Half an hour later, Liam stood outside the dog café, his expression going through seven different shades of WTF.

I waved at him while holding a super floofy Samoyed.

“Mr. Mitchell, come on in!”

The Samoyed chimed in: “Woof woof!”

“…”, The second Liam walked in, an Alaskan Malamute launched itself at him.

Within minutes, his clothes and hair were covered in fur.

I bit back a laugh and handed him a lint roller.

“Here, clean up a bit.”

Liam looked up at me, took a step closer, bent down slightly, and looked down.

“You do it.”

“…”, I swallowed and started helping with the fur.

I rolled the lint roller over him a few times. Being this close, I could feel his breath on my face.

If this were before, I would’ve looked up, leaned toward his face, and purposely whined in a sweet voice:

“Honey, standing this close—got something dirty on your mind?”

Then he’d cold-faced dodge me.

I held back my hands, making sure not to touch Liam’s body.

I was a polite, well-behaved good girl. No more pervy moves.

After I finished, I quickly stepped back.

“Okay, let’s get back to petting—”

Before I could finish, a long-fingered hand grabbed my wrist.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed over me. I instinctively closed my eyes.

“Done.”

I opened my eyes, confused. Liam waved a piece of white fluff.

“…”, Liam’s voice was amused. “Keep petting?”

“Uh… yeah.”

Never mind. Nothing to see here.

That night, I angrily texted Noah:

【Next time, get your intel straight before passing it on!】

No reply.

Whatever.

Over the next few days, to keep being well-behaved, I didn’t flirt with Liam like before.

I didn’t go to his company either.

Instead, I signed up for a class.

How to be a considerate person. How to cure a Platonic idealist.

But the teacher was…

“Okay, step one…”

I propped my face on my hand, looking dead inside.

Staring at Noah and Sophie, who were standing at the front of the classroom, pretending to be serious. Which was a rare sight.

“Are you two messing with me on purpose?”

Noah, trying to make it up to me, had said he found a great class guaranteed to get Liam wrapped around my finger.

Sophie smiled sheepishly. “No, no! I wouldn’t mess with you. We’re just trying to help.”

Noah nodded along. “Exactly! Besides, we’re just subbing for a day. The real teacher has a stomach bug.”

“…”, Whatever. Beats boredom.

As ridiculous as the class sounded, there were ten students in the room.

Men and women.

Pretty much all from the same social circle. No idea how they got conned into coming.

After class, Sophie and Noah booked it before I could come after them.

I was about to stand up when someone knocked on my desk.

It was a really cool-looking girl.

Chin-length hair, calm eyes, simple utilitarian outfit.

“Your name’s Ava?”

I nodded.

“And you are?”

The girl scanned me, then pulled out her phone. On it was an Instagram contact.

“Chloe Foster. Add me.”

Damn. Is this how people add contacts now?

Maybe afraid I’d misunderstand, she added: “I’m not gay. I just saw you took a lot of notes and want you to send me a copy.”

“…”, I looked at my messy notes.

I gave a dry laugh and accepted.

The second we added each other, everyone else swarmed over.

“Me too!”

“Same here!”

“I…”

After several days of class, I felt like I was about to break.

One night, the classmates I’d been taking class with invited me to dinner.

I’d just put on a little dress and stepped outside when I ran right into Liam, who’d come to find me.