Page 52 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

I grin. “A weight plate.”

“Right. This is me adding a weight plate. Well, hold on. You need one on each side, don’t you, so you’re balanced? In that case, we needtwothings. So…I want you to try flirting…and compliments.” She mimes picking up a heavy weight plate, sliding it onto one end of an imaginary bar, before she strains with an imaginary second plate and barely slides that one on the other end. “Phew. Okay.” She wipes her forehead and mimes flicking away sweat. “Now you’re all set to go. Flirting. Compliments.” She slugs me playfully on the shoulder. “Time to level up.”

Her whole act, it’s so fucking cute, a laugh rumbles in my chest. My mouth lifts in a smile so wide, it makes my face ache.

Juliet leans close, her eyes sparkling. “Finally.” She slaps her hands on my knees and squeezes them. “Ifinallymade you smile.”

“Finally?Juliet, all you’ve got to do is walk into a room, and I’m grinning like a fool.”

Her cheeks pink. “Well.” She clears her throat, fidgeting with the tiny gold stud in her right ear. “That was good. Kind of a two for one—a complimentandflirtation.”

That wasn’t practice, I think.That was just the simple truth.

But thankfully, I keep that thinking thought where it belongs, inside my head. And I lean in to her, because I’m warming up to seeing how my words impact Juliet, how they make her cheeks flush and her eyes glitter.

“What else have you got?” she asks, leaning in toward me, too.

I set my arm on her chair, bringing us closer, not so close that I’m invading her space, but close enough that I can smell her soft, flowery perfume mingling with the warmth of her skin, see her chest rising and falling faster than it was a moment ago. “If you were a veggie,” I tell her, “you’d be a cute-cumber.”

Juliet rolls her eyes and groans, “Willllll.”

I grin, fighting the heat that roars through me at hearing her groan my name like that. I know she’s exasperated, but damn, it still does it for me.

“Come onnnn,” she whines, landing a halfhearted punch to my thigh. “Agoodone. The one that’ll sweep your future wifey right off her feet. Let’s hear it.”

“Okay, okay.” I take a moment as the words gather in my thoughts, and graze my fingers along her shoulder. My heart pounds as I meet her eyes. “When I spend time with you, I forget everything else that ever made me happy—the perfect night of games and food and laughter with my family, the unbeatable line in my favorite song, the most breathtaking sunset, the best whiskey I’ve ever made. And when I’m not with you, when everything else that brings me happiness is all that’s left, the only thing I can think isjust how much I want to share that with you, how much I want you to share with me what makes you happy, too.”

Juliet stares up at me, eyes wide, her mouth softly parted. Then she reaches for her whiskey and drains it. “That…will most certainly do.”

“Yeah?”

She blows out a slow breath. “Oh yeah.” Tipping her head, she peers at me, her gaze dancing over my face. “Now my turn.”

My hand clamps down on the back of her chair. “Here?”

Her brow furrows. “Where else? We’re practicing, right?”

Practicing. Right.

I groan and scrub at my neck. “Yeah, it’s just that…I’m going to blush. I always blush at compliments. They feel weird.”

Juliet bites her lip against a smile. “I think it’s cute when you blush.”

My heart jumps in my chest. And dammit, a blush heats my cheeks. “So much for you being rusty.”

“I wasn’t practicing yet!” She leans in, her expression earnest. “And Iamrusty, okay? Maybe I don’t seem like it to you, but I feel it.”

I peer down at her and nod. “Okay. I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to be dismissive.”

“I know.” She gently squeezes my knee, her gaze fixed on mine. “NowI’m going to practice.”

“Okay.” I focus on my breathing, trying to cool my body, but her hand’s weight and warmth seep through my jeans, my skin, and it feels like it’s a match that’s caught tinder, a fire racing through my veins. Her soft, flowery perfume drifts toward me. Her hair slips forward, its dark ends sweeping along the edge of her cleavage. I scrunch my eyes shut.

Her touch moves from my knee to my hand, her fingers tracing up my wrist. “So many freckles—”

“Gee, thanks.”

She squeezes my wrist. “Give me a second.”

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