By the Numbers (Love Logic, #3)

by K.M. Neuhold

I’m so focused on trying to assess his pupils, I’m caught completely off guard when something wet swipes across my nose. I rear back, wiping the back of my hand across my face. “Did you just lick me?” Alex grins. “I’m concussed; I’m not thinking straight.” “I can’t believe you licked me,” I mutter, shaking my head while he laughs, seemingly extremely pleased with himself.

A little flutter of affection fills my stomach. It would be easy to continue to play dumb with myself, but sooner or later I’m going to have to admit that Theo is not only attractive, but he’s also sweet, and I honestly don’t know what to do with that. He’s in love with Elijah, so there’s definitely that. Theo finishes his work and grabs a Band-aid to cover the scrape. “There we go. Good as new.” “My hero.” I bat my eyelashes playfully, another flutter filling me when he smiles. He has a really nice smile. Ugh, okay, so I have an infinitesimal crush on him. No big deal. This is absolutely no big deal.

I’ve been torturing myself with a reading binge of books with roommate tropes, story after story of guys falling in love with their roommates. Someone should take my Kindle away, seriously.

“Huh.” His foot bumps against mine under the table. It seems to be an accident; except he doesn’t pull back. No, he leaves his foot touching mine while we continue to eat. “What else?” That’s how we pass the rest of dinner, me telling Theo random trivia, our feet touching under the table. The one thing I don’t tell him is that if I’m supposed to stop crushing on him, he’s going to have to stop being so…Theo.

“We’re hydrogen and oxygen, baby. We’ve got chemistry.” He waggles his eyebrows and another laugh bursts from my throat. Fuck, he’s cute. And hot. And I might be a little bit fucked.

I square my shoulders and paste on my most irresistibly nerdy smile—I’ve perfected it since meeting Elijah, who has the adorable geek thing nailed. I saunter over, letting my smile slip as I get closer and replacing it with a look of embarrassment. “Oh my gosh, I thought you were someone else,” I feign awkwardness, slowly backing away before the cute guy on the end reaches out and snags my hand to stop me from leaving. Men are too easy sometimes, I swear.

The waitress chooses that moment to set a glass down in front of Theo before walking away. He pushes it in my direction covertly. “You’re my favorite.” I grab it and take a sip. I don’t know what it is, but it’s fruity and delicious. “You know that’s illegal, right?” Riot points out. “What’s illegal?” I flash him an innocent smile, inching the glass back toward Theo.

Pax strides over to me, leaning against the building and tilting his head back to look up at the sky. There’s too much light pollution to see stars here, but we both act like we can for a few quiet minutes. “He’s cute,” he finally says. “You going to swoop in and fuck him too if I don’t get to it fast enough?” I snark, regretting the words as soon as they leave my mouth. It’s not fair to be mad at my brother when I never told Elijah how I felt. Besides, we both know that even if I had, it was always Pax. Elijah’s had a thing for him since we were kids. I never stood a chance.

It’s weirdly relaxing to watch Elijah study. Maybe it’s the familiarity of it. I spent so much of my teen years watching TV or playing video games while he sat studying beside me. More accurately, I spent my time trying to watch TV or play video games, but in reality, I spent a lot of it trying to work up the courage to kiss him.

Eventually, we manage to get motivated to move enough to pull our pants up and crawl up onto the couch together. Alex puts on a movie, staying close enough that I’m able to put an arm around him again once it starts, neither of us mentioning the fact that cuddling during a movie falls under neither the hookup nor the roommate code of conduct.

“I got an A.” He thrusts the paper at me. “I got an A.” “Holy sh-, uh, shiitake. That’s so awesome. I knew you could do it.” I’m so proud I feel like I could burst.

That spark that’s always missing from Alex’s eyes when he studies? I finally found it. “Can you believe it?” he gushes as we get into an Uber at the end of the day. “An A. He got an A.” “I can believe it.” Without thinking, I reach over and grab his hand once we’re both buckled in. His eyes go wide before a smile spreads slowly over his lips, his fingers tightening against mine. “You’re so good with the kids, and you obviously have a passion for it.” He shakes his head, but the pride still dancing in his eyes gives him away. “I like it.”

“Oh, so, Elijah, what ended up happening with Victor?” Alex asks. Elijah blushes and Pax frowns. “Who’s Victor?” my brother asks, looking curiously between Alex and his boyfriend. “Shit. Sorry,” Alex mutters, offering an apologetic smile. “It’s no big deal,” Elijah says. “He’s the TA for my Space Propulsion class. I felt like he graded my last exam unfairly, so I showed it to Alex to get his opinion, and he agrees. But, when I brought it up to Victor, he blew me off. I still passed, so it’s fine; it doesn’t really matter.”

I bristle on his behalf. Ready to jump in like I have our entire friendship and offer to talk to the guy for him. But before I can open my mouth, Pax steals my lines. “Oh, hell no. As soon as we get home, I’m going to email this asshole.” “You don’t have to,” Elijah rushes to assure him.

“Last year, back in New York, I kept having sex with guys I didn’t even like, just hoping for five minutes of cuddling after,” I confess, humiliation dancing in my gut as I wait for him to judge me for it. It’s not exactly the most masculine thing either, is it? Putting up with sex and hoping to cuddle. Alex rubs his thumb back and forth slowly against my stomach and then presses a soft kiss to my skin. “We don’t have to do that. If you’d rather cuddle and skip the sex part, I can live with that.”

:(((