Brit was nervous, and that was weird. She was never nervous around Hunter. He was her best friend in all the world, the guy who was so much like her brother that she didn’t even mind—much—when he’d pinched the extra few pounds of holiday weight lurking around her middle.
But now, standing face-to-face with him, she realized the monumental hugeness of what she was about to ask him.
Could she ask him?
Should she?
She tried to tell herself that this was what friends did. She saved him from his gentlemanly inability to hurt a woman’s feelings even when he wasn’t into her, as Brit had just done with the Haley situation outside, and in return he . . .
Crap. How had she not thought through the phrasing of this before coming over?
Hi, can you teach me how to seduce a man?
Can you show me how to be sexy?
Can you coach me on what men want?
It had sounded so simple when discussing it with the girls earlier that afternoon, but now . . .
“Put some music on, would you?” he called, going into the kitchen and pulling two glasses out of the cupboard.
“Sure.” Brit pulled out her cellphone and connected to his fancy sound system the way she had a bunch of times in the past.
What had always been a mindless, easy task suddenly felt monumental.
Did she play something sexy, to set the mood for the request?
Or something decidedly non-sexy, so he didn’t misinterpret the request?
“Oh, by the way,” Hunter said, setting the glasses on the counter and going to the shelf he used as a makeshift bar cart of sorts, “you have lipstick on your teeth.”
Oh for Pete’s sake—Brit rolled her eyes and rubbed a finger across her two front teeth. She looked at the pad of her finger, noting the smear of her go-to pink lipstick.
Yeah. Somehow, she didn’t think there’d be much chance of Hunter misinterpreting her request as anything sexy.
The day he started seeing her as anything other than his best friend with lipstick on her teeth and love handles was the day he stopped doing the scratch and lean, and she knew that wasn’t ever going to happen.
Sometimes Brit wondered if the man actually had an allergic reaction to commitment. Because it seemed to her as though the very thought of settling down with one woman instead of keeping his options open made him instinctively scratch and lean away from the offending allergen.
“You’re not going to make me listen to Taylor Swift again, are you?” he asked, adding an ice cube to her glass without asking because he knew that was the only way she drank whiskey, if at all.
Perfect. Taylor Swift it was.
She selected one of Taylor’s earlier albums, full of twangy teenage vibes and guaranteed to keep the mood from getting too weird when she launched the Plan.
Hunter set both glasses on the coffee table, blatantly disregarding the coasters she’d bought him for Christmas, and then plopped down on the couch, stretching his arms along the back of it before nodding to the spot beside him. “Sit. Tell me why you look ready to barf.”
She did sit, pulling one leg beneath her and turning to face him, her elbow on the back of the couch, her head resting on her hand. “So, how was the date?”
“Well, seeing as I . . . what was it? Itched and rolled?”
She let out a laugh. “Scratched and leaned.”
“Right. Since I did that, surely you know it must have been not so great.”
“Yeah, but how was it not so great?” she pressed.
Hunter gave her a curious look. She rarely expressed much interest in his dates. Even if she wanted to, there were too many to keep up with. Hunter was a strange type of playboy in that he seemed to truly enjoy dating women, just not for very long. Unlike the other legendary Oxford bachelors, who’d been determined to sleep with women but never date them.
It was as though Hunter consistently forgot that he didn’t actually want a relationship when he asked out these women. That, or he was just a serial dater of sorts, enjoying the process of it without wanting it to go somewhere.
Truthfully, she didn’t know what his deal was. She wasn’t sure that he did either.
“Um, okay,” he said with a laugh. “It was just sort of . . . boring. Haley was nice, interesting enough, but our senses of humor were a little mismatched. Not a big deal, I didn’t have a bad time, but I didn’t really see it going anywhere.”
“But she did,” Brit said. “I could tell by her giggles and the way she looked up at you.”
Hunter shrugged. “Maybe. Honestly, she was pretty touchy-feely. I got the sense it was more of a physical-attraction thing for her than her having any feelings for me.”
“He said modestly.”
Hunter—six foot, with broad shoulders, great laugh lines, and sexy hazel eyes—merely laughed. No wonder there wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t have a physical-attraction thing for him.
Well, other than Brit.
Which was exactly why he was the perfect person to help her. Women wanted him, with zero effort on his part. He wasn’t instantly friend-zoned. She knew why. She’d heard enough talk in the break room, gone to enough post-work happy hours with female colleagues to know how women saw Hunter.
He was the perfect combination of elusive and attainable. He had a bit of that will he ever settle down vibe going on, with just enough Midwest niceness to make him the type of guy women wanted to settle down with.
On top of it all, he was hot.
Hey, he may be her best friend, but facts were facts.
“Is this about Lenny?” Hunter asked. His voice was light, teasing, but his eyes searched hers, the faintest concern on his face.
She reached for her drink, even though she didn’t really want it. She just needed something to hold on to. Looking down at the amber liquid, she swished it ever so slightly, so the single, melting ice cube clinked against the glass.
His fingers touched the back of her hand lightly, stilling the nervous movements. “Brit.” There was no teasing now, only quiet concern. “What’s going on?”
She forced herself to meet his eyes as his hand pulled back. “I need your help.”
“Yeah, I gathered that. What I’m not quite understanding is why you’ re so skittish. You know I’ll do anything I can if you need help. Is it money? I can lend you whatever you need. Hideous family wedding? I’ll be your date. Want me to beat up Lenny? I’ll call Jackson for you.”
A laugh slipped out. Jackson referred to Jackson Burke. Jackson was a friend and fellow Oxford employee and former NFL quarterback. And he had the build to show it. Jackson definitely was the guy you called if you needed a couple of punches thrown.
“Nothing like that,” she said, taking a sip of her drink. She didn’t even wince at the slightly sweet burn of it. Maybe the stuff was finally growing on her.
“Spit it out already.”
Fine, you asked for it. “I need to learn how to seduce a man,” she blurted out.
Hunter’s glass halted halfway to his mouth, his eyes going wide in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she said, feeling the creep of a blush coming up her neck, making her face hot with embarrassment. “I need to figure out how to make guys start seeing me as a woman rather than just a friend.”
“Okaaaay,” he said in a slow, drawn-out way that she knew meant he didn’t know what the heck she was talking about.
“Guys like me well enough,” she said bluntly. “But they don’t want me. Something about me screams sister vibe, and I want to be girlfriend vibe. Or even hookup vibe. Heck, someday I hope to give off the wife vibe. Anything other than buddy-buddy, good ol’ Brit.”
“I see,” he said slowly, his eyes narrowing slightly. “What’s that have to do with me?”
Here went nothing. She took another sip of her drink and then stared down into it. In her and Hunter’s six-year friendship, she’d never felt uncomfortable with him, but she was uncomfortable now. “I want you to teach me.”
The silence stretched on and on, until finally she forced herself to look up at him.
“Teach you what?” His voice was kind but completely confused.
“How to seduce a guy.”
His head snapped back, and he inhaled through his nose. “No way.”
“Why not?” she said, giving an impatient little bounce of irritation on the couch. It was what she’d expected, but it was frustrating all the same. “You’re the perfect person.”
Ah. Now, this she was ready for. She and the girls had talked out this part of her argument, and Brit was armed and ready with her answer. Setting her glass aside, she began to count out the reasons on her fingers.
“For starters, you apparently have some sort of innate charisma. You said it yourself—women are physically attracted to you, even when you don’t want them to be. It’s the very opposite of my problem, and I want to figure out what the difference between us is.
“Second,” she continued. “You date. A lot. You’ve got a ton of experience, and you’re a guy’s guy. You know what makes them tick, especially in the dating world.”
He frowned. “I could name a half-dozen other guys who also fit into those categories. Ask one of them. Hell, I’ll ask them for you.”
“There’s one more reason,” she pressed on, ignoring his objections. “You’re you. We’re us. I trust you in a way I don’t trust anyone else. Plus, you’re single. I can’t ask Lincoln, or Nick, or Cole. They could give me advice, probably, but they’re all married or involved with some of my closest friends. I can’t practice on them.”
Hunter choked on his drink. “What do you mean, practice?”
“We’re talking the art of seduction here,” she said practically. “I’m not an expert, obviously, but I know it means more than just words. It’s about looks, and touch, and . . . moves.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she said quickly, lifting a finger in warning when his lips twitched.
“Moves?” he said, trying to hide the impending smile and failing. “Is this high school in the nineties?”
She leaned forward and gave him a not-so-gentle punch on the arm. “Will you help me or not?”
“Not.”
Brit scowled. “You said you’d do anything for me.”
“Yeah, but not teach you how to . . . mate.”
“Mate? Okay, that’s worse than moves. And it’s not so tawdry as that. I just need some pointers on how to get guys to stop viewing me as a pal. That’s all.”
“Oh, is that all?” He said it sarcastically, dragging a hand over his face. “It’s weird, Brit. You’re my friend. My closest friend.”
“Exactly the problem. Every other guy wants that role too.”
“Do I have competition in the friend department?” He smiled as he said it, but she noticed he was watching her as though he cared about the answer.
“Of course not. You’re still my number one.”
“You’re flattering me now.”
“Is it working?” she asked hopefully.
“No.” Hunter leaned forward on the couch, cupping his glass in both hands and staring at his feet.
Her heart sank. She knew him well, so she knew that look. He wasn’t considering her request—he was merely trying to figure out how to tell a woman something she didn’t want to hear.
As with earlier this evening, that was generally her job. She was the one who helped him out when he was trying to let a woman down easily without hurting her.
She slowly sucked in a breath, let it out even more slowly so he wouldn’t hear it for the sigh that it was.
A sigh of disappointment.
She wasn’t surprised. Not really. There was no good way to ask a guy to help teach you how to seduce other guys. But she’d had to at least ask.
She’d failed. But she’d tried.
Brit took another sip of her drink. It was going down even easier now, courtesy of the melting ice diluting the whiskey to a sort of mellow smokiness.
And then she did what she always did. She helped Hunter let a girl down easy.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, clamping a friendly hand on his shoulder and then using him as leverage to push to a standing position.
“Brit,” he said quietly as she took her glass to the kitchen sink. She drained the last swallow and then rinsed the glass and put it in the brand-new dishwasher he’d had installed a few months earlier.
“Really, Hunter, don’t worry about it,” she said, fixing a smile on her face. “It was a weird request. I get that. I so get that.”
“You don’t need help getting a guy,” he said, coming toward her and crossing his arms over his chest, the whiskey glass still in hand. “You just need time to find the right one.”
“Hmm,” she said noncommittally, going to the coat closet and retrieving her jacket.
Hunter followed her. “You don’t agree?”
“In addition to being my best friend, you’re also my boss,” she pointed out, shrugging her coat on. “Have you ever known me to be the type to let things just happen?”
“No,” he admitted. “You’re a go-getter, but—”
“Exactly. If there’s something I want, I find a way to make it happen. And what I want is a man. My Prince Charming. And for that, I need to up my game.”
“I already told you—”
“Oh, I know!” she interrupted cheerfully. “That you’re not going to help me. I heard you.”
“But you just said—”
“That I needed to learn the art of seduction.”
“Hold on,” Hunter said with a frown. “You’re not giving up on your crazy seduction plan?”
“Nope,” she chirped, going to him and putting a hand on his arm, then lifting to her toes to peck his cheek. “I said I’d trust only you to teach me, and that’s true. But if you’re not available, I can be a self-starter.”
“Meaning?” he asked, his tone holding a warning note.
“Meaning I’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way and teach myself.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“Easy.” She smiled up at him. “Practice!”
With that, she whirled toward his door and exited her best friend’s apartment with a breezy wave and a new plan set in motion.