Then I glanced at Astrid, who’d just lit up like a Christmas tree in a house fire.
“Shower?” Ward finished, where the wordshowerclearly meantwho is this and why is she here?
“He reminds me of a young Brendan Fraser,” Astrid said softly.
A sudden, vivid memory of having a ridiculous crush on him and watchingGeorge of the Junglemore times than was entirely reasonable hit me, and so did the resemblance.
Damn.
“Pants,” Ward announced. “I should…”
He waved in the direction of the bedroom, but Astrid’s stare was fixing him in place like he’d been turned to stone.
“This, umm,” I began, looking between them. “Is uh. Astrid?”
I knew her name. I wasn’t sure why it’d come out as a question, but here we were.
Ward’s treasure trail was very distracting and I was trying not to look directly at it, which made it hard to look in his direction at all.
“Here, honey,” Astrid said, grabbing a brand new pack of black boxer briefs. “Put these on and come back to us. You’re about to be the hottest new face in town.”
“Justthese?” Ward asked, accepting the underwear but looking warily between me and Astrid.
“You can get—”
“Just those,” Astrid interrupted before I could tell Ward it was fine to get dressed. “We’re all friends here.”
I watched Ward hesitate again. Then he looked at me, and his face changed, and he nodded.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll uh. Be back in a minute.”
* * *
“You really do look incredible,”I said as we stepped into the street, which was an understatement. Astrid had outdone herself.
And not just in terms of giving me the opportunity to watch Ward stand around in his underwear and pretend it was for totally professional reasons. She’d outdone herself there, too, but the finished product really was something.
“I feel weird,” Ward said, tugging at the hem of the skin-tight henley Astrid had dressed him in.
I’d only seen him in baggy old clothes before this, but there was an incredible body under them, and it was all on display for everyone to see tonight.
“These jeans are a size too small,” he complained, tugging on the exposed belt loop where his shirt was artfully tucked in on one side.
I got the feeling Astrid had enjoyed doing the tucking.
“Those jeans are exactly the right size,” I said, looking him up and down and forcing myself not to linger on the way the charcoal denim hugged his incredible butt.
“People can see whether or not I’m circumcised,” Ward grumbled.
“No they can’t. For once in your life you’re not hiding under your dad’s old clothes. People canseeyou and they like what they see, watch them.”
Ward glanced warily around us. We’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, but this was LA—people barely noticed each other here.
They noticed Ward though.
I grabbed his hand without thinking as a pretty brunette looked for just a half-second too long for my taste.Back off, he’s mine.
Where the hell did that come from?
