Page 19 of I Almost Do

Also, according to Bronwyn, I’ve been writing Clarissa terrible poetry.

She then read one of “my” poems aloud. She wrote it in five minutes and rhymed “auburn curls” with “my heart whirls.”

I met every over-the-top, doe-eyed, fluttering-lashed look Clarissa sent my way with a ridiculous smolder of my own. The day started awkward as hell, but the one-up flirtation game was… fun.

I'm not the kind of person who has “fun.” I’m someone who is occasionally entertained. Sometimes I’ll classify something as having been "a good time.” But Clarissa had me grinning like a kid who was sneaking cookies.

I didn't even do that when Iwasa kid sneaking cookies.

Knowing it wasn’t real took the pressure off.

But when she said she’d be so affectionate I wouldn’t know what hit me, she wasn’t lying. It was a game, yes. But now I’m horny as hell and about to sleep on a pull-out sofa bed.

Clarissa is… stunning. Even tipsy and silly.

She’s always beautiful. But today she looks like an angel. Her gleaming hair is arranged on top of her head, but a wealth of long, loose tendrils frames her face.

I’m the one who gave her that tumbled look, and I don’t regret it.

Her unusual eyes sparkle under long lashes. She's wearing a small crown-looking thing, and between it and the shimmery gown, she looks like a fairy princess. Like she could grant all my wishes, if only I would ask.

I half expect to see her feet leave the floor and watch her float to the ceiling.

Clarissa changes tunes, turning in my arms and warbling a spectacularly off-key rendition of “Unchained Melody,” full-on Elvis Presley performance style.

She maintains eye contact as she musically assures me she’s been hungry for my touch a long, lonely time. Then she sings that she can’t help falling in love with me.

She pokes her index fingers into my cheeks and grins. “You’re smiling.”

I try to fake a stern expression, and she laughs. “Don’t pretend you’re not. I refuse to live in a women’s fiction novel.”

"You're wasted," I say, pulling her poking fingers away from my face. "Where'd you get the alcohol?"

She mimes zipping her lips and throwing away the key. "I am a vault. Bronwyn's secrets are safe with me."

I narrow my eyes at her. “Clearly. Do you do this often?”

“Sing? Sometimes.” She whispers very loudly, “But I’m kind of bad at it.”

I bite back my smile. “I was referring to getting drunk.”

She snorts inelegantly. “This is my first time. I have babysitters who tattle on me if I even talk to a guy, let alone try to sneak a nip of the hairy dog that bites you.”

I take a second to understand where she was going with that. I’m pretty sure she means “hair of the dog,” but she doesn’t have the context right.

She looks over at Beth and says, “Tell him. How you all spy on me and report back to Dad if I sneezed, and what I ate for lunch, and if I vary from my schedule by over ten minutes.”

Beth appears stone-faced and uncomfortable. “I do my job. We all do.”

Clarissa makes a “pffft” sound and leans into me. “One time, in eleventh grade, I sent a guy I liked a text. I’m sorry he wasn’t you,” she says loftily, “but you weren’t available. I tried to hold his hand the next day at school, and Sasha pulled afirearmon him.”

She turns back to Beth and slurs, “Please don’t bother my father with this whole slightly tipsy thing. He’s sick. You’ll stress him out.”

Beth says nothing, and I turn incredulous eyes on her.Is she for real?The woman is going to give Marcus some report on Clarissa’s behavior? That’s… fucked-up.

It’s not even that I think Marcus would care. He knows she's safe with me.

Clarissa thinks it would stress him out. I think he’d probably just laugh about it, but that’s not the point. These people have no business reporting on her activities like she’s a misbehaving child.

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