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He winced at the visual. “Wow, that’s not good at all.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? At the time, I thought it was just her being playful, but Brock informed me it was a friend-zone thing. Not sure how I got that wrong.”
“Me neither. Everyone knows a punch to the shoulder is the dating kiss of death.”
“I know that now,” I huffed in irritation. “But the thing is, I think I could bring her around in time. There was something there.”
He glanced over at me, a huge grin splitting his lips. “You know what you need, don’t you?”
“No.”
“You need to build a fire.”
He pulled into the parking lot and I shifted to face him. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You know, build a fire. With her.” He waggled his eyebrows at me—like that meant something.
“Okay, I don’t know where to go with that. Am I supposed to take her out into the woods and go camping?”
“Seriously, don’t you remember what I did with Quinn?”
Now that he mentioned her name, it did ring a bell. “Wait, is this the thing where you played games with her instead of sleeping with her?”
“Exactly.”
“And how would that help me since she doesn’t want to sleep with me at all?”
“Man, it’s like I said then, you have to fan the flames of love. Build something that will burn strong and long.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Are you a poet now?”
“No, I’m just saying, you need to approach this from a relationship point of view. You can’t just jump in with both feet and expect to fuck her immediately.”
I still didn’t understand how this was helping me at all.
He shifted in his seat, grabbing a sheet of paper from the dash and placing it on the console between us. “Look, she’s the paper—thekindling. And you’re the fire starter. You have to start out slow. All you need is a spark. And once that spark catches the kindling on fire, you’re going to have a small flame that will grow as you add a log to the fire. From there, you continue to fan the flames, adding twigs and leaves and maybe a few squirts of alcohol. Before you know it, you have a roaring fire.”
“Okay, I think I got most of that analogy, but what the hell are the twigs, leaves, and alcohol?”
“Well, that’s what you add to the relationship to spark the flames. If you think about it, there are three key points to every relationship that determine the outcome. The first is friendship—which you’ve already started. Every woman needs friendship as a solid foundation of any relationship, especially with men. See, they like to feel that they’re marrying their best friend. It makes them all gooey and shit. Then you add the leaves—which are the dates you’ll take her on.”
“How can I take her on a date if she doesn’t want to date me?”
“Ah, see, that’s the fun part. You can still take her on a date and not have it mean what she thinks it means, but it means something completely different to her.”
I ran that over in my head, but still didn’t follow. “What?”
“You take her on a date as a friend, disguised as the two of you going out,” he stressed. “Take her to the movies. Hang out at home on the couch with popcorn and snuggle under a blanket.”
“My couch is currently lodged in my front door,” I frowned.
“Then fucking move it. What kind of pussy are you?”
“Alright, geez! There’s no need to get nasty.”
He shook his head at me. “It’s like you’ve never wooed a woman before.”
“I haven’t!” I shot back. “She’s the first woman I’ve been interested in. I saw her in the grocery store and it was like…a shock of lightning. I’ve never been so insanely attracted to a woman in all my life.”