pter Thirty–Tw
Chapter Thirty–Two
For a moment, I just stared at him. I couldn’t make sense of what he’d just said, and I thought I must have imagined it. It seemed as if the entire world went silent, and it was just the two of us sitting there. I was painfully aware of the fact that he was staring at me, and the fact that he was running his fingers over the rim of his glass.
I couldn’t even form a proper sentence. I just kept looking at him, hoping an asteroid would come down from space and blast us out of existence. That would at least cause the silence to disappear. But I wasn’t so fortunate, and I was forced to continue looking at him.
“You don’t need to say anything,” he said. “I didn’t say it so you could respond, or even give me permission. It’s just a thought that popped into my head.”
“So you just think about kissing random women?” I finally managed to ask.
“You’re not a random woman, Liv,” he said. “I’m attracted to you. And no, I don’t think about kissing random
women.
“So what exactly is it about me?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, for one thing, you’re very attractive,” he said. “And wouldn’t be a fool to pretend otherwise.”
“You do realise you’re perpetuating the stereotype that men are visual creatures, right?” I asked.
“You didn’t hear me out,” he said. “I’m saying it’s a factor, but not the deciding factor. It’s sort of how you look at a celebrity and think ‘You know what? I think I would drop everything and give my entire life to them‘ or something like that.”
“I’ve never done that,” I said, leaning back and narrowing my eyes at him.
“Why do I find that hard to believe?” I asked.
“I don’t know what else to tell you,” I said. “But there isn’t a single celebrity out there that I would do that with.”
“Even Michael B. Jordan?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
I stared at him in silence for three whole seconds, and I couldn’t stop the grin which split across my face.
“Fair enough,” I said. “You got me there. But that doesn’t prove anything.”
“It proves that attraction is objective,” he said. “As much as people like to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you can’t deny when a person is objectively attractive. Take you, for example. There isn’t a single man within a thousand mile radius who wouldn’t find you attractive.‘
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” I asked.
“Depends on how you perceive it,” he said. “If your reception is positive, then it’s definitely a compliment. If it’s not, then I was just stating a fact.”
I tilted my head to the side, and studied him more closely. “You’re weird.”
“I’ve been called worse,” he shrugged, just as our food arrived. He proceeded to dump so much pepper on his pasta that I had to stare at him in shock for a while before he looked up at me.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Why so much pepper?” I asked.
