Page 62 of How to Lose at Love
His brother.
Scrunches up his face as he does it. “It’s weird that the two of you are hanging out,” he announces. “Considering you can’t stand each other.”
“Why would you say we can’t stand each other?” I ask. “Dallas is awesome.”
Both of them laugh.
“You’re so full of shit.” Drake stuffs a handful of chips in his mouth.
“Of course we like each other,” Dallas says. “Look at us, gettin’ along perfectly fine.”
“Is that what you keep tellin’ yourselves?”
Dallas nods. “Yup.”
“Well. I’m going back upstairs. Holler when the girls get here.”
He tips his head before he walks out of the room, a stereotypical Southern salutation I find charming and cute.
“Over my dead body am I gonna let him know when those cleat chasers get here…” Dallas mutters.
I cross my arms, legs dangling over the counter. “He brings up a good point. If we can’t convince your brother we like each other, how are we going to convince anyone else?”
“Because people believe what they want to believe because that’s what we tell them to believe.”
Huh? Come again? “Did that make sense?” I add the words up in my brain, even counting on my fingers like it was a math problem. “Eh?”
“It made sense, trust me.”
“Well, your brother isn’t wrong. We don’t have the chemistry to pull this off.”
Dallas looks insulted. “Don’t have the chemistry to pull it off?” he repeats. “Since when don’t I have chemistry?”
“I saidwedon’t have chemistry. I’m talking about the sexual kind—we get along okay, but it’s not like I want toboneyou.”
His jaw drops. “You don’t want to bone me?”
“Oh, please—not every girl wants to roll around in your sheets. Give me a break.” I snort so loud his eyes get wide. “You already knew that.”
Or not.
“Maybe we should practice faking it.”
“Faking what?”
“I just told you—chemistry. Don’t you think we should at least look like we’re into each other? A little?”
Dallas regards me, shifting on his heels, and for a brief moment, I wonder if I’ve made him uncomfortable or said something confusing, like I’ve spoken in another language he doesn’t understand.
He can dish the truth out, but he can’t take it.
“Yeah,” he says in that lazy Southern drawl. “We should at least look like we’re into each other.”
“Good.” I hop down off the counter. Now is as good a time as any to start doling out the little lessons I want to teach him—like emotional awareness and subtlety, beginning with the fact that he doesn’t have to blurt out everything in his brain.
“Let’s get started.”
thirteen
