A knock came at the door just as I was considering looking at another linen suit.
“Come in.”
Dane stepped inside my apartment, pausing just long enough to take in the scene.
His gaze landed on me, moved over my outfit, then the sofa piled with clothes, and settled back on me again.
“I don’t like it,” he said simply.
I frowned. “What?”
“What you’re wearing.”
I let out a short breath and gestured at the pile on the sofa.
“Right. Then help me with these,” I said.
I picked up the first shirt and held it out.
Dane didn’t hesitate. “No.”
I tried another.
“No.”
I dropped it back onto the sofa, already losing patience. “You haven’t liked a single thing.”
“Because I don’t.” His attention drifted over the pile again. “Where did these even come from?”
“Glen.”
That got a small pause out of him. His gaze stayed on the clothes a moment longer, like that alone explained more than it should have.
“They smell like him,” he said finally.
For a second, my brain refused to catch up with what he meant.
“The clothes,” he added, like that clarified anything.
A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “You can actually tell?”
He tapped the side of his nose once. “Wolf.”
I stared at him, trying to decide if he was serious or just committed to the bit, then shook my head.
I exhaled. “Well, they fit me at least.”
“They fit,” he agreed. “That doesn’t mean they’re right.”
I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. Just looked at me like the answer should have been obvious all along.
“I’m going as your boyfriend at a wedding.”
Boyfriend.
We’d said it before, joked about it, rehearsed it in different ways. Casual touches that were meant to look natural. All of it carefully constructed and safely contained.
But hearing it like that, simple and matter-of-fact, made it feel different in a way I didn’t immediately want to sit with.
