Briana's phone buzzed and she pulled it from her pocket to read a text from Laurie and laugh as she texted back with her location. A minute later he came around the corner to find Bree and Dahlia sitting in the canopied back of Doll's truck, which is where she'd hidden to shift.
Laurie was now wearing a stylish kilt around his hips,overthe jeans Briana had torn up. He pointed an accusing finger at her, then at the kilt. "Look what I had to buy!"
"It's very nice," Briana offered politely. "And I bet it would look even better if you weren't wearing jeans under it. Laurie, you know Doll, right? Dahlia, this is Laurie Torben?"
"We've met," Doll said with a cheerful wave. "Thanks for sacrificing your jeans to the fundraiser cause. We did break a thousand dollars, by the way."
"I was trying to sacrifice myshirtto the cause," Laurie said irascibly, although it sounded performative rather than genuinely annoyed. "Why'd you go for my jeans?"
"I thought it would be funny."
Laurie's mouth worked until it formed a reluctant grin. "Well, you were right about that. Look, since I'm no longer directly in the public eye, do you mind if Idoget rid of the jeans? I've got a weird breeze going on right now." He didn't actually wait for an answer, just kicked first his shoes, then his torn-up jeans off. The shoes went back on, although tennies didn't go with the kilt at all. Weirdly, the white t-shirt he wore went with it fairly well, though, and Briana found herself examining him with a critical but interested eye.
"I was right. It's better without the jeans."
Because Laurie Torben hadmagnificentthighs and fantastic calves. Briana thought she should have expected that: he was abig man, not exactly thickly built but definitely not a twig. Or maybe notthicc, but thick.
The point was, he had great thighs and surprisingly good knees, even. Knees weren't a particularly sexy body part to Briana's mind, but Laurie was doing okay with his. And she felt like she'd been staring at his legs for too long, so she said, "It's a look. You need different shoes, but it could work."
"I don't even have my Viking braids in." Laurie passed a hand over his hair, which he was indeed wearing loose and long. "I could rock the whole look."
Both Doll and Briana laughed, and Bree said, "You don't lack for confidence, do you?"
"About all this?" he asked with a gesture at himself. "Why would I?"
That was a pretty good question, really, and Briana found herself half-smiling at her fated mate as she allowed herself the luxury of taking 'all this' in. He really was very attractive. She'd never thought of herself as particularly into blonds, and Laurie was pretty damn blond, but it worked for him. And more to the point, it seemed to be working for Briana.
Her goat sniffed.Bet he can't climb a mountain, though.
Briana actually laughed aloud, making both Dahlia and Laurie lift their eyebrows at her. Aloud, mostly to the goat but expecting the other two could guess what prompted the comment, she said, "He almost certainly can't climb a mountain likeIcan, anyway, no."
"Even I can't climb a mountain the way you do, and I'm incredibly good at mountain climbing," Dahlia pointed out.
Laurie looked as if he wanted to argue but already knew he wouldn't come out ahead in it. "I don't reallyclimbmountains, no…"
Briana's goat sniffed again, and Bree grinned at Dahlia. "My goat thinksyou'realmost good enough to count."
"You could teach me," Laurie said almost diffidently. Like he really hoped she'd consider it, and like he recognized he was probably never going to be up to par.
Her goat said,That's true,and Briana sent it a scolding look.
Know what? He's trying, and I like that about him.
Her goat went quiet, but did so with an unusual sense of satisfaction, as if it had suddenly and unexpectedly gotten its way. Briana eyed it, then shrugged and said, "Yeah, if you'd like, I could do that," to Laurie. "We'd have to start at the climbing wall. I'm not taking a newbie straight out to the mountain."
Dahlia hopped down from the truck's tailgate, nudging Briana as she did so. "Why don't you two go do that, while I go do my thing? And I'll see you tonight at the Harlequin, maybe?"
"Why, what's going on at the Harlequin?" Briana had only been to the local club a handful of times, in part because she thought Laurie hung out there. All of a sudden she had a vividly clear realization of how many things she'd avoided because she was trying not to meet her fated mate, and thoughtthat was kind of dumb.
But it also hadn't been. She sighed and put it out of her mind as Doll said, "The door fee tonight is going to the recovery effort and a bunch of local musicians are going to perform for free, even maybe the Sixty Pix."
She glanced at Laurie as if for confirmation, but he shook his head. "They're touring right now. Festivals booked all summer. So probably not them, sorry."
"Aww, oh well, it's not like we don't get more than our fair share of them here." Doll smiled, then waved and went around to her truck door, calling, "See you tonight, maybe."
"I only just found out about the fundraiser when we split up earlier, but I thought I'd probably go over to the club tonight," Laurie said to Briana almost hesitantly as Doll drove away. "Would you like to come with me? Or meet me there?"
"Are you asking me on adate, Laurie Torben?"
