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Becca caught him wincing as he took off his leather jacket and vest. Griz was big and tough, but no one was indestructible, Becca knew.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she said. “I mean, you got shot. With a shotgun.”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Griz said.
He’d probably say that even if his arm got ripped off, Becca thought.
Guys like that had a habit of not taking care of their injuries, which could make for problems down the road, though, so Becca decided she needed to take charge on this one.
“Well, we have to check and see if any of it went through the vest,” she said. “Don’t we?”
“I guess.”
“What do you mean, I guess?” Becca said. “Aren’t you worried about maybe being shot?”
“I was worried about you,” Griz said.
“Okay, that is… sweet of you,” Becca conceded. “But seriously, if any of that buckshot got through your vest, you could be really hurt. At least, that’s what the movies tell me.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, stop it, tough guy,” she said. “Better safe than sorry.”
“You’re right, Becca.”
She paused for a moment at that. It was rare that she got to hear those words, all lined up in a row just like that.You’re right, Becca. It felt good. She could get used to hearing that.
Griz unbuttoned his flannel shirt and shrugged out of it, tossing it over a nearby chair. Becca had to blink a few times to process exactly what she was seeing.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that Griz would be built like a Chippendale dancer. Every muscle in his torso was clearly defined, and it seemed like even his abs had abs.
“Whew,” came out of her mouth. “So you guys must work out a lot at your clubhouse, hunh?”
“Free weights, mostly,” Griz said.
“It was a rhetorical… never mind,” Becca said. “It’s clearly working for you.”
“Thanks.”
Griz sat down on the couch in the living room and Becca followed suit, trying not to stare. This wasn’t fair. He couldn’t just ambush her with a reveal like this. She needed time to be able to process this new evidence, and her eyes couldn’t seem to pull away from his body.
There was something about seeing a six pack set of abs up close and personal, right there at only an arm’s length away, that kept her staring. She wasn’t used to guys like this. She was used to guys who rode a desk all day, not a Harley. She was used to guys whose stomachs looked like Dad bods, not an old timey washboard.
She found herself imaging what those tight muscles would feel like under her fingers, how firm they would be under her touch. Her hand seemed to move of its own volition, reaching out to act out her thoughts, before she stopped herself just shy of touching him.
“So…” she said, trying to think of something to cover for herself, “you’ve got a lot of bruises here on your stomach.”
“Yeah, that happens if you get shot in a bulletproof vest,” Griz said.
At first, Becca thought that might’ve been sarcasm, but a look at his face told her that no, that was just Griz being Griz. It was starting to grow on her, though, his habit for plainly speaking.
“Does it hurt?” she said.
“It’s fine.”
“I guess nothing hurts you,” she said.
“I’m scared of needles.”
