“Okay. So you’d be more into this if I was also into it? Because for the record, I think you’re hot, and I’m very happy to sit here holding your hand.”
“Tyler!”
He looked startled by my shout. “What!”
“Don’tflirtwith me! We don’t like each other!”
He started laughing while I stared at him, appalled. “Sorry—sorry,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “I forgot. You’re right. The only flirting allowed is businesslike flirting. No sincere compliments or anything else.”
An unexpected giggle made its way out of me, and I didn’t think of myself as a giggler. “When you put it that way...”
He put his hand over his heart and looked up at me like a Pre-Raphaelite knight swearing allegiance to his lady. “On my honor, I’ll never flirt with you again.”
“Stop it.” I gave his shoulder a little push. “Okay, fine. You can, I suppose, say flirty things if youneedto, for training purposes.”
“Thank you. I’m really honored that you’ll let me do this thing you asked me to do.” He grinned, and another laugh escaped me. “All right, next up—conversation. I’d go with asking a lot of questions and scattering in some compliments.”
Right. Knowing how to have a conversation with boys without freezing up entirely seemed important. “One sec.” I pulled my hand out of his and opened the Notes app on my phone.Eye contact, body angled, compliments, questions.
“You’re taking notes?”
I flushed. “I want to get this right.”
“You’re a dedicated student.”
“Practice makes perfect.” You didn’t get anywhere in life without putting in your ten thousand hours. Or maybe some people did, the naturals in life. Tyler probably never had topracticegetting people to like him. But I did. I could be good at piano, at skating, maybe—god help me—at flirting, but only if I studied the hell out of it.
“Right. Which means you actually have to practice. Put your phone down and give me your hand again. And look at me.”
Phone down. Hand in his. Eyes locked. Could he feel my pulse? Could he tell he made my mouth dry? Of course he could; he knew he was brilliant at this.
He studied me so intently I forgot to be embarrassed. “You have beautiful eyes.”
I swallowed, and it did little to help my parched throat. I could feel my heartbeat in my neck, the rush of blood in my ears. This was a game. A lesson. Give people compliments. Nothing more. “Okay.”
He smiled slightly. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”
“This isn’t real, though.”
“No, it’s practice. And you need to practice not going on the defensive.”
I wanted to strike back at him and only barely realized that would be cutting off my nose to spite my face. I managed a tiny nod.
“And youdohave beautiful eyes. What color are they?”
“Um.” I pushed some of my hair behind my ear and tried to sound measured. “I’m not going on the defensive, but you don’t have to go this hard. Especially since no one’s going tosay anything about my eyes, because obviously they’re brown.”
“No.” He leaned closer. With our hands clasped between us, it felt like we existed in a small intimate circle, possibly also because my vision had narrowed into a tunnel and I couldn’t see beyond him. “They’re a little orange at the center.”
A flare of surprise and pleasure jolted through me. No one had ever commented on the tiny orange flecks, an inheritance from Grandma. Then again, no one had ever looked into my eyes so deeply. “Oh.”
“I’ve never seen anything like them.”
This was too much. I pulled my hand out of his, hard. I felt flustered and hot and uncomfortable, the exact opposite of what this exercise was supposed to establish. “That’s overkill.”
He sat back. “That’s flirting.”
“I’m not going to sit down next to Isaac and start talking about his eyes. There must be some sort of lead-in we’re missing.”
