SAWYER #2
I kept closing the distance and he kept walking back, pushing my shoulders, and walking back some more until he bumped into the bookcase and shook his head. “I don’t need help with any of that. And I definitely don’t need your hockey tickets.”
“What, then?” I asked. “Is there anything I can do for you that’ll make it worth your time? I’m desperate, man. I’m ready to whore myself out and scrub your fireplace like Cinderella if you say yes.”
He blinked rapidly, then licked his lips. “There’s one…I…maybe…I think I could use…if you’d…”
“Yes?” I was practically leaning against him at this point, eyes wide and pleading. We were close to a ‘maybe’ and it was the best feeling I have had in months. “Just say it and I’ll do it.”
He stammered a little more, then inhaled a deep breath of air. “How do you do it?” he all but whispered.
“Do what?” I would tell him all my secrets if he said he’d help me.
“How’d you get both of them interested last night?” he asked.
I frowned a little as I processed this. “Oh, the twins? I mean, it’s what I do. It’s like a hobby. You know how some people hunt animals? It’s like that.”
His eyebrows flattened over his rectangular, black-framed glasses and his face lost all expression. “So what? You took aim and fired a shot?”
“Sort of. Why do you ask?” My ears were ringing with confusion and my face was getting heated with the thrill of negotiation.
“Um…” He looked away. “I’m…not good…at that. Erm. Meeting people. Talking.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Keep your fucking mouth shut, Price.
Noah practically snarled at me. “Do you want my help or not?”
“I do. I swear. I’ll shut up. Go on.” I zipped my lips up and stepped back to give him some breathing room.
He dusted off his baggy sweater and nodded. “I suck at flirting with people. So. If you, um, want my help, you’ll have to help me, too.”
I swallowed and nodded vehemently. “Totally.”
His eyes went wide like an owl’s. “Really?”
“Oh, for sure. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be Casanova,” I promised grandly.
It didn’t matter that I had no clue how I did what I did or how I’d ever teach him.
He was more than capable of debating me at length with brittle words, but the moment he needed to mention flirting, he was an unintelligible mess.
I guess it had its charms, but I wasn’t sure who he would impress with that.
Still, I wasn’t going to debate it with him now.
“Trust me, I’ll make you a magnet for girls.
Yeah, I know, magnets don’t work like that, but pretend that girls are made of metal and it makes sense.
Not Heather, though. She’s fun but maybe a little too much for a beginner.
We’ll start simple and work from there.”
“I…” He was doing the thing again. “Er, I mean, I’m not…girls…” He inhaled and exhaled, then looked into my eyes. “I’m not interested in girls.”
For a moment, it felt like the threads of reality had unspooled and the universe needed to reassemble itself all over again. When it was back together, something about Noah Foster was ever so slightly changed. “A guy,” I said as I nodded. “Got it.”
“It’s just…that guy was…and you were…” He shrugged, licked his lips, and looked everywhere but at my face. “Obviously, you know how to catch a guy,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “And I want to know how.”
I opened my palm and thrust my arm forward. “Noah Foster, I’m going to make a fuckboy out of you. Just help me pass this one course.”
The slightest roll of his eyes at the word I used to describe his future self wasn’t missed, but he gave me his hand to shake. “Fine. I’ll…find time. Tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night it is,” I said, shaking harder. And when I slapped his shoulder fondly, he nearly toppled into the bookcase, but he grunted and I released him.
I left him in the library with his phone number programmed into my phone, doing my best not to add a skip in my stride, and decided to burn this energy off at the gym. Avery and I were supposed to be conditioning already, but I’d gone on a very fruitful stalking mission instead.
I had thirty or so hours to figure out how to make the awkward, stammering, intimidating-as-hell Noah Foster into a desirable bachelor. It seemed like a task that would require months of careful consideration, except I didn’t have that kind of time.
Then again, I was a great improviser.
I stopped by the team house to pick up my gym stuff, then joined Avery, who was already mid-workout by the time I changed and climbed onto the treadmill.
For twenty minutes, I did cardio warm-ups and I considered Noah’s predicament.
First, I would need to get to know him a little better and see what his interests and qualities were.
I was browsing for his unique selling points, so to speak.
Mine were easy. I was a star goalie, swift and nimble.
And if I had one quality aside from my on-ice talent, it was personal branding.
I’d find Noah’s image even if I had to carve it out for him.
Nerdy. Smart as hell. Cute, if not exactly dripping with sex appeal. But also intimidating with the size of his brain and the sharpness of his argumentative tongue.
“Whatcha smirking about?” Avery asked.
“Huh?” I brought down the speed on my treadmill and pulled out an earbud. “Was I smirking?”
“It’s the Sawyer equivalent of being head over heels.” He opened his water bottle and sucked several deep gulps down his throat, then wiped his brow with a towel. “What’s up?”
“I think I solved it,” I said. “My physics problem. The Noah problem.”
“Oh yeah?” Avery lifted his thin eyebrows. The right one had two lines shaved off in the outer third, giving him a rebellious look. “How so?”
I kept my pace steady, breathing in and out evenly. This was the whole purpose of conditioning. I was putting all my fighter hormones to good use and training my body for speed and endurance. And I was mean good at it, too. Over my shoulder, I glanced at Avery. “I promised my soul to the devil.”
“And here I thought you already promised your soul to the devil when he made you the fastest fuck on the ice I ever saw.” Avery’s sense of humor was on another level. His lips never quivered, but his sarcasm dripped.
“I did that, too,” I said. Then I proceeded to tell Avery everything that had gone down between me and Noah while simultaneously cooling down and moving over to strength exercises.
We were lifting dumbbells facing one another, practically competing which one could go further until our shirts were soaked in sweat and our faces red with heat.
“And here I am,” I finished. “Fuck if I know how to do it, but you can bet your ass I will.”
“Tsk. I won’t put my ass on the line,” Avery said and it was encouragement enough. He thought I could do it. “Do a mock date.”
“Maybe,” I said, taking a minute to rest my numbing arms. “When he’s ready. We’ll try theory first. He wouldn’t expect me to build a rocket before I learn Newton’s laws, right? Same thing.”
Long after the workout and the rest of the day consisting of matches of table soccer, I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling.
Avery was deep asleep, snoring every so often much to my chagrin.
And I tossed and turned, unable to keep my heart still.
I’d thought that scoring a tutoring session would be the solution I needed. But it was only the first step.
As for the rest. Well… There were a few more steps along the way. But it couldn’t be that hard, right?
I had to actually learn all the shit Wallaby had failed to teach me for half a year.
I had to do it quickly, all the while outdoing myself on the ice in drills and in matches.
And, on top of it all, I needed to teach a nerd how to get laid as effortlessly as me.
Great. At least I put all these impossible challenges in a nice, bulleted list.