Carter smirks at me, then takes his time before he says, “That’s what she said.”
Am I sweating now? I hope not. Boob sweat is not a good look in a body-con dress. “Go, go, go,” I say, searching for a dressing room. Shoving him into one and out of sight might similarly hide his naughty comments from my suddenly filthy mind.
I spot a booth a few feet away and push him toward it. “Try it on now.”
Carter ducks in and starts unbuttoning his blue shirt. I know this because…that curtain barely covers the stall. It may be the smallest curtain ever. It doesn’t hide anything.
Like…
The breadth of Carter’s pecs.
The smattering of chest hair over them.
Or that hair trailing down, down, down and…
His abs.
He has abs for days.
For months.
They go on forever, and that brown hair is the happiest trail I’ve ever seen.
My throat is dry.
My chest is hot.
My skin is tingling.
“How about this one?”
I jump at the sound of the deep voice. Maybe I shriek, too, as I tear my Peeping Tammy gaze from the dressing room curtain to Angel, who’s standing next to me.
“Sorry to scare you, darling.”
“I’m fine,” I squeak out right as Carter steps out of the dressing room…and, dear god, I’m not so fine anymore.
I’m having heart palpitations as I stare shamelessly at his chest. I can’t look away from all that muscle, all that golden skin, all that masculine hardness. Everywhere.
Angel whistles approvingly. “Well, hello there. Let me just go get some cheese for that grater you’ve got, thank you very much.”
Carter laughs. “I work out a little.”
“Understatement,” Angel says, then hands Carter the shirt. “This is your fine-ass size, darling.”
My friend turns back into the dressing room. I still can’t move. I can’t speak. I am officially stuck here.
There’s a tap on my shoulder then a psst in my ear. “Your jaw is open, darling,” Angel mouths.
As red seeps into my cheeks, I shut my hungry mouth, stat, then try to bleach my mind clean.
I think of things like traffic lights. And deviled eggs. And week-old moldy bread.
There. That’ll do. I’m all good.
But when Carter steps out of the dressing room with the new shirt buttoned up, I can’t stop looking at the name tag.
I’m pretty sure it can see inside my soul right now.
Randy.
6
A SHIRTLESS-NESS HANGOVER
Rachel
I’ve always known Carter had a strong body. He’s played football since forever. I went to his games in high school.
But when we sneaked off with our friends to midnight bonfires on Stinson Beach senior year, and he went for late-night dips with the other guys, he was leaner, lankier. His abs weren’t quite so defined. When I crashed in his dorm one night during college and woke up to him wandering in from the showers, towel slung low on his hips, I wasn’t awake enough to take mental pics.
Now I know what was missing from my memories, and I hate every shirt for coming between that view and me.
I’m still in a man chest daze twenty minutes later when we arrive at the boutique hotel on the Marina. The valet’s eyes widen when I step out, then they linger on my very visible cleavage, but in a flash, Carter is by my side.
“Thanks, man,” he says to the guy, slapping the key fob into his palm then ushering me away.
It all happens so quickly, I’m honestly not sure if the guy was staring too long, but I do like Carter’s surprisingly possessive side as we walk into the hotel.
Quickly, we head to the garden level and find the private suite.
With her blonde hair curled like a pinup, my friend Elodie stands outside the door of the suite, tapping the toe of her comic-book-styled three-inch pumps.
“You’re fashionably late, Rach. And your sister is dying to make a toast,” she chides as she takes the cheesecake bars from me. “Were you playing with the Girl’s Best Friend toy I sent you? You do look a little sweaty.”
Is it that obvious? Also, she needs to stop talking about vibrators. While staring at Elodie, I glance sideways at Carter, jerking my head, telling her without words not to discuss sex toys in front of him and his cheese-grater abs I want to lick.
Elodie rolls her eyes. “I’m sure Carter is aware of the existence of the Girl’s Best Friend. It’s only the most popular vibe on the market. Remember when vibrators used to have names like the Man-inator, and Deep Thruster?” She adopts an overly masculine tone as she says the names. “Or better yet,” she says, her eyes on his name tag, “The Randy.”
“I hope there’s not a vibrator named the Randy. Or the Dicky for that matter. Or Peter,” he adds, rolling with the sex-toy talk so much more smoothly than I am.
“I hope not either,” I say, even though it doesn’t matter what the vibrator is called. I’m breaking out Elodie’s gift and using the Girl’s Best Friend tonight. Several times.
Well, since I can’t use one now and all.
“Anyway, I need to steal the woman of the hour away. Okay with you, Randy?” Elodie asks Carter as she offers me her arm.
“I’ll allow it,” he says playfully.
Yup. He has no clue I’m suffering from a sudden onslaught of weirdly misplaced lust.
Thank god.
Besides, it’s just temporary, surely. Like a shirtless-ness hangover.
Elodie guides me to the front of the packed room where my sister presides over twenty or thirty people here at the event. Juliet is a breakup party planner extraordinaire and she’s surveying the glittery scene while standing next to a grand piano all while looking effortlessly fabulous in a black dress that hugs her curves.
The spacious suite she’s booked is both classy and sexy at the same time, with dark wood walls, green banker’s lamps, and card dealers in old-timey costumes manning green felt tables filled with chips and cards for poker and blackjack. On a few high tables are stacks of Elodie’s chocolates from her shop, and my mouth waters at the sight of the robin’s egg blue boxes holding truffles, caramels, and dark chocolate decadence. Sugar, come to me, sugar.
“You can have some later,” Elodie says, reading my mind.
“How ever did you know?” I tease.
“I’ve learned to recognize the signs of a chocolate trance. God, I love it when people go into chocolate trances,” she says as we reach my sister.
A banner hangs on the wall behind Juliet with the words Celebrate chances written on it in a silvery font. “You’re here,” she says, then hugs me before she quickly slides back into party-boss mode. “Take this,” she says, handing me a glass of champagne from one of the coasters on the gleaming black piano where a woman in a dapper suit tickles the ivories, playing pop music.
My sister grabs her own glass of champagne, lifting it high, then clinks a fork against it. The crowd quiets. The pianist plays more quietly, a background tune, giving the attention to Juliet.
I try to catch my breath as I scan the room.
Hazel’s here with her arm draped around her boyfriend, Axel, who is Carter’s half-brother. Elodie has slinked into the crowd, hanging out with some of my friends from Venice Beach, like my TV writer pal Ellie who flew up to celebrate tonight with her fiancé, Gabe, a retired football star. My friend Brooke is here too, along with her quarterback husband, Drew. My brother Sawyer’s not here but he’s been working in New York a lot recently, and I’ll get to see him soon when I visit our parents in Petaluma.