“Oh man, my friends and I do it all the time. It’s the only way we can get anywhere around here.” Laurel hesitates. Brushes an errant strand behind her ear, gathering her hair and pulling it over her right shoulder in a red waterfall.
So fucking pretty.
She sits, clearing her throat. “What are you working on? Grading papers?”
My head shakes. “I was, but now I’m editing my paper for European Union and Foreign Politics.”
“Wow. That sounds… It sounds…”
“Borin’ as fuck?”
“That isn’t what I was going to say—at all.” She laughs, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand to stifle the sound. “Are you ever able to do homework on your bus rides?”
“I could, if my teammates would leave me in peace.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well.” I set down my pen. “When we came home this past weekend, they spent half the trip riding my ass, handing out dating tips and shit.”
Her brows furrow, pinched attractively at the bridge of her adorable nose. “Dating tips? Like what?”
“The shittiest, worst kind of advice. Probably thinkin’ I’d actually take it and look like a dumb fuck in front of you.” Her eyes widen. “Sorry, pardon my French.”
She smacks my arm at my pun. “Cute.”
I lean in. “Get this: they told me when I’m around a girl, I should insult my friends to be funny.”
“Uh…”
“How would you feel if you were on a date and the guy spent the entire time textin’ other people?”
“I’d hate it.” Her head tilts. “Did they tell you to do that?”
“Yeah—so my date would think I was important.”
“That’s…wow. I don’t even know what to say. That is really shitty advice.”
“I know.”
“They didn’t…” Her voice trails off. “Um, they didn’t tell you how to ask a girl on a date, did they?”
“No.” I snort. “Thank God.”
“Why? You don’t think you need it?”
When I finally take the time to study her reaction, she’s watching me attentively, blue eyes shining, mouth set in a determined line. Waiting.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You know,” she says slowly. “If you want to practice…you could always pretend to ask me out.”
Her shoulders give a casual shrug, nonchalant, but the high color of her flushed cheeks and blazing, sparking eyes tell another story.
“I wouldn’t know what to say.” Which is true, I wouldn’t—not to her, or any other female, especially when I’m being put on the spot.
“Try it,” she urges with a gentle smile. “I won’t bite.”
“Uh…” I look to the ceiling for answers. At the bookshelves. Across the library at the circulation desk.
Laurel emits an amused chuckle. “Wow. Maybe you do need help.” Pause. “Go on, ask.”
“You just want me to pretend?”
There is a long pause. “Sure. Pretend ask me.”
“Pretend.”
Curt nod. “Mmmhmmm.”
I lean back in my chair to study her, the slight downward tilt of her pink mouth. The unflinching eyes that are a tad too wide. The blush creeping up her lovely neck to her smooth cheeks.
“You wanna go out with me sometime?”
“There, was that so hard?” she whispers.
“I guess not.”
Laurel’s lips part, smile feebly. “Easy.”
“So then what happens?”
She sits up straighter in her chair. Flips her hair. “Well, then I’d lean in like this.” She leans in, arms crossed on the table. Whispers, “I’d be breathless and my heart would be pounding, and I’d say something like, ‘I would love that.’”
Jesus.
A few silent moments pass, the only sound the ticking clock on the wall. Our breathing. The sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
The shuffling of papers from the front desk.
“Rhett?” Her voice is just loud enough that I can hear it, barely a sigh.
“Laurel,” I say teasingly.
“Why haven’t you asked me out?”
More tension-filled silence stretches between us, the question weighing down the air.
She can’t even look at me when she says it.
My head gives a shake. “It’s just—that cannot be what you meant.”
“Why not?”
I shift in my seat uncomfortably, not sure what to say. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to start spouting off the million ways she’s out of my league. How she’s gorgeous and I’m not. How as a set, we don’t match. How I’d have to be a fucking dumbass to ask a girl like her out on a date—a delusional fucking dumbass.
I look at her from across the table. Rosy cheeks, inky lashes. Clear skin and perfect nose. Creamy complexion. Gleaming satin hair. Great boobs and slim waist.
Jesus, she’s…
She’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.
And for whatever fucking reason, she seems to think I’m something. Wants to spend time with me. Get to know me.
It’s…
Unsettling.
Unreal.
“You’re serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Because. Because our whole friendship began as a joke, a stupid fucking prank my idiot roommate and her cousin railroaded us into. Laurel wouldn’t have texted me. Would never have flirted, sexted. Would never have come up to me during that party otherwise.
Shit, I cannot stop warring with myself on this. Cannot wrap my brain around it.
If I’m so horrible, then why did she kiss me on my porch?
She kissed me.
That shit just doesn’t happen to guys like me. Ever. I know it, and so does everyone else. It’s a universal law, and who am I to throw off the gravitational pull?
I’m not blind, and I’m certainly not dumb.
I raise my eyes. “You really want to know why haven’t I asked you out?”
Laurel looks down at the table top, avoiding my eyes, feigning sudden interest in her English paper, in her pen cap, ticking it open and closed. Even with her head bent, I can see her cheeks are flushed, clearly mystified.
“Why haven’t I asked you out?” God, what the hell is wrong with me? Why do I keep fucking repeating myself? I’m worse than a goddamn parrot.
“Please just stop saying that,” she beseeches, turning a darker, unflattering shade of pink.
“I just don’t know…what’s…going on?” Seriously, why am I being such a spaz? It’s like I’ve stepped into a parallel universe, some fucked-up episode of The Twilight Zone.
I watch her lips twitch. Clearly flustered by my lackluster reply, Laurel avoids eye contact. “Never mind, Rhett. Just let it go.”
“Laurel—”
“Please stop talking about it. Forget I said anything.”
I clamp my lips together. Then, “I didn’t realize you wanted me to ask you out.”
“Well you do now.” She looks up at me, confused. Her pretty brows bend. “I’ve been flirting and messaging you for weeks. I brought you cookies. I called you to pick me up from a bar in the middle of the night. Kissed you on my porch.”
She’s breathing harder now, getting upset. Narrows her blue eyes at me. “What did you think I was doing all this time?”
“I don’t fucking know, Laurel. Friendzonin’ me?” How stupid do I sound? I throw my hands up. “I thought we were studyin’. What did you think we were doin’?”
“But I kissed you.”
True. But, untrusting, I ask, “Was it because of some dare?”
“How can you ask me that? What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“Laurel…” My tone holds a warning.
“I thought you were waiting to ask me out until the time was right,” she blurts out, cheeks red as her hair. “I can’t believe I said that. I don’t ask guys out—I’ve never asked a guy out in my life, and I’m not starting with you.”