A/N: Hello, my gorgeous people.

"Don't stare."

Bella jumped back a good three feet, hands thrown up in the classic I-didn't-do-it gesture. Jacob stood at the entrance to the kitchen, hands on his hips. His stern expression was more a smile than anything, but she still felt the need to defend herself. "I wasn't staring."

She'd been peering carefully out the kitchen's smallest window, her body angled so she was mostly obscured if any of them happened to be looking her way—which they weren't. And they shouldn't be.

"You're obsessing over the boob-cup incident again, aren't you?" Jacob said.

"No," she lied.

"You're overthinking this, Bells."

Bella glowered at Jake. "It was…rude. He was obviously mortified."

"It was three days ago. I'm sure he doesn't even remember."

"I'm sure he does," she muttered, drumming her fingernails absently on the counter. "Or else why did he stop smiling at me?"

"Wait. What now?"

Bella realized belatedly what she'd said and frowned. "Nothing. Never mind. You're right. I'm making a mountain out of a molehill." She hurried past him to the kitchen table and her laptop.

"Uh, no." Jacob plopped down in the chair next to hers and yanked her chair to face him. "Talk."

"It's nothing. Just before the crockery malfunction, he used to smile at me."

"He used to smile at you," Jacob repeated the words slowly, his nuance making it sound risqué.

"Not like that." She rolled her eyes. "Just a polite smile. Like people do when your eyes meet."

Jacob's lip twitched. "So your eyes have been meeting a lot."

"For fuck's sake." Inexplicably, her cheeks flamed. "In case you haven't noticed, this is a huge bay window. And I not only work from this table, but I'm also writing this damn dissertation. My ass is sitting right here for like fifteen hours out of every day. Yeah, occasionally we look up at the same time, and when we do, he smiles at me."

"Politely."

"Politely." She grimaced. "Except it hasn't happened since the…incident."

"He hasn't smiled at you because he hasn't looked at you," Jacob filled in. He pressed his lips together, but she could see the grin threatening to break out. "And you would know he hasn't looked at you because you have looked at him." A beat. "Staring."

Somehow, Bella resisted the urge to throw things at her friend. "I wasn't staring, and even if I was, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Or is it someone else who obsesses over these guys so much they actually know intimate details?"

"Pfft. It's not my fault I've got good observational skills and way too much time on my hands lately." He sighed. "The plight of an unemployed man with a severely immunocompromised father to take care of whose friends like gatherings that are just a little too big for comfort at this point of a pandemic. I'm just amusing myself. I'm not making eye contact and smiling at people."

Bella just grunted and set about sorting her paperwork for the day.

"For the record, I don't think he's the statistical one that plays for my team," Jacob said with an air of innocence.

"And why would I care about that?"

"You know. Just in case."

"In case of what?" Bella looked up, making a face at her friend. "You know what? Don't answer that. Anyway, I'm seeing someone, remember?"

Now it was Jacob's turn to make a face. "You didn't make it official with Paul, did you?" He said the name like it was dirt in his mouth.

"Be nice." She sighed and shook her head. "No. It's not that it's serious. It's that I'm seeing him. We're dating. It's simple respect, that's all."

"Uh-huh." Jacob shrugged and got up from the table. "Well, nothing wrong with looking, anyway."

"I'm not looking," she called to his retreating back.

He just snickered as he closed the door to his room.

A/N: Sooooooo.