“I read that part a lot purely for research purposes,” he snapped, and suddenly it all became clear. He had definitely not been reading that part a lot for research purposes. He’d been reading for enjoying it purposes. Sexy purposes. Maybe even using whatever he had in that drawer purposes.
Though she tried not to think about that too much. She focused on what it proved. “Yeah, and the research shows a lot of women like that. I mean, these books wouldn’t be popular if they didn’t.”
“Yeah, but is someone like you one of them?”
No, she internally screamed. Though she was getting better at dodging now.
“If you told me exactly who it is you want to impress I could say for sure,” she said. Only he seemed to stiffen when she did. His eyes slid down and to one side. Then he waved a hand at her, and made a sound likepfffffttt.
“You wouldn’t know her. She lives in another town. Far away. In Canada,” he said. As if he was on to her, somehow. He didn’t want to say too much, in case she used the information to torpedo his true love.
Even though she would never have done anything of the kind.
“Okay, you don’t want me to know. That’s cool. I’ll just keep going on my best estimations. And my estimation here is that yes, a woman like me would like a big Viking with lots of hair on his chest and those arms and that belly,” she said. But somehow it didn’t help.
“Okay, now I know you’re just being nice. The belly is the wrong shape.”
“Not to me it isn’t. And you have to believe me on that, because I like what I have, and mine is round, too. In fact, if anything, it’s rounder, and softer. All of me is rounder and softer. Do you think I look bad?” She raised an eyebrow. Turned, so he could see the exact way her tummy bloomed under her soft little pleated skirt. Every bit of her knowing that he’d be kind, in the way she wanted him to be kind to himself. But none of her expecting the way his eyes dropped to the hand she had on her hip. To that curve. To the way she cocked her little stocking-covered leg, in a way that came very close to sliding that skirt high enough to see the top of it.
And he kept staring at all of this as he answered.
“No, because all of that looks awesome on y—on a woman,” he said.
Then he seemed to shake himself. He straightened, looking sheepish.
And of course she knew what that meant. It made perfect sense, considering he’d picked her to help him compare and contrast and base all his best dating practices on. “So you like curvy girls, then.”
“That should be obvious.”
“Big, round butts and plump boobs.”
“Don’t talk about your round butt and plump boobs to me. Never mention round butts and plump boobs again. Just focus on less mortifying things, like picking a reasonable date outfit for me. Because I gotta tell you, I’ve worn shirts nicer than this. And nobody looked at me like I was a guy on a date.”
“Okay, so which shirt did you wear last time you went on one?”
“I don’t even know what you mean byone, here. Like, as in—”
“As in the last time you went to dinner with somebody.”
She carried on rummaging after she spoke. So it took her a while to realize he hadn’t replied. That he was just silent, very silent, suddenly and in a way that didn’t suggest he was considering the last disastrous dinner he had. He was considering something else, something she should have guessed, but somehow hadn’t.
It seemed impossible, preposterous.
But she said it anyway.
“You’ve never actually been to dinner with anyone, have you,” she said, without looking around the closet door. She spoke to the shirt in her hands—an inexplicable Hawaiian one with pink palm fronds all over it. Soft as butter, and so strangely sweet smelling she wanted to plunge her face into it.
Only him answering stopped her.
“Everybody in town senses how weird I am. Who would I go to dinner with?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. There must be somebody. There has to be.”
“Well, I have no clue why there does. In fact I thought I was pretty clear there wasn’t. We talked about this, like, a bunch of times. I told you how much I didn’t know anything about any of this sh—stuff.”
“Yeah, but I thought it was just like with me. That things just went wrong.”
“Honestly, I wish I’d gotten to the going wrong part. That’d be something,” he said, all brusque and kind of mad at himself about it. She could almost see him shaking his head. While she stood there, breath caught somewhere around her throat. Because did this mean that he was—
