Page 21 of Happiness for Beginners

As he talked, my head stopped shaking on its own. My brain was smarter than to agree, but it had absorbed half a bottle of wine back at the tree house, and it wasn’t operating at full capacity. I sized him up. I figured I could take him. If Duncan was his main opponent, after all, how hard could it be?

“Okay,” I heard myself say, then. “I’ll take that bet. But only because you’re not going to win.”

***

Guess what? He won.

And he didn’t even cheat. He won on skill and sexual innuendo alone.

I got seventy-four points on a beautifully placed “heaving,” but he kicked my ass with “swollen” and “sticky,” not to mention “bulbous” smack dab on a triple word score.

“Double or nothing,” I challenged, but he raised his arms above his head in a big, yawning stretch.

“It’s late,” he said.

I gave him a look. “It’s not even eleven.”

“You almost turned in at ten!”

“And if I had, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

He put away all the Scrabble tiles, set the box on the nightstand, and edged closer. “A bet’s a bet,” he said.

The thing was, he was cute—and now I couldn’t imagine how the hell I’d missed it all these years. That dark, wavy hair in locks against his neck. Those brown puppy eyes. Those plump lips college boys have. Those bright, uniform, not-that-long-since-the-braces-came-off teeth. I can’t say he wasn’t appealing. If I flipped off the part of my brain that had been rolling my eyes at him since he was sixteen, he was kind of heartthrobby.

He leaned in. I held very still. He brought his face just inches from mine, and I could see his gaze brush over my lips.

But this was crazy. What were we doing? The mean-big-sister part of me had to get a word in. I put my hand against his chest. “Okay,” I said, as much to myself as to him. “This is for educational purposes only.”

He nodded to accept the terms.

“We’re not telling Duncan, by the way,” I added, with a little push to the chest for emphasis. “Ever.”

“Agreed.”

He leaned in again, but my hand was still in place, and I stopped him. “Who’s kissing who?” I asked.

“Now you’re stalling.”

“I’m not.”

“If you’re trying to torture me, you’re many years too late.”

“I am trying to do this properly,” I said.

“I’m kissing you, okay?” He lifted a hand and hooked it behind my neck, his fingers in my hair. But then, at the second he looked into my eyes, he hesitated. A second went by, and then another. I swear he was holding his breath. That hitch was just long enough to make me worry that he was going to chicken out. Which made me realize I didn’t want him to chicken out.

“This week, sometime?” I said then, to dare him before he lost his nerve.

“Impatient, aren’t you?”

I tilted my head, like,Please. Not even close.It felt vastly important to make that clear. Even though I was, in fact, impatient. That was need-to-know info that he wasn’t getting—ever. A woman doesn’t give up all her power so easily. Especially not to a twenty-two-year-old.

Plus, it’s a simple fact about the friends of your little brother: You don’t mess around with them. For infinite reasons. They look up to you, for one. They fantasize about you—precisely because you are unavailable. If you turned around and said, “Let’s do this,” they’d sprint right out of the room. But you never would—ever, ever—and they know that. You’ve got them in the same pimply, annoying category as your brother, and that’s part of your appeal. And being completely out of their league is fun for your ego, too. Everybody wins. As long as you observe the rules.

For six years, I’d never questioned the rules. Jake rested solidly in his proper category. But, now, by total accident over the course of one single day, he didn’t quite fit there anymore. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure how to classify him—and he was pushing that advantage. Now, against all regulations, he was going to kiss me. And I, against all good sense, was going to let him. It was a genuine transgression. That must have been what made it so intoxicating. That, and the wine. My kid brother’s best friend was about to kiss me. Worst of all, I wanted him to.

He leaned in closer.

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