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He shrugged, growing increasingly uncomfortable.
“It’s just hereditary,” he muttered. “What I look like has nothing to do with who I am. These strangers don’t really see me. And if they don’t see me, then they will never know me.”
She smiled a knowing smile at him.
“But you don’t have toknowpeople to enjoy them,” she said.
“I’ve never seen you flirt with anyone, not even a little. If you’re charming, it’s always unintentional. You’re so earnest all the time. So literal. Even when you say funny things, half the time I don’t even think you know it’s funny.”
She leaned across the narrow table and stared into his face with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“Don’t you ever just havefun? No names, no numbers, no getting to know you’s. Just…work off a few calories doing the horizontal cha-cha.”
Ben’s brows drew together as he stared back at Annie, a little flummoxed, a lot protective.
“And you have? With strange men you don’t know anything about?”
“I’m eighteen years old, Ben!” she replied with her own brows raised.
“Ofcourse, I have. NYC is full of interesting, beautiful people. I don’t have to get to know all of them to have some fun. It’s called beingyoung. We experiment, see what we like. Enjoy ourselves while we try it. And laugh it off if we don’t.”
“What exactly are we talking about right now?” he asked just to be sure.
“Sex!” she crowed. “Oh my god, Benji, you are so dense!”
“Shh,” he said like a Puritan grandpa in church, sounding ridiculous even to his own ears as he said it.
“Keep your voice down.”
Annie giggled a little uncontrollably.
He didn’t think what they were discussing was all that funny. Maybe it was her mulled wine. Maybe she was drunk.
“Benjamin Larkin D’Angelo,” she ran through the litany of his full name, “you are priceless. Don’t tell me you’re still a virgin.”
When he lowered his eyes and felt heat bloom across his cheekbones, she cackled rather loudly.
“Holy shit, you are!”
He gritted his teeth and refused to look at her, wishing the maids would come back soon with his drink and dessert. Though, he was mighty tempted just to get up and leave.
Damn Annie for her teasing. Nobody else grabbed him by the metaphorical short hairs like she did. Not even Ere.
“Butwhy, Ben?” she all but whined.
“You’re not even a Pure One. I mean, I guess you have a Pure soul. I wouldn’t really know. But if Sophia says you have one, then I guess you do. But you’re still human. I’m pretty sure you can enjoy yourself without the whole sex-only-with-true-love thing until you’ve actually claimed your immortality.”
Ben crossed his arms and kept his face turned away, searching desperately around the room for the waitresses, staunchly refusing to engage in this conversation.
“You’re what? Nineteen going on twenty now?” Annie asked, relentless in her pursuit of embarrassing him.
“You’ve totally been missing out! Aren’t those teenage testosterones overloading your libido? I read somewhere that men your age think about sex, like, three hundred and eighty-eight times a day! And masturbate six to twelve times a day!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ben issued through a clenched jaw. “We do have better things to do with our time, you know.”
“Jeez, you sound like you’re forty years-old!” Annie lamented. “I gotta take you out on the town when we get back. Or you can start now. That curvy blonde was pretty hot. And definitely hot for your bod.”
Ben groaned and banged his forehead on the table.
