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ass.”
    Again, I might have argued if I thought I had a remote chance of coming out the boot victor.
     

 

     
     

     
     
    I FELT LIKE I’d just been held down by a boy band and a motorcycle gang and what I was wearing and the way I looked was the scary result. The jeans were looser than I was used to, the long-sleeved shirt was tighter than I was used to, and the boots . . . well, they were nothing like what I was used to.
    Not to mention my hair. When Alex came at me with a bottle of goop after I’d emerged from Rowen’s room in foreign duds, I just clenched my jaw, closed my eyes, and prayed it would all be over soon. I still hadn’t chanced a look in the mirror. If my hair looked anything like it felt, I didn’t want to see it. I was clothed, but I felt naked. The missing hat might have had something to do with that feeling.
    “I know you don’t believe me, but you don’t have to. Because you look hot. Like smokin’, I-just-moistened-my-panties hot,” Alex said, running a yellow light in her black El Camino. It was about as ancient as Old Bessie and had aged about as gracefully.
    Some sweet, refurbished, classic cars turn every head when they pass by. Alex’s El Camino wasn’t one of those. It was rusted out, the engine made a noise like a jar of marbles had been dropped inside of it, and the rearview mirror hung on by a thread. And the interior’s smell? Let’s just say it was offensive enough that I’d been riding with my head half out the window in the chilly, rainy weather since we’d left the apartment.
    “Thanks?” I replied, shifting for the hundredth time. What guys saw in loose jeans was lost on me. I’d never been in a more uncomfortable pair.
    “Oh, come on, Sex God. Give it a break. The self-deprecation act is getting old fast. Just admit you dig that I decked you out in a little swagger, and let’s get on with the night.”
    I knew Alex and I spoke the same language, but sometimes I wondered if we spoke different dialects because I didn’t understand half of what she said most of the time. “Alex?”
    “Sex God?” she mimicked.
    I exhaled out my nose. “What’s up with the nickname?”
    “What nickname?” She took a corner so sharply, I checked over my shoulder to make sure we hadn’t lost the bumper or something.
    “Sex God,” I muttered.
    “That’s not a nickname. I thought that was your given name,” she said with an evil grin.
    I shot her an exasperated look.
    She basked in my discomfort a few seconds longer before shrugging. “Truthfully? Because you are one.”
    My eyebrows came together. I hadn’t realized that been one of my identifiers in the Jesse Walker fine print.
    Suddenly, she smacked the back of my head. Not a hold-nothing-back whack, but hard enough it stung. I was about to unleash Rowen’s favorite go-to phrase when her roommate went off the rails when she surprised me with one more whack.
    Unstable was the first word that came to mind.
    “Oww,” I said, twisting in my seat so she couldn’t surprise me with another one.
    “I warned you to cut out the self-deprecation act. It was old two minutes ago. Now it’s just making me violent.”
    I should have taken a cab. Or the bus. Or hell, hitched a ride like I was half-worried I’d be doing anyway.
    “When I call you Sex God, that’s because you are one. I don’t give out compliments liberally, especially sex compliments. So stop acting like a humble douche, take Sex God like a man, and let yourself strut a bit.”
    My eyebrows came together again, but when Alex lifted her hand, that crease ironed our real fast.
    “Good boy,” she praised, returning her hand to the steering wheel. “Any man who can make a girl make the sounds I’ve heard coming from Rowen’s room when you’re in town is a bona fide Sex God. Any guy whose girl is still flushing the next morning is a certified Sex God. And any guy that can keep that look in Rowen’s eyes even when he’s away is the fucking king of Sex