Practice Makes Perfect Read Free Page A

department if they suddenly became interested in search histories.
    Like the good librarian she was, she pulled up Google. How to write about sex .
    She scrolled through. Links to articles about bad sex writing (not necessary), parodies of purple prose, and a few links she didn’t want to click on at work, even from her own personal laptop. She wasn’t even going to deal with page two. She fiddled with the key words, found a couple of promising results. She should just bookmark them for later, when she wasn’t at work. But then she started reading one on the website of a romance writer she really, really liked. It was a list. “Top Ten Tips for Hot Hot Love Scenes.” Just ten things. She could just read the first few. The first five. Or, it was only ten things. Just a quick break . . .
    * * *
    Henry was about to knock on Helen’s office door, but it was wide-open. He stood in the doorway for a second, thinking she would see him, but whatever she was reading on her laptop had her full attention. He watched her for a second, taking in her bad posture, how she was fiddling with the ends of her hair, her foot tucked under her, her knee resting on the desk, her laptop crowding out the keyboard of her computer. IT definitely would not approve that setup.
    Whatever she was doing, she looked cute doing it. (Obviously, she was reading something online, he could see that. But whatever she was reading, she looked cute.) He shouldn’t be thinking about her like that. Helen was his friend, and just about his favorite thing about Willow Springs. She wasn’t cute. She was beautiful and smart and funny, and he liked her the way he liked all of his friends, which was with a deep, abiding respect and nonsexual distance.
    Also, he didn’t have many other friends.
    It was just a few weeks ago now, but the memory was so vivid it might as well have happened yesterday. Helen went out for margaritas with Lindsey. They’d had a great time, apparently, because the night ended with Helen leaving him a slurring message about needing a ride home. He was home with his guiltiest pleasure ( Ancient Aliens on the History Channel—if that got out, all of his credibility would really be gone), so he picked them up. He poured their drunk, giggling asses into his car, where they proceeded to shriek and cackle and make the least subtle sexual innuendos he had ever heard. It should have been annoying. But he liked Lindsey; she had a way with words, although he felt a little bad for her next-door neighbor, Walker, who seemed to be the brunt of most of her innuendos. And he liked seeing Helen totally wild and free. Her hair was wisping in the open windows. She was always enthusiastic, which was just a nice way of saying “boisterous,” which was just a nice way of saying “loud,” which didn’t seem to go with the always appropriately dressed, well-mannered, totally professional librarian he knew her to be.
    That night, she was also a little handsy. If he hadn’t been driving—and if she hadn’t smelled like a blender—he would have liked it. Nothing too scandalous, and nothing to impede his assigned duties to get them home safely. But every time Helen let out that big, boisterous laugh, her arms would flop and her hands would land somewhere on his person. His shoulder, his knee. It was a little distracting.
    And then Lindsey got out of the car and told them to get a room.
    â€œHa,” he said.
    Helen just looked, well, stricken. Then she giggled. Then she laughed. Then she rolled down the window all the way because she said she felt nauseous.
    She hadn’t even rejected him—he hadn’t offered anything to reject. But that moment, with the heavy silence and the night air and Helen’s hair blowing crazily in his peripheral vision, it felt uncomfortably familiar. Every nerdy guy had one: that girl who asked for your homework, then laughed in your face when you asked her