John stared unseeingly out their shoebox-sized window. “Crash Willis,” he said again. “Well, I’m happy for you, Rich. Mazel.”

“Oh, John, you sentimental sap.”

Richie’s voice dripped with sarcasm, but John could read between the lines and see how much his approval meant to Richie.

“Besides,” Richie said, sitting on his chair and swiveling toward his desk, “now you and I are even.”

“Even?” John exclaimed. “For what?”

He put his foot on the side of Richie’s chair and swiveled him back around. He’d never in his life been caught necking in the office.

Richie had a sly smile on his face as he clicked a pen with annoying slowness. “For that show you put on at Mary’s party.”

John frowned. “There was no show.”

“Oh, for the love of God, John, there was a show. A freaking hawt show.”

John folded his arms over his chest. “We were just dancing.”

“That wasn’t dancing. That was foreplay.”

John grunted. “Foreplay implies there was play. And there was no play. I went home with you.”

“Foreplay doesn’t imply immediate play. And don’t tell me you don’t have plans to see her again soon. Don’t tell me you left her house without securing a playdate.”

John grunted again. He actually had left the house without securing a date. A fact that now seemed like a grossly incompetent oversight. Why hadn’t he shot his shot that night? Why hadn’t he laid it all out on the table for her? For God’s sake, the woman had pressed her cheek to his heartbeat. She’d smiled into his smile. He should have asked her on a date. He should have trusted the signs. John eyed Richie. “You, ah, think she was interested?”

Richie’s chin dropped two inches as he shot John a look dry enough to turn a grape into a raisin. “John” was all he said.

John’s foot bounced. “It’s just weird is all,” he eventually said. “I’ve spent so much time convincing people that there was nothing going on between us. My mom. My dad. Her friend Tyler.”

“Convincing?” Richie asked pointedly.

“Yeah. Everyone was skeptical.”

“John, have you ever stopped to really think about what that actually means that no one believed you? Not your mother, your father or her friend Tyler?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that there’s a reason you have to convince them that you two weren’t together.”

John cast his eyes down, frustrated and embarrassed. “Because my feelings for her are so freaking obvious.”