Finn resisted the urge to nudge hips again. He was already being way too flirty, way too fast. He’d told himself, after last night’s gooey, gushy display on the steps of his dorm, that today he’d slow his roll. Play it cool, even hard to get. But one look at Jett that morning, broad chest kitted out in his clingy giveaway “I’m a Cheshire College Parent” t-shirt, gave lie to the true feelings that had been simmering since they’d met. “If it means more time with you, Jett, then sure.”

Jett nodded almost pensively, square jaw set as they meandered through downtown Cheshire, Georgia, even more quaint and homey by day than it had been the night before. Or, Finn wondered, was he just looking at the tiny college town through rose-colored glasses?

“I’m not sure how many lectures I have in me,” Jett mumbled as they approached a cozy storefront coffee shop called Crullers. “I’ve never been good at the older brother gig, as you can see from your new roomie.”

Finn joined him as they paused outside the café. “I dunno, given what I’ve seen of Casey, he’d probably be a lot worse off without you in the background steering him toward a more, uh … social life?”

Jett chuckled, reaching for the door. “I hear a compliment in there somewhere,” he murmured, rich green eyes giving him pause. “You want your coffee hot or cold?”

“Cold?” Finn offered, not caring if it came in a frozen block so long as it meant another stolen moment with his roommate’s brother.

“Great minds,” Jett murmured. He left Finn on the street, shifting anxiously from foot to foot as he turned to admire the street in the warm light of midmorning. Where the night before the cozy streetlights and exposed bulbs had created an almost magical effect on Sapling Street, today it was even more charming: cobblestone beneath his feet, carefully curated storefronts as far as the eye could see, from used record and book stores to gastropubs, sports bars, and cafes. Toward the end of the street, a banner flapped in the warm fall breeze, promising a Farmers’ Market all weekend long.

Finn’s belly stirred, already sore from fluttering all night long, his mind alive with a million lurid fantasies even as his ears perked up at the sound of the bell over the door ringing with Jett’s sudden departure. “That was fast,” he murmured, taking the tallboy can of iced mocha Jett offered.

“It’s so nice out this morning,” Jett gushed, almost romantically, waving a leafy- green flyer in his free hand as he clutched a matching coffee can in his other. “I didn’t want to waste another moment indoors. Did you see they had a—”

“Farmers’ Market this weekend?” Finn finished for him, nodding coyly at the banner.

Jett’s smile was warm and sudden and heart-stoppingly charming, sending Finn’s already overactive libido into overdrive. “I’ve never been to one,” he admitted.

“No?” Finn mused, following side by side as they drifted closer to the end of Sapling Street, cordoned off to allow for the seemingly miles and miles of booths and kiosks that glittered at the end like the same bulbs they’d walked home beneath the night before. “They had them back home all the time, but nothing quite this fancy.”

“You wanna give it a try?” Jett asked, voice rich and deep and knowing, as if Finn might possibly refuse.

“I mean, it’s no ice cream social with a bunch of over-the-top, squealing sorority girls, but I suppose we could give it a shot.”

Jett nodded, cracking open his can of coffee. Finn watched the spray of carbonated caffeine that covered his long, lean fingertip almost jealously. “You know, Finn, you can bail at anytime. You don’t have to wander around with some old fuddy-duddy just because I asked you to.”

“I know that,” Finn insisted. He was cracking open his own can and feeling the same cold mist of spray that had coated Jett’s long, masculine fingers slather his own. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Jett, I want to be here. Be here with … you.”

Jett chuckled, glancing quietly away. Much as his dorm building had approached far too quickly the night before, the Farmers’ Market loomed, quietly bustling with frenetic energy and the quaint, homey feel of a small-town weekend in the fall.

“What’s so funny?” Finn murmured, taking a rich, deep sip of the heady brew. They’d had Styrofoam cups of cheap coffee during the Welcome Waffles breakfast that morning, but between forced small talk with overly peppy strangers and the constant fear of being called on to stand up and talk about himself, Finn had barely taken two full sips. Suddenly, the much-needed caffeine rushed dangerously to every nerve ending in his needy little body.

“Nothing’s funny, funny,” Jett insisted with a quiet little nod. “I just, I’m trying really hard to be the grownup here, and you’re making that really, really, very much harder.”

Finn pretended to be offended, all the while being flattered. “Me? What’d I do?”

“You haven’t done anything, really,” Jett observed quietly. They milled, almost instinctively, across the street from the Farmers’ Market as if to enter the mildly murmuring crowd might pop whatever bubble they’d been drifting in since leaving campus. “And yet, you’ve done everything all at once.”