Free Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection by Violet Duke Page B

and Maria-Louisa. The way she emitted (so surprisingly) a very grown-up sensuality that seemed both innate and unpretentious.
    He’d never allowed himself to think of her like that . Like a potential conquest. Partly because they’d roamed in such different spheres during high school, but mostly because she’d never been the kind of girl who threw herself at him.
    She still wasn’t.
    But, he remembered overhearing her say he had a “hot body” yesterday. That was something, he supposed, although not nearly as promising as the “kind of ingenious” compliment she gave him about getting the jugglers today. And once, during their junior year, she’d called one of his world-history project ideas “very clever” after class.
    He smiled at that.
    “Why are you laughing, Uncle Rob?” Camilla the little pixie asked him.
    “I wasn’t laughing.”
    “Yes, you were!”
    “I was smiling,” he said, noticing all the eyes at the table turning toward him and looking more interested than they needed to be. Elizabeth, in particular, seemed pretty damn curious.
    “Why were you smiling , then?” Camilla said.
    “I just had a happy memory.”
    “Oooh! Was it from your birthday?”
    “No,” he told the girl. “It was from a long, long time ago.” Then, taking a chance, “It was from a conversation Elizabeth and I had when we were in high school.”
    He put his hand over Elizabeth’s jittery one and gazed into her shocked green eyes. Hey, what was the use of pretending to have a girlfriend unless he acted somewhat affectionately toward her, right? He had to make the show believable, if only for his mother’s benefit.
    “Remember history class with Mr. Monroe?” he said to Elizabeth, rubbing the top of her hand and feeling the soft skin with the firm bones just beneath. “I remember how you used to know the answers to just about everything in there. Really impressive.”
    She tried to tug her fingers away. No way was he letting her. He held fast with one hand and began stroking gently with the other.
    “I-I d-didn’t know all th-the answers.”
    “Sure you did.” He traced her tiny blue veins with his fingertip and grinned at her. “You sat two seats away from me, so I always noticed what you were doing. Most of the time you were looking at the clock or staring out the window. You were at least three million light years away. Then Mr. Monroe would ask a question about World War II or the Russian government or something. If you heard it, you’d slink down in your seat behind Kent Grommer. If you didn’t, you’d just keep on daydreaming. He’d ask a bunch of people, but they wouldn’t know the answer. Then, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he’d call on you or on Matthew Landers. And, no matter what, whether you’d been paying attention or not, you could answer the question. It was freaking amazing.”
    She shot him a glare, which confused him. He’d kill for a compliment like that, but she was clearly sending an I’m-Pissed-Off vibe in his direction. And also still trying to get him to release her hand.
    He tried to put it another way so she’d get his meaning. “Look, everybody wished they could do that, too. Be acknowledged as the smartest one. That’s why girls like Tara Welles were so jealous of you.”
    She stopped both tugging and glaring. “W-What?”
    “Well, yeah. I mean, I couldn’t do what you did either, and I even liked history. I’d concentrate as hard as I could, but I could barely follow Mr. Monroe’s train of thought. For you, it didn’t even seem as tough as breathing.”
    Her hand lay like a limp dinner roll beneath his. Her blank expression gave away nothing. “Y-You’re kidding?”
    He shook his head. “Nope.” Then he turned to Tony. “Tell her. Wasn’t she like a legend in high school?”
    Tony didn’t speak. He merely answered with one of his sage nods and a grin.
    Camilla piped up, “Was that your happy memory, Uncle Rob?”
    “Kind of,” he said, knowing