“Maybe you should let me be the judge of what’s worse.”
He flopped back into his chair. Sighed, heavily. “I can’t. If I do, you’ll try to do something about it. Which was totally fine when it was just you blocking your scent, or not grabbing me, or not saying sort of hot things to me. All those things were not fundamental changes to who you are. But this is. This would be. You would do things differently to make it easier for me to cope. You would feel self-conscious. And I just don’t want you to. The very idea is gross to me.”
“So it’s something like—you saw my bra strap.”
“Cassie, I have barely looked below your chin the whole time we’ve been doing this.”
He said it so casually that for a second she couldn’t respond. Her brain just ran slap-bang into a wall ofthat means he’s delib erately avoiding looking at things down there. As if those things down there might trigger some kind of horny response.
And that was… well, it was a lot to process, for someone who’d spent the last few days thinking nothing like that could be affecting him. Who had spent the lastdecadethinking it could never. He had pressed the idea into her so firmly she didn’t know how to think anything else.
So it left her panicking a little. And searching for ways to laugh it off. “Maybe if you did it would help, considering the overalls I’m wearing,” she said, but wow, the withering look he gave her. The snort he let out, before he spoke.
“You mean the ones I know are so tight I can see every one of your soft, delicious curves underneath them, and also so threadbare it would take almost nothing to tear them off? Those overalls? Yeah, they’re a real buzzkill.”
Soft, she thought.Delicious, she thought.
Then seemed to hear sirens blaring at the back of her head.
She had to ask for clarification just to keep herself sane.
“Seth, I’m going to need you to explain this more.”
“But it doesn’t matter what explanation I give you. How respectful I want to be of you, how careful of our friendship, how much I attempt to push these feelings down or tell myself they’re not real. All that matters is what my body is telling me.”
“And what is your body telling you here, exactly?”
“That you look fucking hot in tight clothes,” he said, like someone had whacked him on the back, and forced a cough out of him. Only the cough was just the truth, of a kind he definitely didn’t want to say. He had to put his face in his hands after he had. He groaned the rest of his words through his fingers. “I can’t believe I just confessed that to you.”
And god, she came so close to saying,I like that you did.
In fact, the only thing that stopped her was the other things he said. That it wasn’t real, that he wanted to push it down, that it was all just something inside him, warping his usual perspective. All of those things ran through her head, and then reassurances came out of her, instead.
“You should be glad you confessed,” she said. “Because now I can tell you it’s not a big deal.”
“It will be when you choose a gigantic fucking sack to wear tomorrow.”
“Somehow I don’t think a sack would put you off, if these don’t.”
He let his hands drop. Most likely because the embarrassment was fading, as the argument took over. “Of course it would. I mean it would drown you,” he said in an almost exasperated voice. But then he made the mistake of continuing. “Nothing would be visible. Everything would be hidden, and secret, underneath all that material. You’d only ever be able to see the smallest hint of something sweet, and so soft, and—ohhhh okay, right, yeah, I see what you mean. I might be grasping the issue now.”
And she laughed to see and hear it happen. The way he’d started out making sense.
Then somehow talked himself into drooling over her imaginary sack dress.
“Yeah, because the issue is any clothes would do,” she said, and knew she was right.
Even if he wouldn’t yet concede entirely.
“Maybe. But there are other things. More specific things.”
“So tell me them. We already managed to explain one, in a way other than you being super into me or just behaving like a massive creep. I bet we can manage to do whatever else there is, too. So come on. Stop repressing it. Get it off your chest.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So is this your professional witchy advice, Dr. Camberwell?” he asked. And okay yeah, he was joking. But at the same time, she kind of didn’t think he was. His gaze didn’t quite hit amused; his smile was teasing, but not a smirk.
Like maybe part of him really was starting to see her that way:
As someone two seconds away from getting their medical degree in witchery.
