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“Um,” I said. If I looked just above the top of my phone, I’d get a direct view of his package in those boxer briefs, but he’d catch me looking. Damn it. “You went to a lot of trouble.”
“I got tired of being a nerd.”
“Took you long enough. I suppose you wanted a date for once.”
“Something like that.”
I kept scrolling, looking for a particular number. I had so many numbers in my phone, and most of them were for people I barely knew. “Aidan says you finally got a girlfriend or something,” I said.
“I’ve had a couple of girlfriends, though I don’t have one now.”
“I see. Were they serious?”
God, I was so obviously fishing. Well, screw it—I wanted to know.
Dane took a second to answer—a second that lasted way too long—and then he said, “No.”
I looked at him at last, making my gaze go straight to his face instead of all the other places I wanted to stare at so badly. “You don’t sound very sure.”
Dane shrugged, which made the tailor make a tutting noise, since he was taking a measurement under Dane’s armpit. “The women thought it was serious,” he said, ignoring the tailor. “I didn’t.”
I snorted. “I’ve dated a few guys like that.” Too many. That was my problem—I always thought it was serious, and the guys never did.
“Really? I hope you dumped them.”
I said nothing, unwilling to admit I never dumped anyone. I was always the one who got dumped. “When it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”
“I get it,” Dane said. “That means the sex was shit.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to lie again—the sex was usually very much shit—and then my gaze dropped. Damn it. I looked at Dane’s chest, the muscles of his pecs, the dusting of brown hair on his taut skin. His flat stomach. Even his belly button was hot. The tailor put his measuring tape around Dane’s waist, moving into my line of vision, and I looked away before my gaze could drop lower.
I had a sudden memory of one afternoon that magical winter when I was nineteen. The other three left the apartment, and Dane and I jumped each other. The apartment was empty for barely forty-five minutes, so Dane fucked me on the kitchen table, consequences be damned, both of us crazy high with pleasure. It was pure insanity, and when we both came we nearly broke the table. It was only afterward that I realized we’d torn my panties, and I had to stuff them in my pocket and go bare under my jeans until I could go home and change.
Despite everything that came afterward, it was a happy memory, one of the best. For a breathless second I could still feel him inside me, the distinctive feel of him, the way he moved. No one since had ever moved quite like Dane.
This was my problem: I always cared too much about these things. Dane had probably forgotten.
“You have a boyfriend now?” Dane asked. Fine, it was his turn to fish. I’d take it.
“Not right now,” I said.
“What happened to the last one?”
“He broke up with me, then stopped taking my calls.” I’d called a lot of times, left a lot of messages. Too many, maybe. I was that girl.
“You’re better off,” Dane said. “Hey. Is it necessary that this guy grabs my balls?”
I looked back to see the tailor attempting to measure Dane’s inseam. “Just relax and you’ll be fine,” I said, lifting my phone and dialing a number. I didn’t want to have this conversation anymore.
Jewel answered on the first ring. “Honey, come have drinks in SoHo with me.”
“Can’t,” I said to her. “I’m in Chicago.”
“Chicago?” She nearly shrieked the word. “No one goes to Chicago. It’s nowhere.”
“A girl’s gotta work,” I said, watching the tailor measure the other inseam because it gave me an excuse to look between Dane’s legs. “Listen, I need a men’s hairstylist in Chicago, stat. Who do you recommend?”
“I’m not getting a haircut,” Dane mumbled.
