Page 57 of Practice Makes Perfect (Pine Barren University #2)
SOPHIE
The bass line throbs against my sternum, each beat synchronized with my rapid pulse. Maya practically shouts across our small high-top table, waving her mojito toward a non-college-age guy in a college bar who’s clearly trying too hard to look like he belongs here.
“What about him?” she says. “He’s been checking you out for the last ten minutes.”
“Don’t.” The word comes out sharper than I intend, and I soften it with a half-smile. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re…” She circles her hand in my direction. “You’re wound tighter than my grandmother’s perm rollers. When’s the last time you had fun?”
I shrug in a way I hope passes for casual, which only makes her grin wider.
Maya’s been on this crusade since we both transferred to Pine Barren from Michigan a month ago.
According to her, my life is criminally boring, but she doesn’t understand I don’t have time for fun, and I know there’s no point saying that.
“I have fun,” I protest weakly.
“Studying for pharmacology exams doesn’t count.”
“I wasn’t going to say?—”
“And neither does reorganizing your clinical notes by color.”
I open my mouth to argue that color-coding is actually very satisfying when something pulls my attention across the bar.
A guy sits alone at a corner table, beer in hand, looking completely at ease.
He’s wearing a dark henley stretched across broad shoulders, his hair slightly mussed like he’s been dragging his fingers through it.
But what strikes me isn’t just how attractive he is—and he is—in that casual, effortless way that makes something low in my abdomen tighten.
It’s how comfortable he looks, sitting there, by himself, on a Friday night.
The bar is pulsing with groups drinking and shouting over the music, and there he is, just… existing.
Content.
How nice that must feel.
The thought of walking into a bar alone makes my palms prickle. What would I do with my hands? Where would I look? How would I not feel like everyone was cataloging my solitude? What else could I be doing with that time? Who would I be letting down by indulging in something like that?
But this guy is owning it.
He takes a slow pull from his beer, and then—oh God—his eyes lock with mine.
Logic screams at me to look away, but something in his expression holds me there, and then his mouth curves into a smile. Not a practiced smirk designed to get him laid or a cocky grin that says he knows how good he looks, but something warm and genuine that crinkles the corners of his eyes.
My lips curve upward before I can stop them, and?—
“Oh my God !” Maya’s voice slices through whatever spell I’m under. “You’re checking someone out! This is historic! Where’s my phone to document this?”
I whip around fast enough to strain something, my face burning enough to power a small city.
What am I doing? I don’t know this guy. He probably quotes Nietzsche at parties and thinks it makes him deep.
Or worse, he could be one of those guys who negs women and calls it flirting. Or, yuck , an athlete.
“I wasn’t checking anyone out,” I mutter, but my mouth keeps fighting a smile.
Maya’s already stretching her neck like a prairie dog on patrol. “Corner table, looks like he could bench press me without breaking a sweat?” She lets out a low whistle. “Damn, Sophie. When you finally decide to window shop, you go straight for the Tiffany’s display.”
“Can you please stop?” I hiss, but the smile keeps undermining my indignation.
This is exactly why I stick to my system.
When the itch needs scratching, I find someone at a party or a bar, let them make all the moves, follow their lead, and disappear before it becomes A Thing.
That means there’s no complications, no expectations, no baggage, and definitely no relying on someone. Because that just leads to pain.
“He’s still looking,” Maya stage-whispers with all the subtlety of a car alarm.
“He is not.”
“He totally is. And oh ! He’s doing that thing where he’s trying not to look like he’s looking. You know, the casual glance around the room that somehow always lands back on you?” She grabs my wrist. “He’s scanning… now on you… and he’s scanning… and on you…”
Against my better judgment, I peek over my shoulder. His gaze finds mine immediately, like he was waiting. This time his smile turns almost sheepish, caught red-handed, and something warm unfurls beneath my ribs, spreading outward.
“That’s it.” Maya drains her mojito with battlefield determination. “You’re going over there.”
“I’m not going?—”
“Sophie Pearson, you are going to march your cute butt over to that table and talk to that man, or I swear I will do it for you. And you know I’ll make it weird.”
She’s not bluffing. Last month she introduced me to a guy at a coffee shop by announcing I was “single and ready to mingle but also kind of emotionally constipated.” The memory alone makes me want to establish permanent residence under this table.
Usually, I don’t approach guys.
Typically, I’m perfectly content with my arrangement of mutual orgasms and zero phone numbers.
But something about the way he’s sitting there makes me want to know why he came to a bar alone and how he makes solitude look like a choice instead of a failure, and why he’s interested in me out of all the girls here, most of whom are wearing less and drinking more.
“Sophie,” Maya says like she’s calming a horse, “you’ve been making eyes at each other for five minutes now. That’s a binding contract in bar time.”
She’s right. Kind of. In my limited but efficient experience with hookups, there’s usually a script. They approach. They offer to buy a drink. They make small talk that we both know is foreplay with words. They suggest we leave. I follow.
But this guy isn’t rising from his table.
He’s just sitting there with that easy smile.
Like he has all the time in the world and nowhere else he’d rather be.
Which means if I want to talk to him...
“Fine.” The word escapes before my brain can construct a proper pro/con list. “But if this goes badly, I’m blaming you.”
Maya actually squeals like we’re back in middle school, then grabs my shoulders, studying me like a general surveying troops. “Do you need a pep talk?”
“I need you to stop making this into a production.” I let out a lengthy sigh and smooth non-existent wrinkles out of my clothes.
“This is literally historic! You’re voluntarily approaching a guy! At a bar! While mostly sober!”
“Barely sober,” I mutter, but my feet are already moving. I run my hands down my jeans. “And it’s not a big deal. I’m just going to… say hi.”
I escape before she can respond, her whoop trailing after me like a victory cry.
Several heads turn, and I seriously consider veering toward the bathroom and establishing a new identity.
But then I catch his eye again, and he straightens slightly, and somehow my feet keep moving until I’m standing at his table.
“Hi,” I say, then immediately want to dissolve into the floorboards or develop wings and fly away.
Hi? That’s my opening line? What the hell do I do now?
But his smile widens like I’ve just delivered a keynote address. “Hi yourself.” He gestures to the empty chair. “Want to sit?”
“I…” I sink into the chair, trying to channel even a fraction of his relaxed confidence. “I mean, I don’t know. You could be really boring.”
Oh God. Did I just call him boring? Someone confiscate my vocal cords, stat!
He laughs, though—a warm and rumbling sound. “That’s fair. I could be incredibly dull. I might spend the next hour talking about my extensive stamp collection.”
“Do you have an extensive stamp collection?”
“No, but I’m starting to think I should. Really lean into the bit.” He extends his hand. “I’m Mike.”
“Sophie.” I take his hand. His palm is warm and solid against mine, and I hold on for maybe a beat too long.
I steel myself for the usual twenty questions, the standard bar pickup questionnaire that we both know is just marking time until someone suggests finding somewhere quieter and with less clothes. What do you do? Are you a student? What are you studying? Come here often?
Instead, he tilts his head, studying me. “That’s an interesting bracelet.”
I glance down at my wrist, startled. Most people politely ignore the chaotic disaster Hazel made at summer camp. Hot pink beads clash with purple stars and green hearts, while one random silver bead shaped like a dinosaur presides over the chaos because.
“My sister made it. She’s eight. It was a summer camp project.”
“The dinosaur really ties it all together.”
A surprised laugh escapes. “That’s what she said!”
“Smart kid.” He shifts back, and I definitely don’t notice how his henley stretches across his chest. “I actually took a jewelry-making class recently.”
I blink, shocked, because that’s not something I expected this guy to ever say. “Really?”
“Yeah, it was…” He shakes his head, grinning at some memory. “OK, so it’s part of this thing where I’m trying new stuff, and I figured, how hard could jewelry-making be? I used to make friendship bracelets with my sister when we were kids, right?”
I lean forward, oddly charmed by the image of this guy—who looks like he probably played every sport in high school and now bench presses motorbikes for fun—sitting in a craft circle, discussing the merits of chiffon or voile as a fabric choice.
“So I show up,” he continues, “and it’s me and twelve women who are clearly preparing to launch Etsy empires. They’ve got professional tools, business cards already printed, a product lineup in mind, and they’re discussing things like ‘brand aesthetic’ and ‘market positioning.’”
I smirk. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes. And there I am with my bag of plastic beads from the craft store, ready to make some friendship bracelets.”
Genuine laughter bubbles up from my chest. “What did you do?”