Page 45 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

“What?” I ask.

He clears his throat. His face looks tense. “You have…men’s clothes here?”

I tip my head, curious. “Yes. Christopher’s.”

The tension leaves him. Slowly, he takes the shirt from my hands. “Ah. Gotcha.”

I lean a hip on the edge of the dresser. “Christopher keeps some stuff here, has for years. Casual clothes mostly, for when he comes over after a day in the office and wants to dress down. He also plays in a pickup basketball league at the court right behind the apartment on Sunday mornings. Then he’ll come up to the apartment afterward, shower off, and change.”

“Got it.” Will nods. “Makes sense.”

I stare up at Will, smiling, though I’m trying not to. I’ve got a little suspicion, and it makes me inordinately happy when I shouldn’t be. “Did the sight of another man’s clothes in my apartment make you jealous, Will?”

He shakes his head.

“Pinkie promise,” I remind him. “Be honest.”

Will clasps the shirt tight in his hands. “It wasn’t my finest moment. We’re…we’re just friends. What we’re doing, it’s onlypractice. I have no grounds to ask about whose clothes you keep at your place.”

I search his eyes. “That’s true.” Pushing off the dresser, I walk past him, toward the door. “For the record, romantically speaking, I don’t think a little jealousy is the worst thing. So long as you don’t get toxic about it.”

“Wasn’t jealous,” he calls.

I shut the door behind me, smiling to myself, and cross the hall to my room.

Walking around my bedroom, I start to tug my crochet sweater over my head, and my tank top, all in one, up as far as my elbows, before I feel the sweater resist my efforts to take it over my head. I feel around awkwardly, trying to figure out what’s caught, and deduce that it’s snagged on my claw clip. Sighing, I try to lower the sweater down on my head, hoping it disentangles it from the claw clip. But when I do, the sweater sticks even more. Now I can’t even get it back down.

I swear under my breath and plop onto my bed. Maybe if I’m sitting, this will be easier.

It is not easier. I wrestle some more with the sweater, trying unsuccessfully, with my arms pinned up in the sweater, to reach for the claw clip.

“Argghhh!” I yell, kicking my legs in frustration.

“Juliet?” Will’s voice is right outside my door. “You okay?”

“No!” I yell. “I’m having a wet wardrobe crisis.”

There’s a beat of silence, then he says, “Do you, uh…need some help?”

I moan in frustration. “Yes. But fair warning, you’re going to see my bra.”

Another beat of silence. “Uh, okay.”

“Come on in, then.”

The door swings open. Will walks in, both hands held like a visor over his bent head. He walks in, shuffling carefully, but he still manages to knock his hip into my dresser and catch his foot on my slipper lying in the middle of the floor.

“Will, you can lose the blinders. You’re going to have to look eventually. This is a two-eyes, two-hands problem.”

Hesitantly, Will lowers his hands. His gaze immediately snaps to my chest and widens. He peers up at the ceiling. His cheeks are bright red. “Sorry. I—” He swallows roughly. “Really sorry.”

I’m too sore, too uncomfortable, to care that he just got an eyeful. “Just get me out of this, please.”

“Right.” Will steps closer, reaching over me. I shut my eyes, wincing as he reaches inside my sweater, his hands working quickly. I feel the claw clip loosen in my hair, the sweater slip back down my body. My arms drop and I shake them out, relieved not to have to hold them up anymore.

I tug my tank top back down and drag off the sweater, flinging it in the corner. “Thank God.”

“Will’s fine,” he says.

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