Page 66 of Eye of the Beholder
I whirl around as Cohen enters the kitchen.
“What do you want?” he says. “I was rewatching the game.”
“We’re flirting,” Lydia says, all business. “Mina can’t flirt with me. She needs to practice on you.”
Cohen grins, and I turn to Lydia. “There it is,” I say. “The smug face.”
“I know,” she says. “Cohen, don’t look so pleased with yourself. This isn’t personal. We just need someone to practice with.”
“My pleasure,” he says, settling comfortably in the chair next to mine. His eyes gleam with amusement. “Flirt away.”
“Great. Okay, so remember what we practiced, Mina.” Lydia stands directly behind Cohen. She mouths “eye contact,” and I make eye contact with Cohen.
All right. Eye contact—check. He really does have nice eyes. They’re kind eyes. I’ve heard that said before, but I never really got it until Cohen.
What was next? Oh, right. Compliment. What am I going to compliment him on? He’s still meeting my gaze directly, and it’s starting to make me nervous.
“How was the football game?” I say.
Cohen’s lips quirk at the corner, and he leans back, folding his arms across his chest and looking amused. “The football game was good.”
I swallow. “You must be good at football. Because you have muscles.”
All right, it’s not great. I’m working on it. To be fair, despite what Lydia thinks, I really don’t think flirting is something you can just practice on demand.
Cohen smiles outright. “I do have muscles. And I am good at football.”
“Are you?” I say, interested.
He shrugs modestly, but he’s still smiling. “Yeah, I’m pretty good. And we have a good team.”
“Huh,” I say. “Well, Lydia says friendly physical contact is part of a good flirting technique. So just know that right now I would be casually touching your muscles, but you’re too far away, and it would be very forced.”
Cohen’s smile widens. He pulls up the sleeve of his shirt, flexes his bicep, and scoots his chair closer so that I can feel the heat of his body next to mine. “Here you go.”
I groan. “Are you reallyflexing?For a girl? You’re better than this. Put that away.” I mean, the muscles are nice. Really nice. But still. That’s the most obnoxious move in the book.
Cohen shrugs, and I can tell he’s close to laughter. “I thought you might want to get in the—what was it? ‘Friendly physical contact’? Do you want to feel or not?”
“Not,” I say, my voice firm. I tug his shirt sleeve back down over the muscle.
“All right. Well, what else is your flirting supposed to entail?” he says, angling his body toward me slightly. He still smells good. How does he smell good all the time?
“Eye contact,” I say.
“Of course,” he says, looking at me and nodding. “What else?”
“Compliments. I’m supposed to compliment you.”
He grins. “And that was the bit about the muscles?”
“Yeah.”
He shakes his head, still smiling. “You can do better. You’re smart enough to do alotbetter. Or you can try to make me laugh. You’re funny.”
“I am hilarious,” I say, smiling back at him.
“Hey, what’s this?” he says, touching a scar on my right arm. His touch sends an uninvited squiggle of pleasant nerves into the pit of my stomach. “It looks like it hurt.”
