Extra Credit: Three Ivy Years Novellas (The Ivy Years Book 6)

I WATCHED Andy fumble with his printer. While it warmed up, he moved over to the bed and grabbed an armload of clothes. Most of them were shirts, still on their hangers. These he ferried to the closet, jamming them onto the bar and shutting the door. If another guy did that, I would assume that he was trying to clear off the bed, in order to steer me onto it. But Andy didn’t give off that hey-baby-come-upstairs-to-see-my-trophies vibe. And it was refreshing. I was so done with guys who had big expectations and very little gratitude.

In contrast, Andy reminded me a bit of a chocolate lab puppy — cute and clumsy. He even had big puppy feet.

As I watched him frowning over his art history notebook, I found myself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Tonight it had dawned on me that I’d approached the dating scene at Harkness all wrong. Someone like Andy, who didn’t carry himself like God’s natural gift to women, probably had a whole lot of untapped passion.

Now, conventional wisdom said that confidence was a turn-on. And that was true, but only up to a point. Because confidence implied experience. And I was learning that experience wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Both my football players had plenty of experience. But neither one had ever made me feel as if our moments together were truly special.

Except for that last night with Dash. That was the only time he ever convinced me that I made a difference. And that had turned out to be a big fat lie.

Ugh.

It’s just sex, I reminded myself. But I liked sex, and I’d often enjoyed it with him. Both of my football players had had beautiful bodies and plentiful stamina. In fact, if someone had asked me to draw a picture of the kind of guy I thought I wanted, I would have ended up with a likeness of them.

But it hadn’t been enough, had it?

Andy handed me the first page of notes, still warm from the printer. “Have a look at this, and tell me if any of the handwriting is inscrutable,” he said.

I scanned the page. Each painting’s title was listed carefully, along with its artist, approximate date of creation, and sometimes the materials used.

He leaned over my shoulder, and for a weird moment I wondered if he was looking down my dress. And I kind of hoped he was. Judge me if you will.

But no. His long fingers touched the page in front of me. “Wherever I didn’t write down the materials, that’s because it was oil on canvas,” he said. “There are a lot of those. And I may have misspelled Caravaggio. That’s kind of embarrassing.”

“No, that’s right,” I said. “One R and two Gs.”

He flashed me a smile that said “friendly” more than it said “do me.” Then he went over to flip the notebook around in the printer. “Good thing.”

When I received the second sheet, I found a little drawing in the corner. “What’s this?”

Andy sat down on the bed and folded his long arms onto his knees. “That is an X-wing fighter. Don’t judge.”

Aw. “I would never!”

His warm brown eyes smiled back at me again. “Good. Because there may be some rebel ships on the next page. I had to amuse myself while that blowhard in the Knicks hat asked seventeen questions.”

I knew exactly which student he meant. And the guy really was a blowhard. But I teased Andy anyway. “Now, now. Do you hate him because he always wants to talk about Cubism? Or because he wears a Knicks hat?”

Andy gave me a full-on smile this time, and it was really pretty hot. “Both.”

“Who’s your team?” Not for nothing had I learned how to talk sports, even when I didn’t give a damn. But boys? They loved it.

“I’m a Celtics fan. Not that it’s easy.”

“They’re not a good team?”

He put a hand to his chest in mock distress. “Katie, they’re the best team. It’s just that they lose most of the time.”

“How is that possible?”

Andy blinked at me with wide eyes. Then he leaned over the printer to copy the last two pages of notes. “Aren’t we surrounded by evidence that the people who win are not always deserving?”

Interesting. I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about basketball anymore. “Thanks for your notes,” I said softly. “It’s going to make a huge difference.”

“Don’t mention it.” He stapled the sheets together and handed them to me. And that was the moment when I no longer had a reason to stay there, chatting with the nicest guy I’d met in forever.

We’d reached that moment. The one which concluded the predictable chapter of our evening. Now a page would be turned. And we might find “THE END” stamped there. But I found that I wasn’t really ready to hear those words. I’d taken a big gamble telling Andy my uncomfortable little story. And trusting him with it had been the smartest thing I’d done all week. He’d let me get mad, and he didn’t think I was an idiot. I’d know it if he did. Those big eyes were just too expressive to hide it.

I wanted a little more of Andy. Truly I did. I stood up, then, and turned to him.

Unfortunately, he didn’t catch the look of intent I was trying to give him. “I’ll walk you back,” he said quickly. He grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on.

Andy was truly adorable. And lovably uncalculating. Even gentlemanly. (Look, Mom! I found one.) But that would simply not do.

Not at all.