“Of course I could,” I said confidently.
“Oh yeah?” Mark crossed his arms. “Give me your best shot.”
“Okay, the best opening line of all time is, What’s your favorite dinosaur?”
“What kind of question is that?” Mark retorted.
“An awesome one. So what’s your favorite dinosaur?”
“Velociraptor,” Mark said without missing a beat. “What’s yours?”
“Easy. Pachycephalosaurus.”
Mark frowned.
“FromTheLand Before Time? Duh! Honestly, you can’t ask questions like that if you can’t even name dinosaurs.”
“Velociraptors are far superior.”
“I made a sexy velociraptor costume once,” I blurted out.
“What, why? How does that even work?”
“It was for a Halloween contest. A lot of people just do straight-up bras and panties with a tail, but I went above and beyond!” I bragged. “See,” I said, flipping to the photo on my phone. “I made a skimpy catsuit with the holes in the pattern of reptile skin. You can’t tell me that this isn’t more reptilian than a stupid bra and panties with a tail tacked on like some ‘seamstresses’ did. I totally should have won the costume contest,” I said, zooming in on the picture so that Mark could fully appreciate the detailing on the outfit. “I had to have a friend sew me into it too.”
Mark made a strangled noise. It was then that I realized that Mark probably was not, in fact, impressed by the intricate lacing I’d done to make a pattern and was instead more than likely concentrating on the barely-there bodysuit that scarcely covered my tits and had a stripe down each leg that dissipated into a thin lace pattern on the outsides of my thighs. It was also obvious that I was not wearing anything in the way of undergarments.
Mark swallowed.
“Er—it’s, ah, crazy that I didn’t win, right? It’s um…” I shoved the phone back in my bag. “It’s pretty wild.”
Marks eyes had a sort of glazed look, but it wasn’t bored glazed.
It IS boredom, I told myself furiously, because I didn’t think I could handle it being anything else.
10
Mark
Why had Brea showed me that image?
“Did you meet anyone?” Finn asked me.
Why was Brea even there?
“Hellooo?”
“What?”
“Did you meet the love of your life at the speed dating yesterday?” Finn joked.
Don’t think about that picture.
“No,” I said gruffly and turned back to my computer to try and fail to work.
“You didn’t get a single number?” Finn prodded, settling on the edge of my desk.
“I don’t need a collection of phone numbers from a bunch of gold diggers.”
