Page 37 of Secret Baby for My Brother's Best Friends

“What happened?”

“I don't know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t give me that. You guys were in that bathroom way too long, and when you came out, you couldn’t look anyone in the eye. Come on, give me the lowdown, you sly dog you.”

Adam ignores him and shakes his head. “Listen, this is going too far. You were flirting with her and making her uncomfortable.”

“I wasn’t making her uncomfortable,” he says and then frowns. “Did she say I was?”

“She didn’t have to. We all saw how uncomfortable she was. Just give it a rest, why don’t you?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You sure you’re not just saying that because you want her all to yourself.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says.

“I’m trying not to be,” he says with a casual shrug, though his eyes are narrowed. “But it’s just that you’re so insistent on me not pursuing her..”

“Because it’s a bad idea from all angles." He throws up his hand in a rare moment of frustration. "I can’t believe I’m the only one who sees it. We work with her, she’s James' sister, and more importantly, she doesn’t seem to want anything to do with us. You know what happens if we keep chasing her? We become the creeps who can’t take no for an answer.”

“We?” he says, and once again a sly smile crosses his lips. “I didn’t know you joined the equation. Whatever happened in the bathroom was pretty hot, huh?"

He rolls his eyes in exasperation and walks away muttering about how we won’t listen, and being with us is starting to feel like babysitting.

Jake chuckles, clearly amused by Adam's anger.

On the other hand, my mind is somewhere else.

On a pattern.

You see, I'm one for patterns, and I can't help but draw them through every aspect of my life.

I draw it now, noting that most of the conversation during the meeting had been between Jake and Chelsea.

She didn't seem uncomfortable around him. She smiled at him at least fifteen times and smiled at me once.

She responded to all his questions with ease, and mine with some discomfort.

DoImake her uncomfortable?

I grip my mug against the turmoil because just the thought of that causes me distress.

All my life, I’ve unintentionally made people uncomfortable, even though I never wanted to. I can’t seem to help it. There’s just something about me that puts people off, whether I’m silent or not.

Then again, I haven’t had much practice talking, so it's a given that I've gotten rusty at it. I don't typically meet new people, and on average, I say only a handful of words a day. It's gotten worse in recent times, when I've essentially hermitted myself in my home. Now, when I do talk to people, they just stammer or stare at me while struggling to formulate a response.

Usually, I don’t care and can brush off the awkwardness.

But not with her. I don’t want her to be uncomfortable around me.

I want her to crave my company the way I crave hers. I want her to give me the same small smiles and cute little snorts that she gives to Jake, and the shy looks and blushes that she gives to Adam.

I swallow.

This isn’t a competition, I remind myself.And she’s not something to be won.

But if it were a competition, then I would firmly be on the losing end.

But I don’t have to be. I just haven’t had much practice actually trying to woo a woman. Usually, the type of women I attractseem to enjoy the fact that I’m silent, so they can project their own fantasies on me. The second, it’s clear that I have thoughts of my own, or my odd personality peeks through, that’s typically when they run for the hills.