Page 13 of Bodied

He seemed to consider her question carefully. “Smitten? Yes. In a relationship with the person I was smitten with? No.”

“Can you imagine what it would be like to be in a relationship with that person?” Lauren asked.

Again, he paused to think. At least he was taking the conversation seriously. Maybe he wasn’t a lost cause after all. Finally, he answered, “Not really. I don’t really do relationships. No time for it, you know?”

Typical. “Mm-hmm,” Lauren said, folding her arms over her chest. “Okay, I think I know your type. Too cool for love.”

He shook his head and sat down on the couch. “More like not cool enough. I’ve watched other relationships fall apart, and there’s no way I could function in my career during the kind of train wreck I saw my parents deal with. It’s better to have a stable life.”

“Huh…” She sat down next to him but as far away as she could get on the same couch. “I didn’t figure you for a risk-averse person. Your job itself sort of defies that, doesn’t it?”

“Some risks are more necessary than others.”

“So love is unnecessary?”

He doubled over and dropped his face in his hands with a clearly irritated sigh. “Look, this… therapy session — or whatever this is supposed to be — is just a massive waste of time. If you want me to act like a boyfriend, then you need to be specific about how a boyfriend acts. Like, when am I supposed to put my arm around you? How often should I hold your hand? Am I supposed to dote on you, or just be the strong, supportive type? Is kissing involved or just hugs?” He sat up and leaned back into the couch. “This is ridiculous. I need some ground rules.”

“Fine.” She crossed her legs on her couch and held a throw pillow in her lap. “We’ll compromise. A few ground rules with a touch of improv sprinkled in from time to time. So, rule number one: no kissing. It worked inPretty Woman. Now you think of one.”

“Okay. You need to tell me when to improv. Don’t expect me to just read the room. I am room illiterate. Got it?”

She laughed. “Got it.” For some reason, his vulnerability and befuddlement was endearing to her right now. It was possible that last glass of champagne she’d had was getting to her. He was cuter now that she could see beneath the mask he always seemed to wear. Somewhere inside him there was a real person fighting to get out. She’d just have to dig for it if she was going to get a remotely believable performance out of him. “Anything else?”

He thought a moment. “Rule number three: I get to add rules whenever I see fit.”

Lauren laughed again, and she could have sworn she saw a little color in his cheeks. Then again, maybe it was just her imagination. “Okay,” she began. “First lesson in improv. If you’ve never been in a situation similar to the one we’re trying to recreate, maybe you could try to imagine one.”

“Imagine one?”

“Yeah.” She stood up and began to pace again. “Imagine yourself in high school or something.” She paused and reconsidered her scenario. “You… did go to high school. Didn’t you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

“So, you probably were crushing on someone there. Some cheerleader or something. Just picture her in your mind.”

By the smile that suddenly appeared on his face, she could tell he was feeling more confident about gaining the upper hand. “Assuming my crush is aher, are you?”

“Oh!” And the upper hand was suddenly his. “Oops. I mean, I just thought… I didn’t mean to assume… I mean, I should have…” She could feel herself blushing, and she wished she had better control over her face. The worst part was that her reaction was less about having potentially offended him and more about her disappointment that he might never have any interest in her whatsoever. Why? She was definitely not into him. He was exactly the sort of guy she avoided, someone who was maybe good-looking but took himself way too seriously. At least, that’s what she told herself.

While she was busy mentally torturing herself, Wesley had started laughing. He laughed harder and harder the more flustered she became. Had Lauren been less flustered, she might have seen how hard he was laughing and come to the conclusion he was just messing with her.

After a few minutes of her fumbling some kind of apology, he apparently decided to put her out of her misery. “It’s fine,” he said after catching his breath. “She was aher. You guessed right.”

Lauren was far from relieved. He’d waited for her to make a fool of herself before he put her out of her misery. Rather than respond, she threw a pillow at him.

He caught it and laughed. So he did have a sense of humor after all. The joke just had to be at someone else’s expense. “Okay, princess,” he said, still smiling. “Teach me how to do improv. You’ll have to tell me what it’s like to date someone you’ve been crushing on, since I never did get to do that. I’ll try to imagine it from your description.”

She sat back down and thought about it. How was she supposed to explain something like this? It seemed like something everyone should know, but apparently, Wesley had never experienced that magical first date with someone he’d been pining over. Odd.

“Well… it feels like a flood, I guess,” she said finally. “It’s someone you’ve been starving for — someone who just looks at you and your whole world starts to spin — suddenly giving you all their attention. It’s almost painful in a way, and you have to keep yourself together when all you want to do is dance around and scream for joy. There’s all these chemicals, hormones I guess. It feels like being high on something amazing that you can’t get anywhere else.”

“Okay, I get how it feels, but can we talk about how it looks? This is about acting, right? You don’t want me to get a crush. You want me to look like I have one. So what should I look like?”

Lauren shrugged. “It looks different for every person, I guess.”

Wesley sighed impatiently. “What does it look like when it’s you, then? I’ll just do that.”

That was a question Lauren hadn’t quite expected. She had to think about it. “I guess you just try to be close to the person. You want them to be touching you all the time. You randomly look over at them and your heart just does these leaps. It’s like you could take on anything, and nothing can tear you down.”

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