Page 35 of Crossing the Brooklyn Briggs
“You know you could just tell me what to do,” she says, definitely irritated by my teaching skills.
“I learn better by doing,” I reply. “Maybe you will too.”
Sighing, she looks at the painting again and seems to study it for real this time. The couple in the painting are in the middle of an intricate dance, each with a hand raised in the air and nearly pressed against the other’s. But there’s still that space between them, however small, and most of the tension is in their expressions.
“I guess I can see what you mean,” Brooklyn says, and she leans a little closer as if to look at it from my angle. “It’s like they want to touch but can’t because the social rules at the time prevented them from touching in public. If they did, they would be forced into something they might not be ready for.”
Her pinky suddenly brushes against mine, and my whole body reacts, like she just lit a fuse. It’s a fuse I need to stamp out—immediately—but instead I turn to look at her right as she looks at me. My heart jumps into my throat at the wary look in her eyes. It’s almost as if she’s asking…
She looks down at our touching fingers. “How was that?”
Maybe a little too good. A pinky brush shouldn’t be enough to send a raging fire through me, especially because I already know she doesn’t want to hold my hand. Except…she lied about that. Maybe there is some truth in her words, but there’s still a part of her that feels some sort of attraction. What am I supposed to do with that?
I swallow. “I think with a little practice you could have every man in Sun City falling in love with you.”
Including me, which absolutely cannot happen.
Chapter Twelve
Brooklyn
I have no idea whatI’m doing, but I know Jordan’s wife is entirely to blame. Ex-wife. Whatever she is, the instant I realized she existed, the sickening burning of jealousy started bubbling up in my gut, and I am smart enough to know I can’t just ignore that.
Insane as it sounds, I’m attracted to Jordan Torres. The guy who relentlessly teased me all throughout high school until I learned to retaliate and start playing pranks on him and my brother to try to get him to leave me alone. It never worked.
I’m supposed to hate him, but here I am, aching for him to let me hold his hand while we sit on my couch, each of us with a laptop whilePoldarkplays in the background.
We didn’t spend a lot of time in the gallery after I touched his hand, and Jordan didn’t give me a chance to touch him again until he lifted me onto his back and carried me out to his truck to take me home. I can’t decide if he doesn’t like touching me or if he likes it a little too much, and I badly wish I was better at reading body language. He’s been acting pretty normal since we got back a couple of hours ago, so he probably wasn’t affected by my touch as much as I was.
Still, I’ve been watching him since we sat down, and he definitely seems stiffer than usual. Every once in a while his hand moves, like he’s going to reach out to me, but he quickly turns it into a stretch or grabs his water bottle. He’s kept himself pressed against the arm of the couch so there’s as much space between us as possible. And fool that I am, I’m probably reading way too much into this.
The only way to find out is to run an experiment.
Observation: Jordan is maintaining a distance between us that wasn’t there before his flirting lesson.
Hypothesis: Jordan is attracted to me like I am to him but doesn’t want to cross any boundaries.
Prediction: If I tease him with tiny touches like I did at the gallery, he will react accordingly.
Now I just need to run the experiment and see what happens, but I can’t make it obvious. Jordan is too smart not to notice my attempts if I forget thesubtlepart of his lesson, so I need to make sure any points of contact come across as accidental. Can I do that? I don’t know. Is this a bad idea? Probably.
I hold back a groan as I try to psych myself up for this. It shouldn’t be that hard. I’ve had plenty of boyfriends, so I can’t be totally helpless, but I’m also never the one to initiate things. I usually just have to fall in with whatever the guy is doing. I’ve never had to question if he liked me, though, so I’ve never had to conduct an experiment in the first place.Just get on with it, Brooklyn!
Here goes nothing.
I stretch my arms out and yawn, first leaning to my right, away from Jordan, and then leaning toward him until my shaking fingers brush his hair. “Oops! Sorry.” I stretch a little more and then settle deeper into my seat. We’re sharing the ottoman between us, but my bad ankle is the one next to his foot, so I probably won’t be able to do anything there. We’ll see.
After a few more minutes, I look around me and then put my hand on his arm. He tenses up, causing me to tense up too. “Hey, could you get me a glass of water? I don’t have a fancy water bottle like you.”
“Sure.” Setting his laptop on the cushion between us, he hops up. “Ice?”
Does he want me to freeze? “No th—” I stop myself. I could potentially use that, snuggling closer because I’m cold. Ha! Like I’ll ever do that. Still, I’d better set myself up for success. “Actually, yeah, that would be great. And I could probably use some for my ankle, while you’re up.”
He chuckles, relaxing the farther he gets from me. “You’re actually asking me for help now? Should I be worried?”
“I know when to admit defeat.”
When he returns, I take the water with both hands and nod toward my ankle. “Do you mind? I have the hardest time bringing myself to hold it there because it’s so cold.”
