Chapter 2: Flirting Lessons

-- THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2002, FRESHMAN YEAR --

“Come ON, Ben,” Adrienne huffed in the doorway. “Video games AGAIN?”

“I just got home from class! I need to unwind!” Ben protested without averting his eyes from the television screen.

I was also staring right at the screen, frantically button-mashing my controller trying to get my cornerback to deflect the pass.

“You don’t HAVE to play video games. You used to unwind with me,” Adrienne whined.

“Oh, come ON,” Ben groaned right back. “Can’t I just have a few minutes of Ben-time?”

“Few minutes my ass. How long ago did you get home?” Adrienne griped.

“I’m ALMOST done.”

I risked a sideways glance at my friend. We weren’t anywhere close to done. It was only the second quarter.

The luscious, gorgeous, busty blonde bombshell was suddenly behind Ben, rubbing his shoulders. Her voice dipped to a husky purr that gave ME a boner as she murmured sensuously, “Come on, Ben ... Come into the bedroom and I’ll unwind you.”

“Uh, later, later,” he said dismissively, shaking himself free from her grasp.

Adrienne huffed, “Boys.”

I heard her stomping footsteps, followed by the loud bang of a door slamming.

The next time the game switched to the play selection screen, I paused the game and turned to regard my friend seriously as I told him, “Just between you and me, man, you made the wrong choice.”

“Huh?”

I pushed my glasses higher up the bridge of my nose. “‘Course, I’m in something of a different situation from you. I haven’t had sex all year and you seem to do more screwing than a contractor’s power drill. So I guess you can afford to choose a video game over a girl, but still ... wrong choice, dude.”

Ben rolled his eyes and pointed to the paused NFL 2K3 game. “You conceding the game?”

“No, no.” I shook my head and turned back to the screen, unpausing the game.

“Hey, Bert?” a new voice hummed from behind us.

I re-paused the game, and we both turned around in surprise.

Robin was looking at us funny, her magazine suddenly forgotten. She brushed her bangs back and centered her own rectangular, black-plastic framed glasses. “Would you honestly always choose a girl over a video game?” she asked. “Because you seem to be glued to that controller there.”

It’s a trap!

Eyes narrowed, I first glanced at Ben in confusion before stammering, “Uh, yeah...”

“So what the hell are you sitting there for? Why don’t you get up and go meet a girl?”

There was a world of innuendo in Robin’s voice, and I found myself briefly blushing. I looked down in brief embarrassment before bringing my eyes back up to find the pretty brunette evaluating me coolly. So I took a deep breath and tried to find my inner confidence.

With a shrug of nonchalance, I explained, “Uh, nervous I guess.”

“Why?”

“It’s kinda hard to talk to a pretty girl.”

Robin paused and looked at Gwen, who was by her side. “You don’t seem nervous around us. Is that an insult?”

Definitely a trap.

Robin glared at me. “Saying we aren’t pretty?”

Oh, I’m in trouble now.

“No, no!” I stammered immediately, my cheeks flushed. “Of course you both are!”

Robin grinned a little victoriously. “This whole HOUSE is full of pretty girls: Dayna, Brandi, Monique, Angela ... You never seem to have a problem talking to any of them. Hell, Tracy McMillan was flirting up a storm with you the other day and you never even flinched.”

“She was?” I felt really confused. I had zero recollection of Tracy flirting with me.

“Sure, right Gwen?” Robin turned to her friend, and the girl nodded.

“You just need more practice. C’mon, Gwen. Why don’t you take Bert out back and give him flirting tips?”

“What? No! You do it!” Gwen huffed.

“Me? You’re Miss Flirt with every guy who crosses your path, you slut,” Robin snarked.

“Only with guys I’d sleep with.”

Ouch. I gave Gwen a pained look.

“Ouch,” Robin said aloud with a frown, and she gave me a sympathetic look.

“Sorry, Bert. That’s not what I meant,” Gwen apologized with a wince. “I mean, you’re a cute guy and all, but I’ve made it a point never to date within my circle of friends. Just makes things too complicated.”

“Not true,” Robin pointed out. “You’d fuck Ben again given the chance.”

Gwen blushed and looked back at her friend. “That’s different. The greatest sexual experience of your life overrides a lot of rules. But that’s not the point. Seriously, you go talk to him.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’d be cute together. You’re both ... I dunno.” Gwen made a face before finishing, “You both wear glasses.”

We both wear glasses? Really?

Gwen looked embarrassed, like she had wanted to say that Robin and I were both ... geekish ... or something, and only caught herself at the last second before stating something like that aloud. I wasn’t sure saying we both wore glasses was much better.

“Fine. Come on, Bert.” Robin started getting up. She looked a little peeved, like she knew what Gwen meant, but at the same time she wanted to prove a point. So rather than back down, Robin just went with it.

I glanced from Robin to Ben to the TV and back to Ben. Is this really happening? I looked over at Ben in surprise.

“C’mon, Bert,” Robin egged. “You said you’d always pick the girl over the game.”

“Go on, she won’t bite,” Ben encouraged with a wave. But then his eyebrows furrowed and he glanced over at Robin, adding, “Do you?”

The pretty brunette pushed her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose and she grinned. “Only when I really mean it.”

Ben shut off the console and patted my back. I took a deep breath, stood up, and left with Robin out the back door to “practice flirting”.

-- FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2002, FRESHMAN YEAR --

“Sommmmedaaaaayyy my priiiince will coooooome...” my new girlfriend sang cutely as she sashayed up the sidewalk to her school-assigned residence hall. For a girl who had declared a couple of hours earlier, “I don’t dance”, she was certainly moving quite well right now. But perhaps that was because we no longer had an audience. At this point, Robin was dancing only for me, her Prince Charming.

I hated my costume. Don’t get me wrong: Robin looked amazing as Snow White and I knew she was positively giddy to be wearing couples’ costumes with me. But the fucking tights made abundantly clear I had chicken legs, and even though I knew I was wearing a tunic, it felt like a long skirt which just felt weird. At least the tunic covered my crotch and the red cape did kinda make me feel like a comic book superhero. But overall I hated my costume and couldn’t wait to get out of it.

Surprisingly, my girlfriend seemed like-minded.

It was now after midnight, and since we all had school in a few hours, the plan was for me to crash on Ben’s couch rather than take a late-evening BART back home to Fremont. But first I was going to be a gentleman and escort Gwen, Paige, and Robin back to their residence halls.

We dropped off Paige first, and then Gwen. In hindsight, I now realized that the dirty-blonde gave her best friend a strange sort of look, but at the time I didn’t notice a thing. I simply held Robin’s hand, said goodnight to Gwen, and then turned to escort my girlfriend home.

It wasn’t a complete surprise when Robin invited me into her dorm room. Halloween had been our one-week anniversary since Robin’s little invitation to take “flirting lessons” with her had rapidly turned into a makeout session. Lynne was right: I seemed to do a much better job just being myself instead of “trying” too hard. It certainly helped that Robin was the sort of cute, slender, dark-haired girl who was just my type and that I’d already found attractive to begin with. And it certainly helped that Robin apparently liked me even before Gwen’s little comment about us both wearing glasses. Bottom line: by now we’d already had a half-dozen more makeout sessions in Robin’s dorm room, and we’d decided to make this Halloween party in our couples’ outfits our official announcement that we were, in fact, a boyfriend-girlfriend dating couple.