Page 4 of The Apparent Trap

“What about me?”

“I showed you mine. What about yours?” I hate that I know exactly what he means.

“You wonder if I’ve accepted that I’m not flirtable based on something like . . . prior teenage awkwardness? And then I never allowed myself to assume anything beyond that?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“I also hadn’t really considered that,” I admit, the thought now poking at me like a hundred curious toddlers. Why is it so impossible to believe a man could sit down next to me and be interested?

“Well, sounds like maybe both of us need to get out of the boxes we’ve found ourselves in,” he says. His eyes are on my mouth again, but maybe now it’s less about flirting and more because it’s hard to say something so honest straight into someone’s eyes. “Maybe we both just needed to find unfiltered accountability buddies to give us shit.”

I can’t help but laugh. “You’re thinking, maybe, if I embrace that people might want to flirt with me, then you could embrace whatever it is about yourself that you’ve written off?”

His eyes snap back up to mine. His immediate grin is so boyish that it’s almost startling. That simple pleasure of being understood is written all over his face. “It would be a start.”

He’s watching me now with naked fascination, his stare heating up my bloodstream and making me aware of the beat of my pulse. I’m startled by how easy it is to not fall into my usual habit of looking away, of assuming I need to push out of discomfort.

I can’t stop the next words that tumble out of my mouth. “Would you feel better if I told you I’m not hating being flirted with?”

I’d underestimated the lethal smile, because now I’m getting its full force, and I don’t think anything on TV could’ve prepared me.

But I’m definitely not ready for what he says next. “I’d really like to take you out for a drink.”

“I’m already having a drink,” I retort automatically.

But he’s undeterred. “Fine, I’d like to buy you another drink, here.”

“I’m meeting someone,” I say, the truth.

“A date?”

“A work colleague.”

“Okay, another night then.” He plasters on a pleading look to that gorgeous mug of his, and it’s so absurd it makes me bark out a laugh.

“Easy, tiger, I already said I’m embracing the flirt,” I reply, even though it’s kind of a lie since I almost closed the box as quickly as I opened it and my heart rate is now at a gallop. “But you don’t have to go this hard.”

His face softens, and there’s something affecting about seeing reality seep into that practiced exterior. He scoots closer to me.

“I kind of think I do.” But then a thought crosses his expression. “Unless I’m making you uncomfortable, in which case I’ll stop immediately,” he says sincerely.

I consider it, but the impetuous part of my brain is already making me shake my head. Because while I’m upended and nervous and entirely unsure about what happens next . . . I can’t deny that it feels good. That somehow this feels specific.

“No. I’m not uncomfortable,” I admit.

“Okay,” he says with a smile.

“Is this you attempting being actually likable?”

“Is it working?”

“It’s hard to tell if this is you being actually likable or trying to be likable.”

“Now you see my dilemma,” he chuckles.

“Yes, it must be so hard to have so much charisma that it’s given you a flourishing career. You must cry every night into your buckets of money.”

He snorts a laugh, that surprise once again etched into his expression. I like that we’re both throwing each other off balance.