Page 60 of Fundamentals in Flirting

What’s the worst that could happen?

He’d already judged me to be a social pariah. Or an idiot.

I can only go up in his estimation, right? And does it really matter what he thinks of me anyway?

Right. Shit. Ok, here goes.

“No, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s teaching me how to be nice to other people, in an attempt to stop me being perceived as prickly.”

Without missing a beat he replied, “It’s not working.”

I snorted with laughter and watched as the ghostly hint of a smile twitched over his lips.

“My lessons have only just started – this is my first test.”

“It shows.”

“I’m trying to make people like me.”

Oscar took a sip of his wine. “If I tell you I like you, will you stop talking to me?”

“Yes, I promise.” I hesitantly went to shake his hand, which he clasped firmly but briefly. “And might I suggest that you enrol in Ted’s people-skills masterclass? It might help you with your facial expression. And your conversational ability. I’m sure he’d take you on – he loves a challenge.”

At this Oscar laughed – actually laughed – his features lighting up and changing to something almost angelic, warm, and open.

“Fine, Hannah. I find you to be a faintly likeable human being.”

“Thank you. Do you want me to put a word in for you with Ted??”

Teddy was coming back towards us with two glasses, smiling and chatting with people as he went.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt, actually…” Oscar murmured, a hint of something troubling flashing behind his eyes before a mask of cold indifference shuttered down over his face again.

“Should we mingle, Hannah?” Teddy asked, handing me a glass of Pimm’s complete with bobbing fruit and a straw.

My returning look of horror must have been like the white mask from theScreamfilms because our little group collectively gave me a sympathetic nod, and Clara reached out to touch my arm.

But it was Oscar who spoke. “I have to say, despite your very unusual and direct approach, you are not at all prickly, and we most definitely shouldn’t keep your unique and amusing conversational skills to ourselves.”

He took a sip of wine and Clara and Henry stared at him agog. He merely shrugged, hiding a small smile behind his glass.

ChapterNineteen

“Making friends?” Teddy enquired as we crunched down a gravel path lit with candles in glass jars and strings of fairy lights above our heads.

“Oscar has the same affliction as I do.”

“In what way?”

Teddy touched his hand to the small of my back and ushered me through an archway in a privet hedge and out onto a large lawned area, where people were milling around and a string quartet was playing.

“He doesn’t like people or socialising. I was instinctively drawn to him.”

“Were you?” His voice had become a bit gravelly.

“Yes, and turns out that making conversation by insulting someone can actually work – who knew?”

“You insulted him?” Teddy spluttered, starting to laugh.

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