“I see,” he said, though I was certain he didn’t. A loud zipping sound came from within the dressing room. Frederick must have been trying on the jeans. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, trying not to imagine the denim sliding up his bare legs, the waistband settling low on his hips.
“Yeah,” I breathed, shaking my head to clear away unnecessary images. “Anyway, whenever Mom and I want to tease Dad, we’ll preface something mundane with ‘I swear it on my father’s kombucha.’ Mom and I laugh, Dad gets annoyed; it’s a great time.”
Silence from inside the dressing room. More rustling fabric. A hanger being taken from the wall.
The lock on the dressing room door turned. The door opened.
“Not one word of what you just said made any sense whatsoever,” Frederick said, stepping out of the dressing room. “But you can open your eyes now.”
I did.
My mouth fell open.
Frederick looked great in the parade of old-fashioned suits I’d seen him in since we’d met, of course. More than great. But I realized now that his consistently too-formal, out-of-date attire served as a constant reminder to me that Frederick was out of my league in every imaginable way—and completely off-limits.
Untouchable. And other.
Now, though . . .
“What do you think?” he asked. “Do I look like I fit in with modern society now?”
With difficulty, I tore my eyes from the broad expanse of his chest now covered in a forest-green Henley that fit him like a glove and met his gaze. He was fidgeting a little as I looked back at him, drumming his fingertips against his upper thigh again, and looking at me with a nervous intensity that stole the breath from my lungs.
I let my eyes trail slowly down his body, drinking him in, taking in his new shirt and the dark blue jeans that fit him so well you wouldn’t have guessed he’d had no idea what size he was twenty minutes ago. The other jeans he’d tried on lay folded in a pile on the chair beside him; his suit hung neatly on a hanger in the dressing room.
I focused on these other details to distract myself from how Frederick not only looked just as hot in more casual clothes as he did in his stuffy suits, but also how he now looked attainable in a way that was dangerous to me, specifically.
I had to avert my eyes. Looking right at him felt a little too much like looking directly at the sun.
“You look great. You look unbelievable, actually.” I heard his sharp intake of breath, only then realizing that that hadn’t quite been what he’d asked me. All he’d asked was whether he looked like he fit in. My stomach swooped, my face suddenly feeling like it was on fire. Idiot. “That is . . . that is to say—”
“You think I look great?” He was looking at me with an expression that fell somewhere between surprise and pleasure. He stepped from the dressing room, stopping when he was only a few inches away from me. I took an involuntary breath, breathing in the scent of lavender soap and new clothes that clung to him. “Really?”
His tone was so hopeful. It set off a wave of butterflies in my stomach that I tried to ignore.
I nodded—though great didn’t begin to do justice to how he looked.
“Yeah. Really.”
He gave me a bashful, lopsided smile that activated his killer dimple, then looked down at his arms. He rubbed one of his thumbs along his collarbones, and then across his chest. “The fabric feels nicer than I expected. Softer.”
I watched as he ran his hand over the material. “Oh?”
“Yes.” He paused. “Would you . . . would you like to touch it, too?”
My eyebrows shot up so high they nearly met my hairline. “What?”
“I am curious whether most shirts made in this era are as soft as this one. I thought if you touched my shirt . . .” He trailed off. “I thought maybe you could tell me whether this particular shirt was representative.”
He was staring down at his shoes like they were the most interesting things in the entire world.
I gazed up at him, blood rushing in my ears.
He . . . wanted me to touch him.
Here.
Outside of a Nordstrom dressing room.
I swallowed hard.
“Would it be . . . educational? For you?”
He nodded, still staring at his shoes. “I think so. But—” He looked at me, expression unreadable. “But only if you want to, Cassie.”
In the end, I didn’t need to think it over for too long. If it were anyone else but Frederick making this request, I’d assume this was the most transparent excuse in the world to get someone to touch them.