I’m a twenty-two-year-old woman and I feel thirteen right now—so out of my depth and awkward as hell.
“Also ... hi, it’s nice to meet you,” he says quietly, but his voice is so decadent, it makes me giggle before I immediately recover with a tiny head shake.
“Hey? Hi?”Why did I put a question mark at the end ... What is wrong with me?
Oliver motions like a gentleman for me to take the stairs as I whisper, “Oh my god,” under my breath.
I’m an idiot. This is so embarrassing. But being this close to him is making my head spin. He smells so good. And I want to cry over the way he fills out his crewneck.
I’m staring at the ground, fully aware of the fact that I have about ten seconds before I need to face him again, as I make my way up to the stage.
This is the only time I have to get it together. I cannot become a story he tells about some weirdo girl he was forced to kiss.
Come on, Rory, it’s not like you’ve never been around a hot guy. Lock in.
Although, technically he is the hottest man I’ve ever seen.
Still, I’m not exactly a troll. I’m hot. I candothis. I can use this moment ... make him remember the kiss of a lifetime.
We may not be soulmates, but I could still have a mention in the credits.
Yeah, I’m going to set the bar for kisses and make it hard for every other future bombshell who enters his villa.
That will be my drama class legacy.
Also, I really need to stop watching reality dating shows, the lingo’s infiltrating my vocabulary.
My face lifts from the ground, my gaze immediately taking in the romantic twinkle lights as I swallow hard, trying to gather all my confidence. So that when I turn around, I’m ready to be a sex kitten. A goddess.
Only problem, the god-of-love vision board set around this stage isn’t helping.
The spotlight’s just drilling light into center stage. The idea of standing under that is making me sweat.
This is awful.
And to add insult to injury, there’s a tiny voice in the back of my mind saying:Drop the paper and run. Just, like, duck, dive, and dodge off the stage.
I almost laugh to myself picturing it before I stop just outside the halo of light.
I’ve got this. Come on, me. Razzle-dazzle him.
Professor Tate rattles off some instructions that I’m not remotely listening to because this is it ... I’m going to turn around and look Oliver in the eyes and smile coyly and say ...Wait, what am I going to say?
Maybe I’ll start with something cheeky about R and J and Valentine’s Day ...
I’ll be like the girls in movies with hot guys like Jacob Elordi. Yeah, here we go ...
One . . .
Hold up, all those girls are goofballs, not goddesses.
Two . . .
Improv, think of something, dummy.
Three . . .
I turn casually, brushing my hair over my shoulder, immediately locking eyes with Oliver.
