Page 17 of Teach Me
“Great!” Cris smirked. “Did he ask you out?”
“Jack?”
“No! Conlan.”
“N-no!” It wasn’t a lie, just a little too close to the truth for her to not sputter. If she could get away with hiding what had happened between her and Conlan for, oh, a hundred years, maybe, then she might could forget it herself. She certainly didn’t want it living on in someone else’s memory besides Conlan’s; she’d erase it from his if she could.
“You’ve only been to two lessons. Maybe he’s giving you time to warm up to him.”
“He isn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. He isn’t.” And she really didn’t want to discuss this. Her search for a new direction for this conversation turned frantic.
Cris sipped her water, seeming oblivious to Jess’s reticence. “That man is too good an opportunity to pass up.” She brightened as if suddenly struck with an idea. Jess groaned. “If he won’t ask you, maybe you should ask him.”
“No, I shouldn’t.” NotI already did.That would lead tohe turned me down flat.
“Come on, Jess. Take a chance. Put yourself out there. Don’t let Brit turn you off dating. The guy’s not worth it.”
Why did every conversation about her love life have to revolve around Brit? The only person not thinking the man dominated her love life was Jess, and it pissed her off. “He didn’t. He isn’t. I did. I mean, well, I didn’t— Not—” She groaned again.
“You did what?”
Jess toyed with a bite of omelet on her plate. “I did…ask him out.”
“And?”
The bite went into her mouth, giving her time to think. Cris’s demanding gaze made the food stick in her throat.
“Spill. What did he say?”
“He said no,” Jess mumbled.
“No!”
Cris’s shriek drew the attention of every table within a hundred-foot radius.
“Would you hush?” Jess hissed.
“Only if you don’t.” Despite her demand, Cris lowered her voice. “What happened?”
Jess explained, her face getting hotter by the minute. It was a bit like lancing a blister—something that hurt and that she’d prefer to do without an audience, but once she got all the bad stuff out, she didn’t feel quite so wrecked over the whole thing.
Cris didn’t laugh. That helped.
She wasn’t daunted either. “If there’s no ring on his finger, he might just be commitment-phobic. Or gay.” She thought that over while she watched Jess dabble her fork in the syrup coating her pancakes. “Maybe he prefers the straight-to-bed approach. You should ask him.”
“Absolutely not,” Jess said hoarsely, but the response sounded weak even to her. Visions of being in bed with Conlan did that to her.
“You don’t want to get laid?”
By him? Yes.“No.”
Cris smacked Jess’s unoccupied hand lightly. “Don’t lie to me.” Her tone turned sly. “It would probably be good for you, you know. Very good. Although, from the look of him, good might be an understatement.”
Restraining the urge to bang her head against something, Jess forced a playful—and patently false—note into her voice. “Hey, if I was gonna practice on someone, Conlan would surely be first choice. I think my dance card’s full at the moment, though.” She glanced down at her half-empty plate, then at Cris’s still-full one. Her friend had barely touched more than a corner of her biscuit. “I thought you were starving.”
