Just a Girl - Becky Monson Page 0,52

then, using a hairbrush as a microphone, I’d give my report. This just in: The Morgans have lost their cat . . . again.

“Then why did you agree to this?” I ask his profile since he still won’t make eye contact with me. Am I that hard to look at? Granted, Grace Is Amazing said my makeup looked “whorish” today. I did try a little harder when I was doing my makeup this morning, but I didn’t think it was whorish.

I watch his chest rise and fall, another bead of sweat developing just below his hairline. “I thought it would be good for the station. For ratings.”

“Yeah, but we could have had an intern do it. Why did you volunteer?”

These were questions I’d been dying to ask him. Part of me—the crazy daydreamer part—came up with this idea that he was doing it to spite me because he was jealous of Boring Brady and our . . . whatever we are. That idea was so far-fetched I actually rolled my eyes at myself when I thought of it.

Henry turns to me. I’m pretty tall, but he’s got a few good inches on me, and I watch as his gaze travels from my hair down to my eyes. “Yeah, I s’pose I could have let an intern do it. Dwayne seemed keen on me having a go, though.”

“And do you do everything someone tells you to do?” I lift the corner of my mouth upward so he knows I’m teasing.

“No,” he says, his eyes moving back to the news desk. I feel almost cold when he looks away, as if his gaze and mine were sending tiny little sparks of light to each other. Like they were connected.

There I go getting all fanciful again. Whatever was there was probably from my side only. He was probably only looking at my eye makeup and agreeing with Grace Is Amazing.

“Maybe if I’d said yes to being a solicitor, I wouldn’t be standing here, about to have a mental.” He looks at me again, the corner of his mouth hitching upward, and a tiny morsel of my animosity toward him slices off and floats away. Especially when that dimple makes an appearance.

“You’re going to be great, okay?” I say, reaching up and placing a hand on his arm. His gaze moves from my eyes to where I’ve just touched him, and I think maybe I should remove my hand, but instead, he reaches up and covers it with his, giving it a little squeeze.

My stupid heart picks up its pace, and my fanciful brain starts making up crazy things like: He loves you! He wants you! He needs you!

I will him to declare these things, but Henry only says “Thanks” and then drops the hand that was touching mine, his eyes going back to the news desk where Curtis appears to be wrapping up the sports report.

I take my hand off his arm and let it hang to my side, feeling a tingling sensation in my palm. My body does weird things around Henry Pierce.

“You still dating Brady?” he asks, and my eyes dart up to his. But he keeps on staring at the news desk.

“I—”

“Sorry. It’s none of my business,” he says, shaking his head, his eyes moving to the ground in front of us, as if he can’t believe those words came out of his mouth.

See? This is why. This is why my brain runs off like it does. Because Henry keeps giving it reasons to. Why would he even want to know about Brady if I mean nothing to him? Why would he even ask?

I have gone on a date with Brady—just one. And it was . . . nice. That seems to be the only adjective that I can come up with for Brady: nice. He is a nice guy—one of the good ones, really. There’s just no spark with him. No excitement. He wanted to come up to my apartment after, but I just couldn’t let him. I really need to have a discussion with him.

I let out a breath. “Brady and I—”

I start but then cut myself off as Charlie—one of the camera operators—approaches us.

“You have one minute,” Charlie says to me and Henry.

Another bead of sweat trickles down the side of Henry’s face. I pull a tissue out of my pocket. I always carry one even though I’m so used to the cameras now, I haven’t needed it in a while. I hand it to Henry, who