I peer at him. Telling me to say what I want is becoming his new mantra.
“I don’t go out looking for a fuck,” Olly says.
He might not start his nights looking for someone to share his bed, but someone always does. No one notices Olly without their thoughts turning carnal. He wears confidence and sexuality like a brand, promising he’s even better when sampled.
I sip my drink, the liquid warming my insides as it burns my throat. “What do you do then?”
He stares at me, and it’s moments like this I wish I could read him as easily as he reads me.
“I buy a drink,” he begins. “I make conversation. If there’s attraction, it progresses to flirting.”
Flirting… I can write a slow burn romance on paper, but in person, my tongue is thick and awkward, my mind a jumble of the worst pickup lines in history.
“How do I go from conversation to flirting?” I don’t want to end up with a third course outline from Professor Gibson tomorrow.
“Eye contact.”
“Staring?”
“Not in a creepy way.” Amusement dances behind his smile. “Just enough to show that you’re interested and listening.”
I think about the times I’d casually talk to Olly while glancing off at something in the distance only to look back and find his full attention on me. “You do that to me.”
“I like everything you say.”
There’s no hesitation, condescension, or false bravado in his words. Just truth.
My heart thumps in a rhythm I’m beginning to recognize as an Olly arrhythmia—a very nonplatonic heartbeat.
“Then what?” I ask, needing to redirect my thoughts.
“If the conversation is flowing, you lean a little closer.” As he offers the advice, his head tilts closer to mine. “If they don’t pull away, it’s a good sign.”
We’re so close now the toasted caramel scent of his beer rolls off his tongue and onto mine. “Of what?”
“That you are getting lucky.”
His lids lower, and his eyes drop to my lips, only for a second, but it’s enough to turn my mouth to dust.
His gaze lifts, finding mine. “Ready?”
Heartbeats smack so loudly it sounds like my heart is caged in my ear canal. “For what?”
“The show.”
Right… he’s my tutor tonight.
Olly leaves my side and moves to the other end of the bar. He orders a fresh drink and smiles at a guy sitting alone, quickly winning over the stranger.
Olly’s relaxed and charming nature makes seduction look as easy as breathing.
No wonder his bed is rarely empty.
My fingers itch to take notes like the diligent student I am, but as the stranger leans closer to my friend, a weird sensation scratches beneath my chest.
Suddenly, watching Olly go home with someone else doesn’t feel like a lesson I want to learn.
Olly looks up, holding my gaze, as he lifts a glass to his mouth slowly. The intensity rolling off him hits me even from the other side of the bar. Something about the look in his eye makes me think that the next time I watch a live porno, it won’t be through a video call.
