Page 35 of Eye of the Beholder
“That was worse than ‘not good,’” I say, still smiling.
“But did it work?” he says.
My fear floods back. “No,” I say. My voice is quiet. “I can’t. I’ll just see him on Monday.”
“When Virginia will be swarming him,” Cohen says. He steps closer, and I realize his hands are still on my shoulders. He seems to realize it at the same moment I do, because he drops them to his sides at once. He looks a bit nervous as he speaks. “Look, Mina, you smell good. You look incredible. I promise you, Jack will not think of you as Wet Willy. Come with me. I’ll do all the talking if you want. You can just stand next to me and mess with his head as he tries to reconcile this”—he gestures at me—“with the girl he saw in the flower shop. It will be fine. It honestly will.”
I frown. “I would never mess with someone’s head.”
“You’re messing with mine,” he says over his shoulder as he turns around. “Which I only say in my capacity as your mentor. Just so you know that it’s working and all that.”
That puts a funny little squirm in the pit of my stomach, and I push it away. I wait as he picks my stuff up again and hands it to me.
I take the stack of things he gives me and put them in my bag. Then I pull the hair tie off my wrist, but before I can pull my hair back, Cohen steps forward and plucks the hair tie from my hand.
“Your hair looks perfect the way it is,” he says, holding the hair tie high above his head. “It looks soft. He’ll want to touch it.”
My hand falls limply to my side, my face burning. “Just saying that as my mentor?” I finally manage to get out.
He grins. “Exactly.” He tucks the hair tie in his pocket and then walks past me out of his room. “Now let’s go.”
“Fine,” I say with a sigh.
***
As it turns out, Jack lives closer to us than I thought he did. His house is nice, which I guess I should have expected. But Cohen is just as popular as Jack, and his house is pretty average. No sweeping wrap-around porch or fancy trees like Jack’s house has. I bet there’s a pool in the back.
Fancy houses owned by attractive people usually have pools.
I take a string of deep breaths as we pull into the driveway. None of them feel deep enough, but I keep trying anyway. I’m trying to talk myself into the frame of mind that will allow me to stand on Jack’s front porch and not faint or blubber like an idiot.
“Mina,” Cohen says as he parks the car—which is in a lot better shape than it was before he took it to the shop to get fixed—and I look over at him. He actually looks concerned. “Calm down. He’s just a person. A pretty average person. You’ll be fine.”
I don’t know if I would call Jack average, but I don’t say anything. I just nod.
“Just…think of something positive,” Cohen says. “Think of something that makes you happy, or something you’re excited for. Can you think of something?”
“There’s a meteor shower in January,” I say, almost on autopilot. “I’m excited about that. It’s going to be incredible.”
“Great,” Cohen says. “Channel that energy right now. You like Jack. You’re excited to see him. He’s just a person. Just smile. An impromptu lesson: if you have a nice smile, use it. Guys like to be smiled at. You have a nice smile.”
I look at him with surprise. “Do I?”
“Yeah,” he says immediately, not fully meeting my eyes. “Definitely. So smile at Jack.”
“Right,” I say under my breath. “This is my year.”
We get out of the car and are all too quickly at Jack’s front door, which seems larger than a normal front door. Do they come in different sizes? There’s a big fancy knocker, but Cohen just uses his fist.
The door opens after only a second, and there, in all his glory, is Jack Freeman. I swallow nervously and instinctively shuffle slightly closer to Cohen, suddenly self-conscious. I thought I looked good, but what if I don’t? What if there’s food in my teeth or something?
“Hey,” Jack says, jerking me out of my spiraling worries. He nods at Cohen and smiles at me. His gaze sweeps over me, and I can see a tiny frown line between his brows. “You’re the girl from the flower shop, right?”
Well, he recognizes me. That’s more than I can say about the past several years, so we must be moving in the right direction.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to smile and hoping to heaven that there’s nothing in my teeth. I should have checked. “I’m Mina,” I say.
He nods. “Mina; right.” He pauses, still looking at me intently. “You look different.”
