off on it, so I just say, “Nah, it smells great.”

She perks up and hands me a huge bowl to put it in, then reaches down into the oven to pull out a platter of what I know from her mother visiting freshman year are lumpia. My mouth waters in Pavlovian response to the sight of them—the ones her mother brought that first Parents Weekend were afuckingmazing—and it makes my heart ache to think about how hard this must be for Lizzie, what kinds of memories this must be bringing back. I put down the bowl of slightly burnt-smelling meat and give Lizzie a quick one-armed squeeze around her shoulders. She responds with a kiss to my forearm, and then she gets back to work, so I do too.

Connor comes in then to spoon steamed rice into bowls, and while the two of them flirt, I let my gaze travel back to the table as I finish filling the bowl.

Sam looks happy. Comfortable. I mean, she should be—she’s just talking to her roommate and said roommate’s boyfriend—but…it’s nice to see her looking so settled with my friends, in my apartment.

Nice and scary.

Cait was clearly born for monogamy. She and Mase had barely been back together two minutes when they decided to spend a month of the summer together at their old camp. And Lizzie just cares that she’s getting laid regularly; that it’s constantly with the same person doesn’t seem to faze her at all.

Could we actually be that, me and Sam?

Do I wanna be?

The thought clings to me as we bring out the rest of the food—the chicken and pork adobo, the platter piled high with lumpia, bowls of steamed rice, and an amazing-smelling vegetable stew Lizzie explains is pinakbet, made with about a hundred substitutions because the produce selection around Radleigh is seriously lacking. I take my seat next to Sam and kiss her smooth cheek, hating myself for having so many conflicting thoughts when she’s being a perfect date at this perfect meal.

“What was that for?”

I shrug. “I like you.” That, at least, I know without a doubt.

That shy smile I know so well spreads across her face, but any response she might have is cut off by the bowl of pinakbet being passed to her. Everyone takes food while Lizzie answers questions about it and accepts compliments, and I take a ton of everything, possibly burnt garlic and all. I’m just lifting a forkful of pork belly to my lips when I notice Cait and Mase out of the corner of my eye—she’s daintily putting okra from her pinakbet on Mase’s plate, while he puts his tomatoes on hers.

Clearly I’m not as subtle as I think, because she catches me watching and laughs. “When you spend a month living out of a camp cafeteria together, you pick up a whole lot about each other’s food habits.”

“I think that’s an automatic thing you pick up when you’ve been dating a while no matter what,” says Connor, then pauses. “Or maybe Lizzie’s just really, really clear on what she doesn’t like.”

“Green pepper, red onion, black olives, cottage cheese, and cilantro,” Cait and I chorus, and everyone else cracks up. “Maybe it’s not just a dating thing,” I concede with a grin.