Troubleshoot Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Brooke <3

"What was so important that you had to call me here in the middle of the night?" I ask while plopping myself down in the computer chair in the middle of Brooke's room, trying to avoid looking at the temptress.

"Whoa, no need to be so hostile. Are you telling me you don't want to be in a girl's room in the middle of the night?" she fires back, taking a step closer to me and making it slightly harder to avoid looking at her. The hell is she doing, isn't this supposed to be about helping me get with Amy? How is this gonna help?

I hear her sigh and she walks past me, the sound of springs compressing hitting my ears a moment later.

"Are you gonna act like this if you're alone with Amy?" she says. I spin the chair around to face her and find her sitting on her bed, still wearing the nightshirt and panties, not even trying to cover anything up. I immediatly have to avert my eyes again, pretending to find what I assume to be a Make-up kit sitting on a night stand beside the bed to be more interesting than her.

"What do you mean?" I say, trying to use agression to counter my nervousness.

"You can't even look at me without becoming a nervous wreck, that's why your eyes are focusing on everything in the room but me." she says.

I stay silent, knowing she'd just call my bluff if I tried to make an excuse for my behavior.

"On one hand your inexperience is cute in short bursts, but on the other hand a girl like Amy isn't gonna date a guy who turns into a incoherent mess the moment she shows a little skin." she continues.

I dare to take another glance, but can't hold my gaze without my stomach filling up with butterflies. "So you being dressed like...that. It was all a test or something?" I ask, while looking for a new inanimate object to stare at to distract myself from the bundle of sex appeal in front of me.

"Think of it like exposure therapy. I'm comfortable showing my body off a little, and you desperately need to get more comfortable with stuff like this before I hand you off to Amy. You'll just embarrass yourself if I don't help you. " she explains.

Against my better judgement I cross my arms and puff out my cheeks childishly, proclaiming that "I'm not that bad."

The brunnette just rolls her eyes. "Not even you believe that, you would never have agreed to this if you did."

"Fine, you got me. Where do we start?" I say, too tired to keep up the stubborn act. I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the time. 12:20 AM. Jesus, I have class tomorrow.

The brunnette puts a finger to her chin in thought. "Did anything interesting happen between you two, after I left?"

"Um, yeah actually. She sorta stormed out after..." my face goes red and I try to avoid her gaze even more than before.

"After what?" she asks, for once no sense of teasing in her voice.

"She caught me...looking at your butt." I eventually blurt out, eyes downcast. She just giggles at my confession.

"An a*s man, huh? I'll keep that in mind for next time." she says, she probably would've thrown a wink my way if I didn't find my beat up tennis shoes more interesting than her face. I try to ignore the teasing as best I can.

"But yeah, she's never done that before. It was real weird." I say.

"Hmmmm, well let me ask you this. What do you think it was?" she says, getting serious again.

"Well, it seemed like...jealousy. But I don't think that's true because she would never really like me like that and-" Brooke puts her finger up to her lips, like she did earlier. It shuts me up again.

"Now I'm just going off on a limb here, but I think you're actually onto something. It might be jealousy, just not in the way you're thinking." she begins to explain. This gets me to actually lift my head up and look at her face, without being distracted.

"She doesn't have to see you as a romantic partner to get jealous that you're giving someone else attention. Especially when they're used to being in the spotlight. She probably wasn't expecting you to give attention to another girl, that's never happened before, has it?" she questions.

"Um, well not really." I stutter out, surprised by how much she could tell about my and Amy's friendship from just the small time she talked to us.

"That explains it then. To make a long story short..." she stands up, puts her hands on her hips, and gives me a smirk.

"She's just not used to competition for your attention." she finishes confidently. I'm not gonna lie, it made her look incredibly hot. All I can do is stare and mutter out a quite "Y-yeah, that might be it."

Brooke brushes some of her brown hair behind her ear and giggles to herself at my reaction. "At this rate she might have to get used to it, looks like you can barely take your eyes off me."

My eyes dart back down to the floor after she said that. It probably looks like I was trying to use my mind to burn a hole into the tiled floor, from her perspective. I just hear her sigh and mumble "Way to make a liar out of me."

"So, um, what's your plan? How're you gonna, you know..." I trail off, being too nervous to even talk about me and Amy dating out loud.

Brooke plops her a*s back down on the bed, the sudden movement making her other...assets bounce up and down in a way that I can't help notice out of the corner of my eye.

"Your little story about her getting jealous let me know that I was on the right track. The solution is simple. We make her realize how important you are to her. She probably doesn't even realize why she got jealous, herself."

Before she can continue I interrupt "But you said-"

She returns the favor by cutting me off. "I know what I said, however feelings change. If we keep up the pressure so to speak, make it seem like she might lose you she might re-evaluate her feelings for you." she finishes.

"You think it'll work?!" I blurt out, maybe a little too excitedly, once again looking at her face.

She sorta laughs it off a bit. "Well, it's better than what you're doing now, at the very least." she says matter-of-factly. I try to laugh off my embarrasement. Brooke picks up her phone off her nightstand and looks at the time, the soft light of her phone giving me a better look at her silky brunnette hair, peircing green eyes, and full lips.

"Geez, this took longer than I thought, it's almost One." she says, her furrowed brow and tone of voice giving away her annoyance. She turns back to me. "I think we should wrap this up soon. Unless..." she trails off, her eyes trailing up and down my body.

"You'd like to have a little fun?" she smirks. I feel a surge of heat rush to my face and my mind flashes back to what I told Amy the day before. "Just calm down, all he wants is a reaction." I had told her that when Brian teased her. I'm not a complete idiot, I know Brooke is doing the same thing, so why is it so effective?! I take a deep breath and calm down, hearing Brooke giggle at my predicament, again. I collect my thoughts, I'll wipe that smirk off her face.

"I'd love to, but I'm a lot to handle, wouldn't want you to be sore during class tomorrow." I fire back, despite the heat on my face still being as present as ever. Now it was my turn to smirk, as I look at Brooke's split second look of shock. Soon it goes back to normal though, her smirk turning into a grin.

"I didn't know you had it in you. But just remember that you're the one who turned me down, big boy." she says while shooting me a wink, putting special emphasis on the last two words. Barely being able to handle the situation, I storm out of the room without saying a word, not wanting her to realize how speechless I was that she managed to succeed in teasing me twice within thirty seconds.

I sigh and start the walk back to my own dorm, reflecting on the night's events. Looks like we have a plan of attack now. Hopefully it'll work, so long as I don't f**k it up. Another part of me didn't like the plan though, it seemed a little manipulative on our part, to force Amy into making a decision she possibly wasn't ready to make. But I'll make sure Brooke doesn't go too far or anything. I walk out the front door cool night air helps counteract the warmness of my blushing face. I realize that Brian is gonna be pissed when I wake him up in the middle of night and start running, also realizing that I should get some sleep too. I still have class tomorrow.