After fishing some cash from my wallet and dropping it on the table, I tossed back the remains of his cocktail. There was something intoxicating about this form of intimacy, almost dizzying. It was so much stronger than the liquor and, based on the growl rattling out of Wes, he knew it.
"Let's go," I said, scooting out of the booth.
Wes gave my untouched salad a frown before standing. "You're not hungry?"
Offering a curt shake of my head, I replied, "You didn't read the vibe wrong, okay?" I waved a hand at the table. "And I don't want to fuck up my macros for the day. Not when I owe you Netflix and popcorn."
Wes folded his arms over his chest, again peering at me as if I'd spoken a foreign tongue. "You owe me…Netflix. And popcorn."
"There's a new documentary I want to watch," I said. "I hope you like serial killers."
"I want to revisit this matter if you don't mind." He pointed a finger at me, those almighty arms still crossed like he was baiting me into licking him here, in the middle of this restaurant. "What do you mean, do Ilikeserial killers?"
Impatient, I gestured in the direction of the mall entrance. "I'm getting your ass into something from this century then I'm taking you home and I'll explain it all there."
Wes settled his hand on the small of my back and saw more than heard my quick, gasping whimper at his touch. Smirking, he urged me forward. "I knew you needed something stronger."
* * *
I leanedagainst the dressing room door, a load of clothes slung over my arm, and knocked. "How are you doing in there?"
A strangled snarl was his only response.
"What does that mean? You don't like these pieces I picked out? They don't fit?" Another snarl followed by some cursing and a grunt. "Wes. Use words."
"I need help getting this over my head. My arm—I can't—it's stuck." A second, more colorful stream of cursing. "I'm fucking stuck."
"Let me in. I'll help."The door cracked open and I slipped inside to find Wes lost in a navy blue turtleneck, only the crown of his blond head poking out and his injured arm tugging ineffectually at the hem while his other arm twisted at an awkward angle.
"Help," Wes whined from inside the sweater.
I'd sent him in here alone under the pretense of efficiency. It made sense. He'd try on the first round of options we'd chosen, I'd hunt for more, and no one, not a single soul, would notice the similarities between a shower stall and a dressing room.
But that calculus omitted a critical factor—my boy couldn't wiggle anything slim-fitting over his head without assistance.
"Okay, all right," I muttered, dropping the items I'd selected on the bench behind him. "I can't reach you up there, sweetheart, I'm going to need you to sit down." I brought my hands to his waist and backed him up until his legs hit the bench and he lowered himself down. "Very good, that's right. Now, let's straighten this out." I tugged at the wayward sleeve, adjusting until he could drop his arm around my waist. "Though it did try to strangle you, I think this is a good look for you."
Wes rested his head on my belly. "I can't even dress myself."
"It's a very slim cut." And it did look outrageously good on him. "And this fabric doesn't offer much stretch."
"I can't even dress myself," he repeated.
"Then we'll stick with button-downs and more forgiving pullovers." I ran my fingers through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck under the sweater. "Do you want to see the jeans I found?"
"I want you to keep doing that," he mumbled into my vest.
I blinked down at him, not understanding his meaning until I watched almost from outside my body as I kneaded his tense muscles. Logically, I'd known I was touching him. I'd made the conscious choice to stroke him in a manner I assumed he needed. And yet I couldn't believe I was doing this, that I was giving affection without second-guessing myself. Without ruminating over whether I was doing it right, doing it proportionally.
So, I did the only thing that made sense to me. I stopped, coughed, pushed my glasses up my nose, took a step back. "I grabbed two different sizes of these jeans because they looked narrow and your thighs are rather beefy—in a good way. Nice beefy. Good beefy. We should all be so lucky to be your brand of beefy."
Wes lifted his head, looking up at me with the same puppy gaze that had stripped me out of my clothes and sent me into the shower after him. "You might want to leave because I will legit cry if I can't get these on by myself."
I reached for the larger size and shook them out, dropping them beside him. "Go ahead and cry. I'm not leaving." I leaned back against the door, my arms folded and ankles crossed, and pointed at the jeans. "I think you'll like those. God knows they're an improvement over the grunge-era relic you're currently wearing. May I ask how they came to be in your possession?"
Yes, this was the question I needed answered while Wes pushed to his feet, unlatched his belt, and drew his zipper down. I couldn't have asked whether he wanted me to pick out some new boxers for him—Jesus, if you love me at all, you'll let me choose this man's underwear for him—or whether he needed more hooded sweatshirts. He seemed to favor those hoodies and it was important to me he have an adequate supply as I intended to nab one from him tonight.
"—and, look, I don't know. The wallpaper was too loud for me to argue with anything she said but somewhere along the way, my mother decided I'm the kind of guy who shops at a fish and game superstore. Maybe I told her I wanted something from there. Fuck, I don't know. I didn't have the heart—or the energy—to criticize her choices."
