His eyes narrowed. “Do you want my help or not?”
“I do!”
He captured my hand again. “Then listen to what I tell you.” He stroked a finger up the inside of my wrist, halfway to my elbow.
God, my breath was going haywire. “Iamlistening. But, um, if you want me to pay attention now, that’s a little distracting.”
He gave a small, satisfied smile. “I know. It’s effective.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be stroking Isaac’s arm,” I said over my embarrassingly short breaths.
“Maybe not at first. But you have to get comfortable enough to not bolt out of your chair whenever someone touches or compliments you.”
“Exposure therapy?”
He laughed. “Pretty much. Now. Say something nice to me, and try to sound like you mean it.”
Right. “Okay. Um. Your eyes are incredibly blue.” I waited, nervous, for a response, and when he gave me none, I kept babbling. “Like a... like a lake in the summertime.”
His mouth twisted up. “Not bad. It sounds like the words are being pried out of you, though. Not like you want to kiss me.”
“Idon’twant to kiss you!”
He gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “You want to kiss Isaac, don’t you?”
Yes. The amount of times I had imagined somehow, somewhere, kissing Isaac, having all his serious, intense concentration focused on me... It was worth it, all this discomfort, if I could make Isaac notice me. But Isaac wasn’t like Tyler; he wasn’t flippant and focused on hooking up and partying. “I don’t think Isaac’s the kind of guy where complimenting his eyes will work.”
Tyler stopped running his finger up and down my forearm. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. He’s not shallow?” I let my head fall back in dismay. “Isn’t there a way to make him fall madly in love with me without having to, I don’t know, talk?” Had I honestly thoughtI’d be able to reinvent myself as a seductress in a few short days? I yanked my hand out of Tyler’s and repositioned myself on the couch so I was farther away, my back against the couch arm, my legs between us. “This is never going to work.”
Tyler looked, of all things, a touch put out. “What’s so special about this guy? Why is he worth all this effort?”
“I told you. He’s smart. He’s ambitious. He’s... he’s basically perfect.”
“Everyone seems perfect when you don’t know them. You can imagine they have whatever qualities you want because they haven’t had a chance to prove otherwise.”
My brows shot up. “I like him, okay?”
“He seems like a lot of work.”
“Um,anyonewould be a lot of work for me. Isaac is worth it.”
“Right.” He looked away, breathing a little harder than before. “Okay, then.”
I looked away, too, at the sun glinting on the snow outside, at the slide of water down the icicles, the droplets falling off the points. “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “I mean, I know I agreed to introduce you to my great-uncle. But I didn’t really expect you to... follow through.”
He flashed me a smile, the one I’d started to notice as being his charming, overexposed one. “It’s an interesting challenge, playing Professor Higgins.”
“Who?”
“My Fair Lady? Eliza Doolittle? Audrey Hepburn?” At each shake of my head, he sighed. “It’s an old movie where a professor trains a flower girl to act like a lady.”
“Wow, rude much.”
He grinned. “And I guess—” He stopped.
“What?”
