He looked at fabrics, commented on cuts, adjusted collars without asking, and moved through it with an ease that suggested he’d done this far too many times before.
Linen, light wool blends, muted tones that apparently photographed better in sunlight. Eventually, I stopped questioning him and just followed.
“You speak wedding,” I said at one point, watching him inspect another jacket.
“My brothers keep getting married,” he said simply. “I’ve been a groomsman more times than I can count.”
“That’s where you learned all this?”
“When you’ve got enough brothers,” he said, “you end up dragged into enough weddings to learn it all eventually.”
I shook my head slowly, looking around the shop again like it might suddenly make more sense if I stared at it long enough. “That’s terrifying.”
Dane’s mouth quirked. “You’re welcome.”
The staff eventually led me toward the fitting rooms at the back of the shop.
I grabbed the first few options Dane had approved, or at least not rejected outright, before slipping inside one of the cubicles. The dark navy jacket sat cleanly across my shoulders.
It was tailored in a way that made everything feel a little sharper, a little more put together than anything I’d tried on at home from Glen’s borrowed collection.
The shirt underneath was lighter, softer at the edges.
It had the kind of fabric that looked like it belonged somewhere with sunlight and open air instead of my apartment mirror and questionable lighting.
I stepped out. “Well?” I asked.
Dane looked up and went still, his gaze settling on me in a way that didn’t quite feel like the way he usually looked at me, as if he was taking in more than he meant to.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Yeah what?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.
“That one’s good.” There was no teasing, no easy grin to break the moment apart.
Something warm shifted in my chest, unfamiliar enough that I looked away first.
Dane moved then, adjusting the collar of the jacket near my shoulder. It was just a small touch, straightening something that didn’t really need fixing.
A few seconds passed before he spoke again. “Can I ask you something?”
I glanced at him, already cautious for reasons I couldn’t fully name.
“What happened?” he asked after a beat.
I knew what he meant immediately.
My gaze dropped to my hands before I could stop it, thumbs pressing lightly together as if that could anchor me somewhere other than the question he’d just asked.
I considered giving him the easy version, the kind I could say without opening anything I’d already learned how to keep folded away.
Instead, I exhaled.
“Nothing dramatic,” I said, because that part was still true.
Dane didn’t push. He just waited, steady and patient in a way that made it harder to stay on the surface. So I kept going.
“Darryl got a job after graduation, working for his father’s company. We did long distance for a while.”
