A teeny, tiny smile graced her face. “Just wait, then. By the time this project is done and over with, I’m sure you’ll regret picking me for a partner.” The way she insulted herself, took herself down, it came so naturally. I bet she did it all the time.
This girl didn’t think she was worth anything, did she? I couldn’t say why, but that bothered me. No, Bree was wrong. By the time this project was over, she wouldn’t think that way. I would never regret choosing her as a partner, even if she refused to see me in a friendly, dating manner; I would make her believe that she was worth it.
“Why don’t you let me decide on that,” I suggested, grinning. “Here’s a hint: I don’t think that’s how this is going to end.”
That must’ve caught her off-guard, for she looked up sharply and asked, “And how do you think this is going to end?”
“You and I, acing this stupid project and being the talk of the class,” I spoke, still grinning. At least Bree wasn’t frowning anymore; I hoped my smile was a little infectious. “But hold on, because that’s not all.”
She lifted a brow—a brow that was still a brown color, her natural hair color. “It’s not?”
“Nope. In addition to getting a perfect grade on this project, you and I are going to become close. Very good friends.”
“Are we?”
I could tell she didn’t believe me. That was okay. I could handle her non-belief. It would make proving her wrong that much more delicious. “You bet. The best of friends…who also see each other in a more than friendly capacity.” Eh, probably should’ve kept that last part to myself, but I had to test the waters, see her reaction.
She’d had a horrible date with her sister’s boyfriend’s brother. But what about a possible future date with me?
“More than friendly…” Bree started to echo me, but she drifted off, her beautiful gaze widening when she finally realized what it was I meant. “Mason, I told you I don’t date.”
“You also said you think you’re boring, and I know you’re not. You might not do dates, but maybe that’s just because you haven’t met the right guy yet.”
Bree let out a sigh. “I’ve met a lot of people. I’m never anyone’s first choice.”
“What if I say you’re mine?”
She froze, unable to say anything or even blink for the longest time, as if she was afraid she’d misheard me. Eventually she smiled. Just a quick, small thing before it faded and she said, “I’d tell you to stop lying.”
I held her stare for what felt like forever, knowing nothing I could say today would change her mind. I’d give her time. Time was the great equalizer, wasn’t it? Or was that death? Oh, well. In this case, it was time—and I would take as much time as I needed to make Bree realize that I wasn’t lying to her.
Bree shifted in her seat. “Are we going to choose a topic, or did you want to meet to talk about my dating life?”
To be honest, I didn’t know she had a dating life until a few minutes ago, but that was neither here nor there. I couldn’t push my luck when it came to her too much. To go at her too hard, too fast would be to scare her away; I had to take it slowly with her. Right now, I’d settle for spending any amount of time with her.
One step at a time.
“You’re right,” I agreed, watching as she visibly relaxed. “We should get a-choosing. Does that pink head of yours have any ideas? Everything I like has been done a thousand times over.” Also, I Googled it yesterday.
The easiest experiment we could run, the easiest way to gather data was to create a questionnaire and get a good subject pool in responses. We could organize the responses based on age, sex, socioeconomic status…or anything else.
Only problem was we had to figure out something to base our questions on, and make a hypothesis as to what we thought the results would be.
I hated experiments. I really did. They were so not my thing.
“I don’t care,” Bree muttered, turning to gaze out of the window. Outside, the sun was shining, a bright, warm fall day.
“What do you like?”
Bree openly glared.
“I’m not trying to dig into anything personal,” I spoke with a chuckle, though in reality that’s exactly what I was doing. Trying to get to know my partner and my future girlfriend. That wasn’t so weird, was it? “I just think if we center the project around something one of us likes, it’ll be easier to do.”
That seemed to placate her somewhat. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what you like?”
“I mean, I haven’t thought about it in a while. I wake up, I go to school, I go home. Rinse and repeat.”
“Okay, and what else?”
She gave me a crazy look.
Well, it might not be an I love you smile, but at least it was some emotion. Getting any emotion out of her was better than none, right?
“I meant,” I added, holding back another laugh—if I laughed too much right now, she might think I was laughing at her, which was not the case. “What do you do when you’re not here or sleeping? There are more hours in the day to fill.”
Bree took her time in answering, “I don’t do anything else.”
I couldn’t say how long I stared at her after that. That…made me feel some kind of conflicted. She didn’t do anything else? So then what did she do, just sit in her room and wait for time to pass? For whatever reason, something inside me ached when I thought of that possibility. “Okay, then, when you were a kid, what did you do then?”
God, this girl…what was I going to do with her?
Her teeth found her bottom lip again, something that must be a habit with her. “Uh…is it bad I don’t really know? I mean, I used to draw and stuff, but…” Her shoulders rose and fell once.
“Good, what else?” If I had to pry things out of this girl, I would.
It was a few moments before she said, “I used to watch a lot of Disney movies. They were my favorite. When I was a kid, my mom said I used to watch The Lion King every day when I came home from school.” This time, the smile that grew on her lips was genuine, and it was a smile I wanted to see more often. True, sincere, wistful.
“The Lion King, huh? Have you seen the live version?”
She scoffed, “How can it be considered a live version when it’s all CGI?”
I acted confused. “You mean they didn’t get real lions to sing?”
The laugh that came from her right then made all of this worth it. It was a sound that instantly caused my heart to skip a beat and my mind to wander. Such a melodious, entrancing sound. I could listen to it all day.
Eventually, her laughter died down, and she said, “No, and no. I haven’t seen many new movies. I just…I can’t get into them now.”
That was sad, but I had the feeling that sad was Bree’s middle name. It was strange, because before, when I’d only seen her in passing, I never knew how seriously dejected this girl was. She seemed normal, pink hair aside. But talking to her, seeing her up close…it was impossible not to see the deep-seated sorrow in her eyes.
“Well, I think we should do something involving Disney, then,” I told her, pushing past the way she instantly seemed so depressed. “Does being obsessed with Disney when you were younger relate to how you are when you’re older? Or something like that.”