Shit. Where was a shirt?
Ben shoved the extra pair of jeans in Liam’s general direction. “Here.” He reached into the drawer and grabbed the nearest soft fabric his hand found. “And here.”
“You—you want me to wear that?”
Ben looked at the shirt. It was canary yellow with green lettering celebrating a race he’d completed a few years earlier.The ugliest item in his wardrobe.
He yanked it back. “No. Possibly feline vaginal fluids on that one.” He pulled a plain navy T-shirt out of the drawer and stepped backward, away from the whole scenario. The whole mess. “Pick whatever you want.”
Shirt on, he combed his fingers through his hair and then pulled his sock drawer open. “I only have one pair of work boots, but I have running shoesyou can borrow.”
“Ben, if you don’t want me to come, I don’t have to.”
Shit. Ben took a deep breath, tried to exhale the chaotic rainbow racing through his entire body, then breathed in again. Blue, damn it. Calm, easy, deep blue. “No, it’s fine. Sorry. I just—I don’t know. It’s just really strange that you’re here.”
“Strange in a bad way?”
“Strange in an unsettling way.” An invasive, disorienting,frightening way. “But the Battle of the Raspberry Patch requires all available recruits. Pick a shirt and we’ll get going.”
Because surely it would be okay if they just got the hell out of the bedroom. Maybe out of the house altogether. Sure, yeah, everything would be fine once they were over at Seth and Dinah’s. Tamara would be there, for God’s sake, and if there was anything less sexy, lesscomplicated, less confusing than a toddler, Ben couldn’t think of what it would be.
“Right,” Liam agreed, and he pulled a shirt out of the drawer, seemingly at random.
“Okay. Shoes in the front hall, and then we’re ready.”
“Yeah… but, Ben?”
Ben turned and raised an eyebrow in question.
“You planning to do up your pants before we go? Or is that how the cool kids are dressing these days?”
“Shit,” Ben said. He was close enough to the bedroom door that he could just keep walking as he fumbled with his fly, and hopefully that meant Liam didn’t see his flaming cheeks.
It was all so awkward. So silly, so unnatural, so wrong. Well… maybe not unnatural. Maybe not wrong. But it was damn peculiar, that was for sure. It wasstrangeto have Liam back in town.
Strange. But bad? Well. Benwould wait and see about that.
