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"Quinn." He says my name so softly it barely sounds like a word.

"I don't think you're doing it wrong."

I let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh.

He shakes his head. "I mean it."

He leans forward. "You know what I think?"

I brace myself.

"I think you're trying so hard to date the right way that you've forgotten you're allowed to have your own way."

I blink.

"You just assume that everyone else got handed a rulebook you somehow missed."

I huff out a laugh. "Didn't they?"

"No."

He smiles. "They're just making it up as they go, same as everybody else."

"But it looks so easy."

"It always does from the outside."

Silence settles between us for a moment.

Then he adds, quieter this time, "For what it's worth..."

I meet his eyes.

"I don't think the problem is that you don't know how to date."

"What is it, then?"

"I think you went out with a perfectly nice guy because you thought you were supposed to."

My breath catches. "And?"

His smile fades into something impossibly gentle. "And I think you're waiting to feel something that can't be forced."

He lets the words hang there. "You shouldn't have to convince yourself to like somebody, Quinn."

My eyes sting, and I lower my gaze to my hands, not able to meet his gaze.

"Quinn."

I blink hard.

"I need you to look at me."

I sniffle. "I don't want to." I sound like a sullen five-year-old, but I don't care.

A beat passes.

Then I feel the lightest brush of warm fingertips beneath my chin.