Page 67 of How to Lose at Love

I nod slowly, trying to wipe the satisfied smile off my face. “Got it. I won’t smell you and you won’t smell me.” I pause. “Smelling leads to no good.”

That gets his attention. “How does smellin’ lead to no good?”

“Smelling and massages almost always lead to sex, so it’s a good idea to steer clear.”

“If that ain’t the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

My arms are folded behind my head as I settle in to watch a reality dating show. “Don’t believe me?”

“I don’t.”

“Suit yourself.”

Dallas only sits there for a few moments before he pulls his phone out of his pocket and begins tapping away at the screen.

“You better not be Googling it,” I warn. “We’ve already established that you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t. But now I have to prove you’re wrong.”

“That won’t be difficult.” I laugh. “I made it up.”

Dumbass.

Dallas tosses his phone onto the bed, and it lands next to me with a thump.

“Why are you like this?” he wants to know, frustrated and digging into the chips.

“I’m trying to help you, remember? Someone has to bring you down to earth.” Then, because I simply cannot help myself, I add, “I feel like your little sister.”

“My little…” His words trail off. “Sister.”

“Yeah.” I yawn, oblivious. “Don’t you feel like my older brother?”

I know he doesn’t. I felt his entire body go still when I pressed my boobs into his chest down in the kitchen. I felt his body twitch as I sniffed him, felt him shiver when I ran my hand over his waist and rested it on his ribs.

I wasn’t born yesterday.

Which is why it’s so much darn fun to tease him.

Nothing to lose, nothing to gain.

I don’t know what I was expecting Dallas to say, but it wasn’t the short, clipped “No, I don’t feel like your goddamn brother,” he mutters through clenched teeth.

Beside me on the bed, his phone buzzes.

I grab it and hand it to him.

He clears his throat, reading out loud. “Yo, since we have a bye week, Schneider is throwing a kegger Friday. Tell everyone.” He looks up, tossing the phone back onto the bed. “You free this weekend?”

“I…” I am. I don’t normally work nights, and even if I do, it’s never very late, not even when they’re in a bind, unless I’m covering someone’s shift. “What about Diego?”

He and I haven’t bumped into one another since our last date, which was at least two weeks ago, and we haven’t been in contact since he canceled the next date we had, which resulted in Dallas showing up at my job.

“What about him?”

I gape. “Won’t he… Won’t it be weird if we show up at a party together after he and I just broke up? And you’re the one who broke up with me?”

Those long legs of Dallas’s pivot his desk chair. “Considerin’ you weren’t physical and you were only justdatin’? No, it wouldn’t be weird. And if he’s got a problem, it will be my problem, not yours.”

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