Page 81 of The Faking Game

“I’ve been to those parties before.”

“Right. When you were younger and dumber,” she says.

I stretch my legs out and ignore that. It’s too true. “So all the stuff on your list. It’s not so much practice as exposure therapy.”

“Yes.” She shrugs a little and turns toward the bookcase fully. My eyes trail down the length of her back and the soft skin on display there. The silk curves all the way down to the small of her back, and with the way she’s moving now, it gapes a little.

I look away.

She lowers so she’s eye level with the cat and makes soft little cooing sounds. A gray paw emerges, and then a small gray face too, the pink nose twitching carefully. “Hey, aren’t you pretty?” she says in a low voice. She switches to French, murmuring to the cat.

It walks out in full view and carefully sniffs her hand.

“Look at your cat,” she tells me.

I shake my head. “Still not mine.”

“Your roommate, then. He’s living here rent-free.” She scratches the cat behind an ear, and slowly, it comes closer. Rubs itself against her bent legs.

“Tell me why it freaks you out.”

“I’ve told you already,” she says. Her voice lowers. “Oh, you’re so soft.”

“Tell me again,” I demand.

Nora sighs and turns to look at me. “It stresses me out when a guy is into me,” she says. “It just does, and I can’t explain it more than it makes me feel like he’sexpectingsomething from me, and now I have to perform, or let him down. And between those two emotions, there’s no space formeto actually feel attracted to him.”

“You care too much about what people think.”

“Yes, obviously.” Her voice rises. “I don’t know how it’s so easy for everyone else. It’s like somewhere along the way, my friends got so cool with it. They learned how to do it, you know? How to fall in love and how to have fun dating. How to get to know someone. And I just never did.”

“It’s not easy for everyone else.”

“It sure seems that way.” She takes a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s why I avoid dating most of the time. It takes so much time and energy. I’m trying to navigate how to make them happy while trying to figure out my own emotions, and most of the time I can’t bother.”

“Which is why you turn down all men.”

“Yes,” she admits. But then she strokes the cat’s back, and a smile crosses her face. “Except you, of course. If you are a man. I’m not sure yet.”

“I assume you’re not talking to me,” I say and lift my glass to my lips.

She laughs. “No, I’m not. I’m very aware that you’re a man.”

I brush my hand over the edge of the couch. The leather is well worn beneath my fingers, but it’s nowhere near as soft as her skin. “You want it, though. A relationship. Love.”

“Yes,” she says softly. “I do.”

“So you’ve thought about it. There’s a version of it you think you’d like.”

Her summer greengaze wanders over to mine. “Yes.”

“Tell me,” I say, “how you would want to be courted. How you’d like to be kissed.”

“How would I prefer to be kissed?” she repeats softly.

“Yes. Tell me what your ideal date would be. How you’d want it to end, if it was a man you were attracted to.”

She bites her lip, considering. “I… I’m not sure I can put it into words.”

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