The Cheat Sheet

When Bree gets back to her apartment after being stuck in traffic, she finds Dylan waiting at her door to get her ready for the party. When she opens her front door, she sees that Nathan has sent enough flowers to fill her entire living room. She does not have a favorite flower but loves the color combination of green and pink flowers. Every bouquet is green and pink, and Nathan wrote her a note that says, “I hope you don’t mind, but I found a way to make your apartment smell better. Be by at seven to pick you up” (169). Bree is awed by the gesture but still thinks that Nathan is just trying to get her in the mood to fake flirt, not that he has feelings for her. She offers Dylan a pair of Juicy Couture sweats to wear since he has something sticky on his pants from sitting on the step outside her front door. Dylan then shows her the dresses he bought for her at Nathan’s request. Bree starts to panic at the price of all the dresses and the cost of Dylan getting her ready, and Dylan tries to calm her down, reminding her that it’s okay if Nathan wants to do nice things for her. They then go through the dresses, with Dylan promising to return the ones she doesn’t choose, and Bree selects a long, champagne-colored gown covered in delicate sparkles and with a low back. Dylan then does her hair and makeup and kisses her goodbye on the cheek. As soon as he leaves, Nathan arrives. Bree fears her feelings for Nathan and how real everything is starting to feel, especially when she sees him in his well-cut suit. He kisses her on the cheek and asks if she’s ready to go.

Nathan has to be on the phone with his agent to negotiate an endorsement deal during the entire car ride to the venue. He hates having to be on the phone and ignoring Bree, as the demands of his work contributed to his past breakups, and he finds Bree so beautiful in her gown that he can hardly keep his eyes off her. Tim, Nathan’s manager, tells him on the phone which people to schmooze with and which people to avoid at the event and then passes on a directive from Nicole: Nathan and Bree must kiss on the red carpet to keep their relationship trending in the press. Nathan tells him to text him a list of people to talk to and avoid and ends the call. He’s nervous about telling Bree that they need to kiss, as she had initially included “no kissing” in her list of rules. Bree’s eyes are glued to her phone, and Nathan asks her what she’s looking at. She says that he’ll laugh at her but shows him anyway: photos of celebrities on the red carpet. She admits that she doesn’t know how to pose, and Nathan gives her advice on how to tilt her head and promises to hold her hand and guide her through it. He then tells her that they need to kiss. Bree is concerned that their first kiss will be in public, in front of cameras, which fills Nathan with hope, as she said “first” kiss, implying more kisses in the future. He offers to practice once with her in the car, but she refuses, as she does not want to make it more real. They arrive at the venue, and Bree is a natural at posing for the paparazzi. When the paparazzi ask Nathan and Bree to kiss, Nathan freezes, unable to kiss Bree. She leans up on her tiptoes and kisses him, leading him down the red carpet like a lost puppy. Nathan feels bad, as he thinks he ruined their first kiss.

Bree finds a tent to hide in with Nathan at the event. She checks in with him, concerned that he’s having a panic attack. He denies having a panic attack and returns to the event, refusing her suggestion that they go home. Bree trips and almost falls, ripping a nine-foot-tall poster of a naked Nathan in the process. He failed to mention that the event is to celebrate the “form” issue of the magazine, which features photos of naked athletes. She panics, humiliated about falling and ripping the poster, as everyone stares at her. Nathan helps her up and makes a joke about the poster, remarking that his girlfriend wants to take the naked photo of him home. They pose with the ripped poster, and Bree even posts a photo of them with it on Instagram. At Nathan’s apartment, Bree is still a little freaked out about the kiss and ripping the poster. Nathan gives her some Starbursts and then sits with her on the couch and gives her a foot massage. Bree finds the massage strangely intimate and unlike anything they’ve done before. She brings up the kiss to Nathan, who pivots by jokingly accusing her of ripping the poster out of jealousy at other people seeing him naked. Bree denies this, admitting that she never even looked at the racier naked photos of Nathan inside the magazine because friends shouldn’t see each other naked. Nathan then makes a guilty face, and after Bree’s prodding, he confesses to the time that he accidentally saw her naked. Bree is embarrassed and demands to see Nathan naked in return. He strips down slowly and sensually to his underwear before she tells him to stop and that she was joking, flustered by the sight of his muscular body. She goes to leave, claiming that she has to bake cookies for her students early the next morning, but Nathan stops her. He kneels in front of her and gently puts her heels on her feet, which flusters Bree even more since it reminds her of the time he tied her shoe for her in high school.

As Bree walks home, Robert, Nathan’s driver, stops her and offers to give her a ride. She refuses, and he follows her slowly in the car. She then asks if he can drive her somewhere else and gets in the front seat so that she can chat with him. They share a bag of convenience store candy and talk about Robert and his wife Miriam’s love story on the drive to Lily’s house. Bree throws a pebble at Lily’s window to wake her up. Lily lets her in, and Bree fills her in about Nathan’s strip tease and the fact that she thinks they almost became intimate. Lily tells Bree that she saw this coming and is thrilled when Bree finally lets herself dream of becoming more than just friends with Nathan. Bree plans to up her flirting with Nathan to test the waters before confessing her feelings. Before she leaves Lily’s house, she gives her a trinket, a small Barbie in a hot pink bathrobe.

Nathan meets with Jamal, Derek, Price, and Lawrence to discuss the ongoing progress of his attempts to woo Bree. He fills them in on the cheat sheet tools he’s used so far, including the sensual food fight with the brownie batter, visiting Bree at work, his strip tease, his failed attempt at winking, and getting them stuck in an elevator on purpose. The guys encourage him to up the ante with more physical touch, perhaps even a make-out session. Nathan feels unsure about planning a make-out session with Bree, as he wants something that intense to happen more spontaneously. Derek plans to throw a party that Nathan can bring Bree to after their upcoming game. Nathan is hesitant about partying during the playoffs, but the guys convince him that it’s a good idea. They win the game, leaving only one more game between them and a Super Bowl appearance. During the drive to the party, Bree reads funny and creepy messages from fans to Nathan, while he worries about the possibility of kissing her and what it will mean. When they get to the party, it’s bigger than Nathan expected, which makes him nervous. He worries that the team will drink too much and be off their game for practice the next day or get in a fight that results in the cops coming, which could lead to a suspension. Bree calms Nathan down, getting drinks for the two of them and asking Nathan to show her around. He notices that she’s more flirty than usual. When Nathan puts his arm around her waist, she says it’s okay but that she’ll be possessive in return. She kisses his jaw, which makes Nathan decide to no longer ignore the signs of her feelings for him.

Bree follows Nathan as he leads her through the party. He takes her toward a dark hallway, which makes Bree question his intentions. He then pushes Bree softly against the wall before taking three steps back, putting his back against the opposite wall of the hallway. He warns her, since he knows that change scares her, that he’s going to take three steps forward; put his hands on her hips, jaw, or the back of her neck; and then kiss her. Bree asks why, but she silences the part of herself that doesn’t want to hope for romance with Nathan. He checks in with her one more time and then approaches her, putting his hand on her hip. Bree starts to giggle, like Rachel Green in Friends when she finally gets to kiss her longtime friend. Nathan immediately understands why she’s giggling, refusing her apology, before kissing her neck and asking her to imagine that they’ve kissed before and that he was the one who washed her hair before they arrived. They then kiss passionately, with Nathan lifting Bree to hold her in his arms with her legs wrapped around his waist. The power then goes out, clearly turned off intentionally by Jamal, who then offers a candle to Nathan. Now that Bree knows what kissing Nathan is like, she never wants to go back to being just friends.

Nathan wakes up to Bree hovering over his bed. He thinks he’s dreaming until he touches her and realizes that she’s real. It’s 5:00 am, 30 minutes before their usual run start time. Bree also didn’t bring coffee or donuts like she usually does. She admits that she woke up and was antsy and couldn’t sleep, so she wants to start their run early. She throws clothes at Nathan and demands that he get dressed but pauses and presses her hand to Nathan’s chest before fleeing the room and letting him dress. Nathan feels electricity at her touch and at the memory of their kiss.

Bree paces as she waits for Nathan to come downstairs from his apartment. She feels jittery after touching him like that so brazenly. When Nathan gets downstairs, she doesn’t mention the touch and instead takes off. Bree is running too fast for a sustainable jogging pace. Nathan tries to get her to slow down and questions the lack of coffee and donuts. Bree woke up at 4:30 am, desperate to see Nathan after two days apart, needing to see if the zings and fireworks she felt from their kiss are still there or if he was faking, though she doubts that he could fake it since he is a terrible liar. She tells Nathan that she didn’t feel like having a donut, and he insists that she’s unwell and takes her down to the beach. Nathan states that they don’t come to the beach enough, but Bree admits that she went to the beach the day before and didn’t tell him, knowing that he was busy and would feel left out. Nathan thinks it’s pathetic of him to be so attached to his work, but Bree assures him that she doesn’t mind. It’s not a fault but a quirk in who he is, like her piles of clutter that she keeps all around her apartment that Nathan never tries to clean. They accept each other for who they are. Nathan then picks Bree up and takes her swimming in the ocean, despite the freezing water. Afterward, he holds her close until she’s warm again. They almost kiss, but Nathan spots a paparazzo on the beach with a long lens. Bree questions if they should not still kiss anyway, as they want their relationship in the press. Nathan disagrees and says that the publicity was only necessary when their relationship was fake.

Nathan and Bree jog home in their soaking wet clothes, this time Nathan taking the lead with intense speed. Bree trips over her feet and lands on the sidewalk, avoiding landing on her bad knee but badly scraping her elbows and other knee. Nathan immediately checks on her, but Bree asks him to look away as tears prick at her eyes. She doesn’t want to cry in public over some scrapes, but Nathan tells her that it’s okay to cry. He piggyback carries her back to his apartment. When they get home, he lays her on the couch, despite her concerns about bleeding on the white upholstery, and bandages all of her scrapes. Nathan is troubled by the image of her bandaged, as it reminds him of the time after her accident, when he worried that she would die and was in agony over the loss of her dream of dancing professionally. He tells her that he would have sold his soul to give her her dreams back. Bree says that she is glad he didn’t because she likes his soul. It takes Nathan some time to respond to this, and Bree awkwardly babbles and tries to make an Instagram post to fill the silence, but eventually Nathan tells her that he likes her soul, too. He then kisses her again. He has to go to work but asks to see her later to discuss their relationship.