Page 18 of The Dating Pact

And I didn’t know if I was allowed to think that. If I even should think that.

I shook my drink can to see if it had any water left inside. It didn’t. Which was unfortunate because my mouth was as dry as the Sahara. So instead of answering verbally, I held my thumb up, and she grinned, twisting away from me once more. She fingered a few pieces of jewelry hanging on a tree-like thing on her dresser. “So, tell me what’s going on? Why don’t you have a date yet?”

“I don’t know,” I grumped, and she glanced over her shoulder at me.

I didn’t like how her brows drew down, like she could tell that I wasn’t being honest.

That I had a hard time keeping my gaze off her ass in those jeans.

She slid a few bracelets on her wrist. “Are you getting matched?”

“Yeah.”

She rolled her hand in the air, motioning for more.

“I’m not so great at talking.”

“Since when?” She poked the tiny bee earrings I’d given her into her earlobes. We didn’t often give each other gifts, but when I’d spotted those at a craft market last year, I’d bought them immediately.

I sighed, suddenly not quite comfortable talking about this with her. “I’m bad at messaging with them. It’s awkward.”

After draping a long necklace with a turquoise pendant around her neck, she returned to her closet to fetch a pair of tan sandals with thick soles. Fully outfitted, she posed with her hand on her hip. “How do I look?”

Hot.

She looked hot.

She didn’t need the makeup, but the smoky eyes and glossy lipstick plus the clothes… Damn, she was a bombshell.

I cleared my throat. “Great.”

Satisfied, she sat next to me on her bed, holding her palm up. “Lemme see.”

“What?”

“The messages. Lemme see what they say.”

I opened up the app then handed my phone over before scooting Dorothy off my lap. She stuck her tail up, obviously miffed at being pushed aside.

Brooke scrolled for a few seconds, and I definitely did not let my eyes dip down to the dark arrow of her cleavage. Didn’t think twice about how her thigh touched mine. Or how she smelled so good.

Nope.

None of the above.

“Oh my god,” she snickered. “It’s like you’ve never flirted before.”

I dropped my head back, glowering up at the ceiling. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“That you’ve never flirted?”

“I was a fifteen-year-old kid the last time I flirted.”

She breathed deeply and audibly through her nose then moved even closer to me, her shoulder, hip, and leg right up against mine. She held out my cell phone so we could both see it. “What about her? Melissa?”

We had matched but had yet to start a conversation, so Brooke began typing. “Pretend like you’re talking to them in person. Whatever you’d say to their face, write it here.”

She tilted the screen so I could read her first message to my next match. Hey, Melissa! Love your profile picture. Looks like Italy, is that right?

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