“Logan hates jocks, anyway,” Dani was saying to Sam. “I’m pretty sure he’d rather get a root canal than do anything with Brody.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” I said.
Danielle’s eyes snapped to me faster than lightning. “Wait—are you telling me you actually—oh, hell yes. You do like him.”
My insides fizzed. I shrugged one shoulder, trying to stay casual, looking down at the bar and then back up at her. “I mean, he did kiss me on the cheek last night.”
A slow smile spread across Dani’s face, and Sam covered his mouth in a mock gasp.
“Holy shit,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “You two are too much. I said on the cheek, you know.”
“God, that is adorable,” Dani said.
“But it doesn’t necessarily mean he wants anything more,” I said.
“I doubt that,” Sam said. “I definitely wouldn’t kiss a guy on the cheek unless I liked him.”
“He did say he was flirting with me all night,” I admitted.
“Oh, you’re in, then,” Dani said. “You guys are going to be married with a house and a picket fence and two kids within five years.”
“Shut up, Dani,” I said, but I was smiling a little, despite myself. “He doesn’t do relationships. Believe me.”
“I don’t buy that,” Dani said. “Have you talked to him since he gave you this kiss on the cheek?”
“I haven’t seen him all day, no,” I said.
Sam nodded at me. “If you want him, you have to go and get him,” he said. “But I’m warning you, guys who ‘don’t do relationships’ are trouble. I’ve been burned one too many times.”
“I don’t know, man,” Dani said. “Henry used to say that, but it was bullshit.”
“Yeah, because you peg him with the good vibrators,” Sam said, and the two of them burst out in giggles.
Our food came out soon, and the evening turned into an epic game of tell Logan every single piece of advice about flirting ever. Sam told me about his lifetime of flirting skills, some of which I knew I’d never use. Dani told me all about her early days of getting to know Henry. I got so many pieces of advice over the next hour that I felt like my brain was going to explode by the end of it.
Some of the advice felt like it contradicted itself, too. I was supposed to play it cool, but also make it really obvious that I liked Brody? I was supposed to make sure he knew he was special to me, but also never text and call too much?
Flirting was exactly the nightmare I’d always expected it to be, and I hadn’t even started doing it yet. I knew none of it would end with a relationship—unlike Dani, I believed Brody would stick to his rules. But a small part of me wondered if I could at least have my first hookup.
Even that felt like my version of a social Mount Everest. For years, I’d gotten so used to being alone that I’d never even considered that a hot hookup would present itself to me. Certainly not in the form of a football player, or my damn roommate. But as Dani and Sam buttered me up and told me all of the ways I should try to get Brody in bed with me, the possibility of a hookup seemed more and more like it could be a reality.
And that was as terrifying as it was exciting. How the hell was I supposed to hold my own with a super hot, super experienced guy like him? And how was I supposed to not get attached, when looking into his eyes made me melt into a stupid, gooey puddle of desire?
I was screwed. As we finished dinner, the growing dread in the back of my chest had only gotten worse.
“Oh, and if you’re blowing him, make sure you give extra special attention to the frenulum,” Dani said. “That’s the little line on the underside of the head—”
“Dani, I know what a frenulum is,” I said, exasperated. I ran a hand through my hair.
When tips about flirting had devolved into being anatomical blow job tips, I knew the conversation had gone too far.
“There’s no chance in hell I’ll be giving Brody a blow job anytime soon, anyway.”
Dani raised an eyebrow. “You never know.”
Henry showed up a few minutes later to pick up Danielle. He offered me a ride home too, and during the whole car ride back, my mind churned with everything Sam and Dani had told me all night.
And I was surprised to find a defiant, almost angry feeling welling up inside me.
Screw all the flirting tips.
I hated it.
I didn’t want to be focusing on a million different little rules. I felt like I was making a big deal out of something that might have meant nothing to Brody, anyway. In reality, the only thing Brody had said to me was that he liked hanging out with me, and that he thought I was cute.