Page 114 of How to Win the Girl

“A few weeks ago, he needed me to go to that Mass Comm class for him. He’s been workin’ on this project for somethin’ else and didn’t want to stop doin’ what he was doin’—so I went for him. And that’s the night I met you, remember? You weren’t too keen on me, but I could’ve given a shit, right? My head wasn’t on flirtin’. It was just me tryin’ to take notes for him.” He lets out a long breath. “Then when I got home that night, I put the app on my phone, entered all his information ’cause I was gonna find him a few dates. Innocent. I meant no harm by it.” Drake pauses. “Shit, I sound like such an asshole.”

“You don’t sound like an asshole.” I mean, it wasn’t the most honest thing to do, but the intentions were good.

“I think I told you the only reason I had swiped on you was because I thought you were such a bitch when we were in class, and I wanted to see how you would react or if you’d swipe back on my brother.”

The admission makes me laugh. “Yeah, I wasn’t a fan. Actually, I have no idea why I swiped on you, too, because I thought you weresucha dick.”

“You were still a stranger. In my mind, I was going to hit it out of the ballpark for Drew and hook him up with a hot, decent chick, and he’d go on a date with you and the rest would be history.”

Hot, decent chick?

Ha.

“But that’s not how it worked out?” I’m trying to encourage him to continue telling me what I already know.

“No, that’s not how it worked out.” He mulls his words over, chewing on the corner of his lip. “You know. This isn’t what I thought was going to happen.”

That much is clear. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“I knew you were a nice girl, and it’s obvious that you’re beautiful. And funny. You make a really good match for my brother.”

The words,Good match for his brother, ring in my ears, along withbeautifulandfunny.

A light inside the house goes on—the one above the kitchen sink. Gabby is home and most likely spent most of the evening in her room, thumbing through TikTok and Instagram and creeping on her ex-girlfriend the way she usually does when she’s not at work.

I peel my eyes away to refocus on Drake…

…who still has not admitted his own identity.

“Which brother?” I ask him, point blank.

He regards me in the dark, across the dimly lit cab of the truck. “Drew.”

“Ah.”

Whoop, there it is.

“I didn’t mean to lie.” It seems as if he’s struggling with being vulnerable and telling me how he feels. Explaining away the other stuff is easy; it’s thefeelingspart that he seems to be fighting.

“I’ve never been in a relationship,” he confesses after another stretch of silence.

“Never?”

“No. Not really. It…” Drake clears his throat. “Kind of runs in the family.”

Runs in the family? “How?”

“So my dad was—let’s see, how do I put this?” His fingers resume tapping on the bend in his knee, and his leg shakes. “He cheated on my mom. Obviously, he tried hidin’ it, but with the media attention and all that, it was kind of impossible to. One time, this woman came forward and said she was pregnant, and he was the daddy, and my mom just…” Drake bends his head. “She didn’t take it well.”

I don’t suppose she did. Most women don’t, not even ones with steel spines.

“Duke always preached to us about gold-diggers and sleepin’ with girls who hung around outside the stadium after games and wearin’ condoms so we didn’t get anyone knocked up, and well—we took it to heart, Dallas, Drew, and I. None of us wanted to end up like our daddy.”

“Cheating isn’t genetic.”

“You have no fuckin’ idea how embarrassin’ it was seeing my family in the news because my father couldn’t keep his dick in his pants around other women.”

“You’re right—I don’t. But I know that your brothers seem like good people, and they’ve all managed to find themselves healthy relationships, yeah?”

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