“Don’t be ridiculous.” I furrowed my brow and looked away from her.
“I’m not,” she stated. “It’s probably highly inappropriate or something, but Matthew, you are an extremely attractive guy. Don’t you ever look in the mirror?”
“Of course,” I said, still frowning. “And what you are saying is still ridiculous.”
“It’s not.”
“Girls don’t look at me like that,” I said. “They don’t look at me at all.”
“For the love of God,” Bethany moaned. She stood up and headed out of the room. “Come on!”
I followed her down to the den where the computer was. She dropped herself onto the desk chair and pulled up Facebook. I watched her log in and scroll around until she came across a photograph from Christmas. Travis was standing by the tree and hanging up ornaments, and I was sitting at the foot of it with a string of lights in my hands, smiling up at the camera.
I couldn’t recall what Travis had said to make me laugh, but I did recall Bethany taking the picture when I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t usually care to have my picture taken, and she had just called my name and snapped the picture before I could react. I didn’t like looking into the camera, so pictures usually came out with me looking like I was constipated or something.
“I wasn’t going to show you this,” Bethany said, “but you obviously have no clue, do you?”
“No clue about what?” I asked.
“Read this,” Beth said. She scooted the chair back so I could get a look at all of the comments listed under the picture.
Who is the guy on the floor?
Hot damn! That’s your nephew? Makes me wish I was twenty years younger!
OMG, what a hottie!
Whoa—do you have to lock him up at night?
I bet the girls in his school fail classes just watching him!
Send him over my way, please!
There were pages and pages of similar comments.
“If you had ever given girls a
chance to get to know you,” Bethany said softly from behind me, “and they found out how warm and caring you are, I don’t see how any of them could resist you. It’s very obvious Mayra cares about you, or she wouldn’t be spending all her free time over here, would she?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. I scrolled back up and looked at the picture, trying to figure out what Bethany’s friends were talking about. It was just me. My hair was a mess like it always was. With the Christmas tree in the background, you could tell my eyes were green. I did look a little different from a lot of pictures of me but only because I was smiling and looking at the camera.
“Travis thought you’d be embarrassed if I showed this to you,” Beth said, “but I think at this point, you need to know. You’re a good-looking guy, Matthew. Any girl who says no to you would have to be blind and stupid.”
“Mayra’s not stupid,” I said defensively. “She’s really smart.”
“You’re making my point.”
I shook my head slowly and read a few more of the comments. They all had a pretty similar tone though knowing most of Bethany’s friends were thirty or so made me feel weird. I glanced over at her.
“You think she might say yes?” I asked.
“You won’t know unless you manage to ask her,” Bethany replied with a raised brow.
I couldn’t argue anymore, so I agreed to go back to practicing. The whole activity was incredibly stressful, and I went to bed with my stomach in knots.
There’s no way I’ll ever manage to ask Mayra out.
Lose.