He stares for long enough that I have to glance down and check that all my bits are in place and not making a surprise appearance. A flush tints his cheeks as he scrapes a hand down his jaw and along the column of his neck, his lips parted.
One nod. He offers me one slow nod before a deep exhale.
“I’m gonna—” he chokes out, voice hoarse. “Is there anything you want to put back?”
I’ve broken him, and I feelpowerful.
Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth to fight a smile, I reluctantly hand him the pile of clothing I liked but won’t buy. Based on his reaction, it would be a shame if I didn’t buy this dress, even if I don’t wear it on the trip.
Jett disappears while I change back into my clothes, neatly folding the silk garment over my arm. I search the store, but he’s gone. I wrap around the men’s section, then the children’s, but he’s nowhere to be found.
By the time I make it to the checkout counter, my heart is racing.
Where the hell is he?
“Your boyfriend already paid,” a young woman says, halting the mild panic that Jett left me by myself in a mall in the middle of Australia.
“What?”
“He’s sitting on the bench over there.” She lifts a hand, and there he is, dragging his fingers through his hair, surrounded by three massive shopping bags at his feet.
“Oh, thank you.” I ignore her assumption about our relationship status and her intense gaze. “I need to pay for this.”
She shakes her head. “Jett already paid for it.”
“Excuse me?”
“He let us know you wanted it, so I scanned a different tag. You’re all set to take it with you.”
My bag slips from my grip, and I stumble to catch it. “He bought it?”
“Mm-hmm.” She’s looking at me like I’m crazy. I amnotthe crazy one here. “I wish my boyfriend took me on shopping sprees. You’re lucky.”
Her wistful sigh follows me as I beeline toward myboyfriend, who I think may have purchased every item I tried on. A flurry of emotions rages inside me. Confusion. Annoyance. Gratitude.
When I reach him, I poke him square between the eyebrows. His head jerks up, a reactionary smile pulling his cheeks upward. It falters when he registers my face.
“Look”—he throws his hands up—“I know what you’re about to say…”
“Oh, you do?” I raise a brow, and he blanches.Oh, this is fun. “What was I going to say?”
“That felt like the wrong thing to say.”
“I’m waiting.”
He clears his throat, and then, in a high-pitched voice, he says, “You can’t buy my clothes.I can’t accept this. You need to return them.”
Every hard-hitting sentence I formulated from the shop to the bench disappears with a poof. I donotsound like that. I’m offended. Deeply so. There’s nothing wrong with trying to maintain some sort of balance here. It’s his fault, really. He’s so nonchalant and go-with-the-flow that he scatters my thoughts.
His grin morphs into this shit-eating thing I want to wipe right off his face. I need to one-up him somehow. Since he thinks I’m going to argue with him, expects it probably, which was my plan, I pivot.
“Nope. Not what I was going to say.” My voice is saccharine, almost the same tone as the one he used to mock me.
“Oh?”
“I was going to say thank you for the clothes. You were right. These are much better than a blazer.”
The conversation disintegrates when I lean down and put the dress in one of the bags. His brows scrunch together like he’s close to solving a crossword but can’t quite figure out the final clue.
