Date?

"Me? Not intense? Is that a challenge?" She turned her body to the side, giving him a teasing glance from the corner of her eye. It was the classic 'no you!' response. Jane was the most intense person Jane knew, if she wasn't being modest. "The difference is I can put my money where my mouth is. You name it, I'll do it. C'mon. I said we needed to shake things up, didn't I?"

"Kiss me!" Montare tried to ignore the blush that was becoming apparent on his face, trying to ignore that of all the things he could've thought up, that was it. Shiiiiiiit. Well, maybe he'd get lucky yet again and she'd think it was a joke and she'd just laugh. Montare was already thinking of plenty of other things that he could say after that happened. For now though, he was frozen by both fear and embarassment.

... Oh?

Jane stifled a snort of laughter, turning her head away. "Is that a request or a challenge? Or maybe an offer?" She waved a hand, sighing. "It's a cute idea, but you messed up on the execution. Flirting is all about delivery, y'know." Someone else could've pulled a line like that off just fine. Someone like Modem, maybe. Coming from Montare, it rang less of "confidence" and more of "desperation." An awkward misunderstanding of the tone and shift of the conversation.

"I like a guy who knows what he wants, so let's be straightforward." She stared at him from the corner of her eye, still grinning, the evening light masking half her face in shadow. "What do you want from me, Mon-tare?~" Jane seemed to sing his name.

Montare continued to try his best to ignore how red his face was as Jane spoke. After a moment, his gaze shifted back over to the tree he was waiting under earlier. "Go climb up that tree and do a backflip off of it," he challenged her with his eyes still on the tree. Now he was just trying to give her something to do that he didn't think she would manage to pull off. Montare walked over to the tree and leaned on it, looking back at Jane with that challenging grin back on his face again. "I'm waiting."

My, my, my. Jane sighed again, her smile disappearing. Hilarious, but it would've been rude to laugh. "So you really are a neutered wolf, huh?" she said, cocking her head. "Is that really what you want from me? To do a backflip? I asked you a question, Montare. So are you sure that's your answer?" He'd danced away, retreated with his wolfy tail between his legs, changed the subject and ignored her like he'd never said anything to begin with. Was she supposed to be nice and pretended that'd never happened? "Let me ask again. What do you want from me, Wolf Boy? A backflip? A kiss? Something else? A girlfriend?" There was a small pause. The smile never reappeared, and her stare never wavered from him. "Answer carefully this time. I said I like guys who know what they want."

Wow. That wasn't the smartest move to make. Yet again his luck showed, since it seemed like he had one more chance at this. Trying to muster what little confidence he had left, Montare opened his mouth. "A kiss. I want a kiss." He figured the best thing for him to do was to go back to what he said he wanted the first time. He returned the look, although he kept what he hoped was a confident smile on his face. After all, he didn't want to mess this up again; it looked like he barely got a second chance.

"That's better." Leading the conversation like this made her feel like she was talking to a little kid. She couldn't help but purse her lips. Was it a mistake to agree to this? Awkward, shy, passive. Those kind of guys hadn't been compatible with someone like her for a long time. Jane had only ever wanted to be nice, to give him a fair shot, and if it didn't turn out great, then it didn't matter in the end. But of course, maybe she'd misjudged. Would it be better or worse to just cut to the heart of it all right now? "But why a kiss? Is it more than that? Do you have a crush? Do you want my body? Is it just for fun? Have you even ever kissed anyone before?" She smiled at him, but it was a sheepish, apologetic smile. "You're really sweet, but I think I know what you want even if you don't, and you don't need a kiss from someone like me."