by Lauren Layne
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.”
“How you figure?”
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.
Chapter Five
“I still can’t believe Brit thinks she needs help getting a guy,” Lincoln Mathis said, slurping a pink foamy drink through a green Starbucks straw.
The guys had opted for a caffeine break following their lunch at a nearby tavern. At least, most of the guys had. Lincoln had opted for something that looked like blended cotton candy.
You had to marvel at a guy who looked a bit like Superman and yet had no qualms about ordering something marketed mainly to tween girls, with the addition of “extra sprinkles.”
“I’m with Lincoln,” Cole Sharpe said, finishing off the last of his coffee and chucking the cup into a nearby trash can. “Brit’s great. Anyone who can’t see that isn’t worth her time.”
“It’s nice that we all think she’s great,” Nick Ballantine added, “but maybe that’s sort of Brit’s point. We think she’s great, and we don’t have romantic interest in her.”
“Well, we’re all married or close to it,” Cole argued. “Except for Hunter, and he’s practically her brother.”
“Yeah, but we weren’t always married,” Nick argued back. “We’ve all been single at some point during our friendship with Brit, right? From her perspective, maybe she wonders why we never saw her in a romantic light.”
Hunter shot Nick a quick glare. Of all the Oxford guys, he was closest to Nick, even though the latter was a freelancer rather than a full-time employee. But right now, his friend was starting to piss him off with his cool logic.
“I only told you about Brit’s request because I wanted you guys’ advice,” Hunter said, still feeling a little guilty that he’d confided in the guys at all. But, damn, after she’d left on Saturday night, it’d been all he’d thought about. By Monday morning he’d been desperate.
He’d needed help. Specifically, reassurance that he’d done the right thing by turning down her request. So he’d asked some of the Oxford guys to lunch, on him.
And though they had all agreed her request was ballsy, he’d gotten the impression that none quite understood why he’d been so reluctant. As Lincoln had pointed out, she was single, he was single. They were friends. What was the harm?
What was the harm? Hunter wondered for the hundredth time. He knew that something was holding him back but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“Look,” Nick said, matching his stride to Hunter’s as Lincoln and Cole fell behind, the four of them navigating the lunch-hour traffic on the sidewalk. “All I’m saying is that I know Brit. Not as well as you, but she’s over at our apartment at least once a week to gab with Taylor. She wouldn’t have asked unless she truly wanted help.”
“She wants me to help her seduce other dudes,” Hunter said. “It’s weird.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly what she was asking. She just wants a little help in understanding the male brain.”
“She does know the male brain. It’s why we all like her so much! We don’t have to explain stuff to her, she’s never melodramatic, she’s just—”
“Hold up,” Nick interrupted. “Maybe that’s her point. She’s just. Not really a word any of us want applied to us, right?”
Hunter gave him an annoyed look. “Just because you’re a writer doesn’t mean you always have to go all deep and shit.”
Nick was not only a part-time writer for Oxford, filling in wherever there was a need, but he wrote fiction as well.
“Can’t help it,” Nick said with a grin, tapping his temple with one finger. “Big brain.”
“Big ego too,” Lincoln added from behind them.
“Hey, hey, speaking of the devil,” Cole chimed in as they approached their building.
Hunter glanced over his shoulder to see who Cole was referring to, and his friend jerked his chin up ahead to the right.
They all turned, scanning the endless wave of people leaving and entering the office building where Oxford was headquartered, until Hunter’s gaze landed on its target.
He’d figured it would be Brit, given Cole’s speak-of-the-devil reference, and he had figured she wouldn’t be alone. Brit, Ms. Popularity herself, rarely was.
However, he wasn’t quite prepared for the fact that she’d be talking to a man. No, not talking. That would be no big deal. As they’d established, Brit had tons of guy friends.
No, Brit was flirting. With Bradley Calloway.
“God, I hate that guy,” Nick growled from beside him.
Hunter didn’t blame him. Hunter didn’t personally have a beef with Calloway, but Nick definitely did. Nick’s wife, Taylor, had dated Calloway before she and Nick got together. In fact, the only reason Nick had moved in with Taylor (platonically to start, and then not so platonic) in the first place was to piss Calloway off.
Bradley Calloway was a VP of advertising, and he and Hunter worked together fairly frequently. Bradley acquired the advertising accounts, and Hunter figured out how to fit that into Oxford’s online advertising calendar.
The guy was good at his job, just sort of a douchebag when it came to women. Okay, a lot of a douchebag.
And yet . . . Hunter watched, eyes narrowed as Brit shifted slightly, revealing her profile and a look on her face he wasn’t used to seeing.
She was smiling, yes, but it wasn’t her usual smile, which lit up her whole face. This smile was slight, borderline shy, and was paired with a strange eye-fluttering business he knew he’d never seen her do before.
Then Brit reached out, ran a hand up Bradley’s arm, laughing outrageously at something Hunter would bet serious money was not that funny.
“Well, well,” Lincoln mused. “Looks like our girl made good on her threat to practice on her own.”
Hunter realized his jaw was clenched and made a conscious effort to unclench it.
It didn’t matter. Brit could do whatever the hell she wanted. She was an adult woman, who had every right to . . .
“And he’s off!” Cole said in a sports-announcer voice. Unsurprising, given Cole’s role as co-editor of Oxford’s sports section.
Hunter belatedly recognized that Cole was referring to him. Without being aware of it, he’d begun moving toward Bradley and Brit just as Bradley stepped closer to her, his gaze predator
y.
Oh hell no. Calloway’s personal life was his business, but Brit was Hunter’s business.
“Brit,” Hunter barked when he was within hearing range.
She turned around, blinked once in surprise, and then grinned. “Hey! Don’t suppose that Starbucks is for me?”
It wasn’t, but he didn’t protest when she reached out and pulled his latte out of his hand.
“S’up, Hunter,” Calloway said, flashing his trademark dimples, which Hunter had been told women loved, but he sure as fuck didn’t understand the appeal.
“Hey.” Hunter’s voice was curt, but Bradley didn’t seem to notice.
Brit did. Her eyebrows lifted.
“You got a minute?” he asked her.
She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a one-o’clock meeting with . . . well, you, I guess.”
“Perfect,” Hunter said, wrapping his fingers around her arm before he realized it wasn’t quite an appropriate boss maneuver.
He nearly released her, but then she turned back and peered over her shoulder at Calloway, doing something flirty and weird with her hair. “Bye, Bradley. I’ll see you around.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Hunter muttered, all but shoving her through the rotating door and into their elevator lobby.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, digging her badge out of her purse and swiping it to get through the security turnstile.
He did the same, ignoring her question.
“You didn’t get vanilla in this,” she said, taking another sip of the coffee.
“Because it wasn’t for you.”
“Mmm,” she acknowledged, taking another sip anyway and then handing it back. He shook his head. Keep it.
“Did you see me working my magic?” she said in an excited whisper as they stepped into the elevator.
“Magic? Is that what you call it?” he muttered, punching the button for Oxford’s floor, and they moved toward the back so others could crowd into the elevator.
“I was thinking that in old movies, the women’s smiles are always sort of mysterious when they talk to men, so I was trying for sort of a Marilyn Monroe vibe. I think it worked. I’ve talked to Bradley a million times, and he’s never looked at me like that.”