“So,” she said, “what’s on the lesson plan for tonight?”
“I sort of thought we should talk about...well, talking.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are ways that women talk to men they want to date. I thought I might walk you through flirting.”
“You’re going to show me how to flirt?”
“Somebody has to.”
“I can probably figure it out,” she said.
“You think?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and rocking back on his heels.
His clear skepticism stoked the flames of her temper, which was lurking very close to the surface after last night. That was kind of her default. Don’t know how to handle something? Don’t know what you feel? Get angry at it.
“Come on. Men and women have engaged in horizontal naked kickboxing for millennia. I’m pretty sure flirting is a natural instinct.”
“You’re a poet, Anna,” he said, his tone deadpan.
“No, I’m a tractor mechanic,” she said.
“Yeah, and you talk like one, too. If you want to get an actual date, and not just a quick tumble in the back of a guy’s truck, you might want to refine your art of conversation a little.”
“Who says I’m opposed to a quick rough tumble in the back of some guy’s truck?”
“You’re not?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting upward.
“Well, in all honesty I would probably prefer my truck, since it’s clean. I know where it’s been. But why the hell not? I have needs.”
He scowled. “Right. Well, keep that kind of talk to yourself.”
“Does it make you uncomfortable to hear about my needs, Chase?” she asked, not quite sure why she was poking at him. Maybe because she felt so unsettled. She was kind of enjoying the fact that he seemed to be, as well. Really, it wouldn’t be fair if after last night he felt nothing at all. If he had been able to one-up her and then walk away as though nothing had happened.
“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable. It’s just unnecessary information. Now, talking about your needs is probably something you shouldn’t do with a guy, either.”
“Unless I want him to fulfill those needs.”
“You said you wanted to date. You want the kind of date who can go to these functions with you, right?”
“It’s moot. You’re going with me.”
“This time. But be honest, don’t you want to be able to go out with guys who belong in places like that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, feeling uncomfortable.
Truth be told, she wasn’t all that comfortable thinking about her needs. Emotional, physical. Frankly, if it went beyond her need for a cheeseburger, she didn’t really know how to deal with it. She hadn’t dated in years. And she had been fine with that. But the truth of the matter was the only reason Mark and Daniel had managed to get to her when they had made this bet was that she was beginning to feel dissatisfied with her life.
She was starting a new business. She was assuming a new position in the community. She didn’t just want to be Anna Brown, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. She didn’t just want to be the tomboy mechanic for the rest of her life. She wanted...more. It had been fine, avoiding relationships all this time, but she was thirty now. She didn’t really want to be by herself. She didn’t want to be alone forever.
Dear Lord, she was having an existential crisis.
“Fine,” she said, “it might be nice to have somebody to date.”
Marriage, family—she had no idea how she felt when it came to those things. But a casual relationship... That might be nice. Yes. That might be nice.
Last night, she had gone home and gotten under a blanket and watched an old movie. Sometimes, Chase watched old movies with her, but he did not get under the blankets with her. It would be nice to have a guy to be under the blanket with. Somebody to go home to. Or at least someone to call to come over when she couldn’t sleep. Someone she could talk to, make out with. Have sex with.
“Fine,” she said. “I will submit to your flirting lessons.”
“All the girls submit to me eventually,” he said, winking.
Something about that made her stomach twist into a knot. “Talking about too much information...”
“There,” he said, “that was almost flirting.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Was it?”
“Yes. We had a little bit of back and forth. There was some innuendo.”
“I didn’t make innuendo on purpose,” she said.
“No. That’s the best kind. The kind you sort of walk into. It makes you feel a little dangerous. Like you might say the wrong thing. And if you go too far, they might walk away. But if you don’t go far enough, they might not know that you want them.”
She let out a long, frustrated growl. “Dating is complicated. I hate it. Is it too late for me to become a nun?”
“You would have to convert,” he pointed out.
“That sounds like a lot of work, too.”
“You can be pleasant, Anna. You’re fun to talk to. So that’s all you have to do.”
“Natural to me is walking up to a hot guy and saying, ‘Do you want to bone or what?’” As if she’d ever done that. As if she ever would. It was just...she didn’t really know how to go about getting a guy to hook up with her any other way. She was a direct kind of girl. And nothing between men and women seemed direct.
“Fine. Let’s try this,” he said, grabbing a chair and pulling it up to her workbench before taking a seat.
She took hold of the back of the other folding chair in the space and moved it across from his, positioning herself so that she was across from him.
“What are you drinking?” he asked.
She laughed. “A mai tai.” She had never had one of those. She didn’t even know what it was.
“Excellent. I’m having whiskey, straight up.”
“That sounds like you.”
“You don’t know what sounds like me. You don’t know me.”
Suddenly, she got the game. “Right. Stranger,” she said, then winced internally, because that sounded a little bit more Mae West in her head, and just kind of silly when it was out of her mouth.
“You here with anyone?”
“I could be?” she said, placing her elbow on the workbench and tilting her head to the side.
“You should try to toss your hair a little bit. I dated this girl Elizabeth who used to do that. It was cute.”
“How does touching my hair accomplish anything?” she asked, feeling irritated that he had brought another woman up. Which was silly, because the only reason he was qualified to give her these lessons was that he had dated a metric ton of women.
So getting mad about the thing that was helping her right now was a little ridiculous. But she was pretty sure they had passed ridiculous a couple of days ago.
“I don’t know. It’s cute. It looks like you’re trying to draw my attention to it. Like you want me to notice.”
“Which...lets you know that I want you in my pants?”
He frowned. “I guess. I never broke it down like that before. But that stands to reason.”
She reached up, sighing as she flicked a strand of her hair as best she could. It was tied up in a loose bun and had fallen partway thanks to the intensity of the day’s physical labor. Still, she had a feeling she did not look alluring. She had a feeling she looked like she’d been caught in a wind turbine and spit out the other end.
“Are you new in town?”
“I’m old in town,” she said, mentally kicking herself again for being lame on the return volley.
“That works, too,” Chase said, not skipping a beat. Yeah, there was a reason the man had never struck out before.
She started to chew on her lip, trying to think of what to say next.
“Don’t chew a hole through it,” he said, smiling and reaching across the space, brushing his thumb over the place her teeth had just grazed.
And everything in her stopped dead. His touch ignited her nerve endings, sending a brush fire down her veins and all through her body.
She hadn’t been this ridiculous over Chase since she was sixteen years old. Since then, she had mostly learned to manage it.
She pulled away slightly, her chair scraping against the floor. She laughed, a stilted, unnatural sound. “I won’t,” she said, her voice too loud.
“If you’re going to chew on your lip,” he said, “don’t freak out when the guy calls attention to it or touches you. It looks like you’re doing it on purpose, so you should expect a comment.”
“Duh,” she said, “I was. That was...normal.”
She wanted to crawl under the chair.
“There was this girl Miranda that I—”
“Okay.” She cut him off, growing more and more impatient with the comparisons. “I’m old in town, what about you?”
“I’ve been around.”
“I bet you have been,” she said.
“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take that,” he said, flashing her a lopsided grin.
“Right,” she said, “because I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” he said. “I think you actually need to feel some chemistry with somebody if flirting’s going to work.”