Page 54 of How to Lose at Love

Get your ass down there then.

Too late. There’s a hesitant tapping at my door; it seems to glide open of its own volition. Then Ryann is standing there in her hat and mittens and, “Dude, why are you so bundled up? It’s not like it’s squallin’ out there.”

Ryann ignores me, plopping down into my desk chair and twirling in it toward the window.

“Cute room.”

Cute room? There’s nothing cute about my room and she knows it. Gray walls, gray bed, black furniture. It’s masculine, and I found most of it on the curb last year after everyone on campus was throwing out the shit they didn’t want.

Look at me, saving the environment by living sustainably! Ha.

“So.” Ryann crosses her arms and her legs, looking ridiculous in her bulky jacket. “Let’s cut to the chase.”

“Er. Want to take that coat off first? It’s distracting me.”

“How ismycoat distractingyou?”

“You don’t look comfortable.”

“What do you care?” she volleys back.

“I don’t.”

“Then why’d you bring it up?”

“Are you always this argumentative?”

Ryann removes one of her mittens and tosses it on my desk. Holds up one finger. “One, you invited me over.” She holds up a second finger. “Two, you’re the one who’s distracted by my jacket—not me. How does that make me the argumentative one?”

She raises a very valid point.

“Fine. Never mind.”

Laughing, she spins around in my desk chair for the second time, removing the other mitten as she does.

“Never-you-mind is right.” She sighs, plucking the hat off her head and setting it on top of her mittens. Ryann goes about smoothing her hair, the flyaways, hand running down the long layers. Her fingers rake through it like a comb, and I hadn’t realized how long it was until this moment, mostly ’cause I’m trapped in my bedroom with her.

And the color…

Not black but not brown. No idea how I’d describe it, and I have no idea why I’m bothering to try considering it hardly matters what she looks like or what color her hair is. Or her eyes. Or the fact that she has freckles across the bridge of her nose.

She’s not freezing cold for once.

That’s the only reason you’re noticing this shit, Dallas, I tell myself.

Obviously, Ryann Winters is attractive—it’s not as if I hadn’t noticed she’s cute. I have eyes, don’t I? But if we’re comparing her to the chicks next door, it’s an entirely different kind of attractive.

Is it?

Or is it the fact that you’ve only ever seen her bundled up?

Whereas I’ve seen the neighbor girls in bikinis, for fuck’s sake. They’re such thirst traps…

Stop.

Focus.

Black leggings peek out of the bottom of her coat, high gray socks yanked up mid-calf. She’s removed whatever shoes or boots she had on to be polite, but she needn’t have bothered because the last time my brothers or I cleaned the floors or swept was never.

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