Page 66 of How to Lose at Love

fourteen

ryann

“I’m single because I’m overqualified.”

– Ryann Winters

“What the hellwas that all about?”

“What waswhatall about?” I play dumb, knowing exactly what he’s talking about, but I refuse to give in to him that easy.

“The touching. The rubbing.” Dallas levels me with a glare. “You sniffed my neck.”

I shrug, plopping down on his bed. “So? You sniffed my hair.”

His mouth opens and closes. “You’re just going to lie there like that?”

“Lie here like what?” I fan my arms out and spread my legs so I look like I’m making a snow angel in the center of his bed. “Like this?”

Dallas stands over me, gawking like a guppy.

I delight in this new discovery—that big, tough Dallas Colter has no idea what to do with me. Not outside, not in the kitchen, not while I’m in his bedroom. The man-child who pretends to be confident and in control is floundering, and Lord help me, I’m loving every second of it.

My arms and legs flap.

“Knock it off, you’re makin’ a mess of my bed.”

Dallas takes a seat at his desk while I take up the space on his bed, leaning toward the nightstand so I can grab the remote control for the television mounted on the wall, pointing it at the screen and hitting POWER.

He tears open his bag of chips.

“What do you suppose they’re doing down there?” I muse out loud.

“Nothin’.” He pauses. “Eatin’ and drinkin’.”

“Flirting.” I crawl across the bed and stick my hand into the bag in his hands without an invitation, grabbing a handful and popping one into my mouth. “Also, those girls are definitely wondering what’s going on in here.”

They were shocked to see me standing in that kitchen, that’s for sure.

Probably online, hunting down all my social media. Stalking me, looking for clues.

“Well, the good news is,” I say after lots of crunching, “they definitely fell for our little act.”

We won’t talk about the thoughts going through my head when I pressed my body against his to smell him, put my nose against the throbbing vein in his neck to see how he’d react…we won’t.

No, sir, we will not.

And I won’t be mentioning it to Winnie, either. She would die.

Plus, Dallas asked me not to.

“You can’t be doing shit like that,” he announces, spinning his chair in my direction, legs spread wide as he leans forward and props his elbows on his knees.

I try not to look directly at his crotch.

“Doing shit like what? Smelling you?”

“Yes.”

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