Page 37 of The Weight Of It All
We walked up to the Pitt Street Mall and found us a jeans shop first. And I had to admit, going jeans shopping with Reed wasn’t exactly a hardship. Except for the sales guy, who just about fell over himself trying to help him. Some bottle-blond twink with twigs for legs and zero shame pounced on Reed like a Chihuahua trying to hump his leg.
“Oh, you’d look great in these,” Chihuahua boy yipped. He looked Reed up and down and grabbed a pair of jeans from the display and gave them to him. “These would fit you like a glove.” I wasn’t sure if he was going for seductive, but the deliberate finger stroke on Reed’s hand made me want to smack the kid on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Reed took a small step back from him. “Uh, thanks.” He glanced at me and smiled with a “please help” look in his eyes. “Can you hold them for me, babe?”
Babe? What the…?
Reed narrowed his eyes at me and gave a quick pointed nod toward Chihuahua boy.Oh, right. “Sure,” I said cheerfully, taking the folded jeans from Chihuahua boy. He looked me up and down with a sour look on his face. I’m pretty sure he didn’t fall for it. I mean, Reed was something straight out ofFitness Gods, and I was… well, I was me.
“If we need any help, I’ll let you know,” Reed said, dismissing him with a charming smile. Reed quickly snatched up a few pairs of different jeans, grabbed my hand, and led me to the back of the store to the change rooms. When we were out of view from Chihuahua boy, Reed dropped my hand and sighed. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, trying to play it cool. My hand was still tingling from his touch.
Reed let out a frustrated sound. “It pisses me off when that happens.”
“Happens a lot, does it?”
He rolled his eyes. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault the twinky Chihuahua tried to hump your leg.”
Reed finally started to smile. “Chihuahua?”
I nodded. “His full pedigree kennel name is Shameless Bottom Needs a Muscle Daddy, but he gets called Chihuahua Boy for short.”
Reed stared at me for a second before he burst out laughing. Likereallylaughed,reallyloudly. Even when he’d gone into one of the change rooms, he was still chuckling. I stood by his door, and when he opened it and stepped out, he was still smiling. “What about these?”
Reed stood there with the dark denim jeans on, with bare feet, holding his shirt up a little so I could see the waistband. And those damn V muscles that framed his hips and a trail of dark brown hair that ran from his navel and disappeared under the button of his jeans…
Jeans. Right. Yes, he’s wearing jeans. That’s what we’re doing here.
“How do they feel?” I asked, pretending not to have noticed his body.
He bent one leg at the knee to stretch them and stuck his thumb under the waistband. “They feel good.” Then he turned around to show me the back. And the way they framed his arse…
Fucking hell.
“Well, they look like they were made for you.”
He gave me an honest, eye-crinkling smile. “Next pair,” he said before disappearing back into the change room.
I resisted the urge to fan my face, though I’m sure I was flushed. I mean, I hadn’t been physically attractedto someone in a long time. Well, of course I had been attracted to Graham, but the passion between us in the bedroom had died off years ago.
God, how blind was I to the state of my relationship with him?
The change room door opened, startling me. And I hadn’t noticed Chihuahua boy come in either. The sales guy was standing there, staring at Reed. “What about these?” Reed asked.
I could tell by the look on his face he didn’t like them, but before I could answer, Blondie McLeghumper spoke. “Oh, they look good.” Of course he’d say that. The jeans Reed was trying on were the same as he was wearing.
Reed was still barefoot and holding his shirt up a little so his perfectly sculptured waist was in full view. The jeans were tight, clearly outlining the muscle definition in his thighs and calves, not to mention the pronounced bulge in his groin. If it were possible to spray on jeans, these were it. Mr Platinum Droolerboy was two seconds away from stripping naked and launching himself at Reed.Jesus, did he just purr?
Reed looked at me for help. “They don’t suit you,” I said. “Not your style at all. You’d never be comfortable in those.”
He looked right at me and smiled. “You’re right.” He stepped back into the change room and shut the door. “Next pair!”
I turned to face the sales assistant, who was staring, dazed and slack-jawed, at Reed’s change room door. He seemed to have forgotten where he was, and it took him a moment to look at me. I slowly raised my bitch brow at him, which Anika once said could level the bravest of men, and I watched as he paled. I didn’t really want this to become a bottom-bitch fight, but I had this guy beat. I mean, I had fifteen years on him at least: I had mastered the “back the fuck off from my man” look when this kid was still in nappies.
He gave me a weak smile and retreated, wandering off to another customer, and it occurred to me that maybe Reed wanted to meet someone new. It also occurred to me that I’d just thought of Reed asmy man.
