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“Your question?” he asked, confusion tugging at his eyebrows.
“What’s your ranking? The four of us. Who’s hottest, and who’s nottest?”
Immediately after completing her previous sigh, Tess found a good enough reason to give it a sibling. “Avril, can’t you act your age for one evening? Or even just one part of one evening?”
“Iamacting my age, Tess,” Avril fired back. “It’s all of you who act like we’re a bunch of women in their sixties attending their Baptist church’s weekly book club, with all this sighing and frowning all the time whenever I want to add a little spice to our dull conversations.” She beckoned toward him with a hand. “I’mgladLiam livened things up a little. His reveal was the most interesting part of the night. All of you shut me down every time I try and doanything. You did with my idea for us all to dress up, and you did it again when I tried to get us to each pick something interesting for winning. I knew better than to even think about suggesting we all mix some drinks and really let loose tonight. Isn’t that sad? Because I think it is.”
The silence that next lingered lasted for only about twenty seconds, but it felt like an eternity. After saying everything she felt she needed to say, Avril folded her arms, daring Tess to offer a rebuttal. Tess, face slightly flushed with color, did no such thing, at least not during those twenty seconds. Nothing could have forced Liam to speak up, not even a gun to his head. He wasn’t even sure if he blinked while waiting for someone to shatter the pregnant silence.
“Perhaps… there’s some truth to what you’re saying,” Tess slowly conceded, hesitance still miring the usual clarity of her deep blue eyes. “I think we might all naturally act a bit more stringent around you than we would otherwise typically act. I’ll try to be more cognizant of it, and maybe we can have a true night like the one you wanted at some point.”
Thisalsowas not a true apology. But it was closer to it than the one that Avril had offered a little while ago. And its recipient was far more easygoing.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Avril said, letting a smile reappear on her face, which settled much of the tension that had choked the room for the last minute. “Now,willyou let me pester Liam into ranking us all in terms of hotness, or do you need to go out with the other stodgy prudes until I’ve pried it out of him?”
Liam watched Tess almost instinctively shut her down, but she halted herself at the last moment. Sending an apologetic glance his way, she said nothing. Nor did she remove herself from the table.
“Don’t keep us waiting, Liam,” Avril said, folding her arms beneath her breasts as she leaned provocatively on the table. “We’re waiting on pins and needles for your answer.”
“Th-that isn’t true,” Tess cut in. “I amnotwaiting on pins and needles.”
Avril sighed loudly. “Hold on, Liam. It seems I have a little more work to do.” She shifted her focus back to Tess. “Tess, we all know you’re hot. But you don’t really hang out with any guys, just us ladies. A man’s opinion will be interesting to hear, don’t you think?”
“Liam’s opinion is different than just being ‘a man’s opinion.’”
“Because he’s your neighbor? You think he’ll be too biased toward you?”
“No, I don’t think that.” Color reignited within Tess’s face. It was almost surreal to see her so unbalanced by Avril’s prodding assault. Coupled with how she’d acted when he was at her home yesterday, he was beginning to see sides of her that he hadn’t even known existed.
“So, what is it? Worried that he’ll be biasedagainstyou? You are the model he’s seen on display the most—for years, even. He might have gotten desensitized to how sexy you are.”
Liam tightened his jaw before he blurted out that such a thing was entirely impossible. It might have undone the spell Avril seemed to be working on Tess. So, he kept himself silent, a spectator, barely noticed even as he remained the topic of conversation between the two immeasurably beautiful women.
“Whichever way it is, it’s not something I should be privy to. He’s half my age, and he’s interested in Anna—your roommate and best friend.”
“We’re just bothering him for a harmless list, and it’s not like he and Anna are engaged to be married. They’re barely even past the talking stage yet. But do you know whoisn’tmarried anymore?” Avril grinned mischievously. “You’re fresh on the market, which means no one here has to feel bad if he ends up thinking you’re still sexy as hell. I know you’ve got to be curious if you’ve still got men’s minds unraveling at the thought of you.”
“I’m well aware of the effect I can have on men Liam’s age,” Tess hurriedly said. “In case you’ve forgotten, I teach a few hundred of them each semester.”
“Yeah, but you picked Liam out for Anna over all of them, remember? So, his opinion ought to matter a lot more, don’t you think?”
Fidgeting in her seat, Tess looked to him for help. At the same time, without redirecting her gaze toward him, Avril offered the barest perceptible nod. It was enough to know he should do something, though he remained uncertain exactly what Avril expected out of him.
“We live next to each other, Avril, so it might make things weird,” he said, hoping he was at least on the right path.
The glint in her verdant eyes let him know that he hadn’t ruined her set up, at the very least.
“Come on, you’re an adult now. You can give a beautiful woman a compliment without things getting weird, can’t you?” She made an exaggerated point of looking between the two of them, and then she held her hands up in defeat. “Fine, fine. How about this, then? Just give heracompliment. And not just some boring comment about how pretty her eyes are or whatever. Be creative. Better yet, be provocative.”
And just like that, the weight that had burdened Tess was passed over to him. What the hell was he supposed to say? He understood what Avril was trying to do with this, and he hoped it worked. That didn’t make it any simpler for him to come up with an off-the-cuff compliment for Tess, especially with Avril liable to deny his choice if he picked a safer option.
Because of the nature of his thoughts, his gaze naturally gravitated toward the woman whose looks he was supposed to compliment. There was no shortage of laudable attributes that Tess Williams possessed. If it’d just been him and Avril, he could have rattled off aspects of her he was attracted to until he was blue in the face.
But right now, with her staring directly at him? His lexicon shrunk to a smattering of “ums” and “erms.”
“Now, are you taking that long pause because you’re embarrassed… or do you really have no compliments to give this beautiful, recently divorced professor beside me?” Avril teased, causing Tess to huff at her.
“N-no,” he said, feeling his anxiety appear in the form of sweat on his palms. “I’m just… thinking about what my compliment should be.”
