It was nice that she wanted to spend more time with me, I just wished I felt like her intentions were pure.
But honestly, even if she wanted to tease me a bit, to make me look at her in somewhat unbrotherly ways, it wasn’t that bad. She didn’t get a lot of male attention, or at least not much that she wanted, and she’d probably just been overcompensating lately.
Besides, much as I hated to admit it to myself, I really, really liked the way her butt looked in those jeans. My inner turmoil over that fact hadn’t gone away, but it was lessened by the knowledge that we both knew more or less what was happening.
We ate pizza together on Kylie’s bed. I’d had to deal with the delivery guy, but she’d insisted on giving me the money to pay.
I thought about putting on a movie while we ate, like we had the other day, but I didn’t really feel the need for sensory distraction. Since Kylie didn’t say anything about it either, I didn’t bother.
Kylie finished eating before me. Or, more accurately, she slowed down the point of just picking at the half-slice remaining on her plate.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
I nodded. “Always.”
“‘K. Just ’cause, like, it’s kinda weird.”
“I figured. You wouldn’t have asked about asking otherwise.”
Kylie systematically picked and tore at the crust of her pizza. She wouldn’t quite make eye contact with me. “I know we’ve kinda been joking and stuff. But, like, for real… how weird is it that I don’t mind you looking at me.” She bit her lips. “Like, ‘looking’ looking.”
“Yeah, no, I knew what you meant.” I wiped my mouth with a piece of paper towel that was serving as a napkin. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, it’s not something you get a lot of second-hand experience with. No one goes around talking about how their brother checks them out, and it’s totally cool with them. Plenty of the opposite, though.”
Kylie smiled crookedly, but her grin faded as quickly as it arrived. “That’s true. That’s kinda like what you were always bugging me about. Not giving you enough shit for some stuff.”
“Yeah, kinda, I guess. That’s all I really understood.” I shrugged. “It probably wasn’t the correct way to approach the situation. I just didn’t know that there was more to it than your, uh…”
“My obliviousness to social interactions?”
“Something like that. I don’t know I’d put it quite that way.”
“No. Me either. I was being deliberately hard on myself to make a point.” Kylie scooted a little closer to me. “I’m not oblivious to things. I know that you looking at me is not nothing. I know I shouldn’t encourage it, or seek it.”
“But you do anyway.”
She nodded. “Not always on purpose. But sometimes… I don’t know. It just feels nice. Nice to be appreciated, or wanted, or… whatever.”
Kylie looked at me, met my eyes, but she was hesitant and shy about it.
“That makes sense,” I said. “I don’t know that it’s necessarily the best response to your feelings, but it’s understandable.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She pushed some of her hair back over her ear. “So I’m only partly a weirdo, is what you’re saying.”