And that was fine by her. She no longer felt like she had to be Kayleigh Mathers or Jessica Yates, to be attractive. She didn’t base her self-esteem on whether the Great Seth Brubaker deemed her acceptable to date.
It simply made sense, when he didn’t react to certain things about her.
Like when the top button on her jersey popped open, as she stood, revealing most of her cleavage. And he didn’t even glance at it. His eyes were firmly on her face when she said, “I think we should grab some dinner, you coming?”
Then they just flicked back to the laptop screen.
“Yeah, I’ll catch up. Just give me five minutes,” he said. As if by that point he was so disinterested, he wasn’t even concerned about her walking alone in the near dark.
First day we did this he wanted to get breakfast together, just in case those assholes did dare try something,she thought, as she tugged on her jacket, and pulled on her sneakers. But he still wasn’t looking up. It was like his eyes had been magnetized to the screen. She was starting to wonder if someone with boobs he did want to look at was on there.
Then just as she went for the door, she heard a sound.
A kind of long, keening whine that seemed to get louder and louder and louder. Until finally, blessedly, it broke. And suddenly, there was Seth, barking out words. “Okay, stop. I can’t stand it, just stop. Please. Don’t go out without me,” he said desperately. Like it was some kind of unbearable agony not to.
Though when she turned, he was still sitting at the table.
And he didn’t do anything to rectify that, as she stood there waiting.
“All right. So are you going to get up, or…”
“I can’t just yet. Gimme a minute.”
“But why? Are you in pain?”
He winced, which suggested he was. Though he didn’t exactly explain. “Something like that,” he said without looking at her. And that meant dragging it out of him, before he wound up dying of some other terrible thing he wasn’t telling her about.
“So then let me help you. Let me fix it.”
“No, you can’t fix this. It’ll go away. I just need to concentrate.”
“On what? Wishing the agony would leave? I have pain potions.”
She stepped to the potion shelf, and started gathering ones she could imagine him needing. Ache Healer seemed like a safe bet, she thought. And Muscle Relaxer was probably going to be of use. But just as she was getting to the pouring-into-a-spoon step, he stopped her.
“That’s not gonna help,” he said.
And she knew, as soon as he did, that she was not going to want to know what would. Though like a fool, she went ahead and asked anyway. “Give me one reason why not,” she demanded, all cockily. Hands on hips, and everything.
Then got this in return: “Because I am pretty sure that the magic equivalent of aspirin does nothing for giant erections that I have been desperately trying to keep my buddy from beholding with her poor innocent eyes, for what feels like a week.”
And oh god he was not kidding.
He was really not.
She could see that he wasn’t, because he stood as he said it. Andman, there was a lot to see. Too much, if she was being honest. She almost proved him right on that “poor innocent eyes” comment, by covering them. Before she managed to get hold of herself, and react sensibly.
“So what you are saying is you have just been sitting there with an erection for the last three days. Without even thinking that this might be worth mentioning to me at any point during that unhinged amount of time,” she said, as calmly as she could. While he quite clearly panicked, for no good reason she could think of.
“If I mention it, I have to explain why it happened,” he said.
“Well, you managed before.”
“Before, I had good-sounding reasons.”
She gave him a look. “And now the reasons are all really bad?”
“Well, they’re definitely getting worse, let’s put it that way.”
