I chuckled, the sound vibrating in my chest. “Pretty sure they lived happily ever after.”
“Did you sleep through it, too, then? Wow, we must be getting old to fall asleep mid-afternoon like this. I feel like I just ate Thanksgiving dinner or something.”
“No,” I said, “I made it to the end of the movie. They made up and all was well. Then I decided to rest my eyes and must have zonked out.”
Jamison dropped his hand from my chest to my lap and for a second I felt a spurt of excited hope before I realized he was just moving to pet the cat, who was still curled up on my legs. “What a sweet girl,” he cooed. “Did you nap with your daddy?”
Curie let out a trilling cat-activation noise as she woke up and blinked her eyes open. Her paws began to knead at my thighs and I winced slightly as the claws came out and went back in in rhythm. “No more holes in these pants, please,” I begged her. “If they develop one more hole, I think they’re going to just give up the ghost and fall apart.”
Jamison grinned. “They are sort of holey, now that you mention it. Is that a hazard of working with heavy machinery all day?”
“Some,” I allowed. “Some of it’s just wear and tear, and some of it is clumsiness. This one -” I pointed to a rip in the left thigh “- I snagged on a door jamb just walking past it. I think the fabric is just losing integrity as it ages.”
His fingers danced lightly over the rip I’d indicated. “You could probably patch this,” he mused, oblivious to the fact that my eyes had gone wide at his touch. “Or even just sew it closed.” I was so focused on where he was touching me that I didn’t notice the silence until he looked up at me and pulled his hand back. “Hen? Sorry, I shouldn’t have touched without asking.”
Mostly focused on willing my dick to stand down - who, over the age of fourteen, got a hard-on from a hand brushing over their thigh? Honestly! - I stammered, “Uh, ok. I mean, no, wait.It’s ok. Right. S’okay. You can touch.”You can touch? What the fuck, Hen?
Jamison paused with his hand in the air, then cautiously placed his fingers back on my thigh. “So what I was saying,” he said in a tone that seemed determined to be businesslike, “is that if you have a needle and thread you could probably sew this closed pretty invisibly and not run the risk of your undies sticking out in public.”
Wait, were my undies - heh, he called themundies- sticking out? I looked down in alarm but saw nothing other than skin. Not sure if that was better or worse - who wanted to get a glimpse of my upper thigh, either? - I shrugged. “I don’t know how to sew.”
He blinked at me. “Like, not even a button or anything?” he asked incredulously.
I shook my head. “My mom tried to teach me when I was a teenager but I kept stabbing myself with the needle accidentally and finally she decided she’d rather do the mending or buy me new clothes when they were needed than have to stain-stick blood out of everything.”
He winced, but his shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. “I don’t know your mom, but somehow I’m still picturing her face as she made that decision and it’shilarious.”
“Hmph.” I tried to sound grumpy, but I think it mostly came out playful. “Anyway, I don’t wear these jeans out of the house, for obvious reasons -” I gestured to the hole we’d been talking about “ - so at least I don’t have to worry about flashing people.”
“Other than me,” he pointed out. “My virgin eyes!”
“Hey,” I protested, “I didn’t get a lot of warning that you were coming over. It didn’t occur to me to change. And I’m pretty sure your eyes are far from virgin these days.”
He grinned and stuck a finger through the hole in my pants. It wasn’t in my crotch, more mid-thigh, but it was still closeenough to my junk to give me a jolt. “I’m not complaining. It’s a nice view.”
He thought my thigh was a nice view? I suppressed the urge to preen, followed by the urge to offer him a more expansive view. “Uh, thanks?” I managed.
“If you have a needle and thread, I could probably patch these up for you right now,” he offered.
I thought about that. It was unlikely I’d have a needle and thread around the house, considering my lack of sewing skills, but maybe my mom had left one some time or something? “If I do, it’d be in my junk drawer,” I thought out loud. “Let me…” I heaved myself up off the couch, unfortunately dislodging both Jamison’s hand and the cat, who hissed half-heartedly as I dumped her on the floor.
“Oh, poor baby,” Jamison cooed, reaching down to pick her up again and settling her on his own lap. “Mean old daddy kicked you off but it’s ok, you have me now. I’ll pet you and love you and sing to you.”
Sing to her? I’d pay to see that, but I refrained from saying that out loud in the hopes that he’d be less self-conscious and actually do it if I didn’t draw attention to his utterance. In the meantime, I walked into the kitchen and started searching my junk drawer. Take-out menus, spare keys, spare charging cables…a padlock from my old shed that I’d pulled down two years ago…a phone number scribbled on a post-it (I had no idea who or what the number was to. Way to be organized, Hen). Finally, at the bottom of the drawer, I found a translucent purple plastic egg-shaped case that looked to hold safety pins, needles, buttons, and a few bobbins of thread. I picked it up and trotted back into the living room, tossing it to Jamison. “Is this what you need?”
He jumped, startled out of whatever he’d been mumbling to the cat, and Curie dodged the flying sewing kit with a hiss and a growl. “Dude!” he said accusingly.
I winced. “Sorry. Didn’t think of the cat, I was just excited to have found it.”
Jamison picked up the sewing kit where it had landed beside him and examined it. “Yeah, this’ll do the job. I think I even see blue thread.” He looked up at me and smiled. “Drop your pants, big guy.”
Wait, what? Gulp. It was possible I hadn’t thought this through. “I’ll just…” I waved toward the bedroom. “I have some pajama pants…”
He rolled his eyes dramatically. “It’s not like I haven’t already seen everything, Henry,” he pointed out. “And your underwear covers as much as a bathing suit anyway.”
Sure, if he saw me in a bathing suit he’d see as much as he would if I exposed my boxer-briefs, but somehow itfeltvery different. But there was a challenge now in his eyes, and I felt like if I retreated to my bedroom to change, he’d be silently judging me a wuss. I coughed self-consciously and started to undo my belt.
“Ooh, baby.” Jamison let out a catcall whistle. “Take it off.”
