“I’m gonna take a shower,” my friend said as his fingers plucked at the bottom button of his shirt. He peeled it off. The thin white undershirt he had on was clinging to him, and I mean clinging to every single spot on his chest and abs, making it nearly see-through.
He was built like a wet dream I had no right having. His upper body was long and perfectly shaped. His waist trim and shoulders wide….
And that was when we made eye contact.
I smiled at him, and he smiled back at me.
Just checking him out. No big deal. He was probably used to it.
“I’ll make sure no one breaks in and tries to take naked pictures of you.”
He threw his sweaty dress shirt at me, and by the time I plucked it off, he closed the bathroom door behind him. I hung his shirt on the chair in front of the bed to dry and grabbed my phone again, going to the nightstand furthest from the door to plug my phone in to Zac’s charger. I sent Connie another text.
Me: I left my wallet in your trunk. Can you come drop it off, pleaseeeee
If she was dancing… fuck. It was going to take forever. One glance at the clock on the nightstand showed 11:15 on it. The party was set to go on until 2 and then… then maybe she’d look at her phone before they went to my uncle’s? I hadn’t thought this through.
I sent my nephew a text too. Richard and Connie hadn’t given Luisa a cell phone yet.
The sound of the water being turned on in the shower had me glancing toward the closed door.
And it had me sighing.
The next thing it had me doing was slapping myself on the forehead.
He was so much fun. We got along great, and he was one of my favorite people even after so long. The episode we had recorded for the orange cranberry pound cake had honestly been the most fun I had probably ever had doing Lazy Baker stuff. We’d laughed our asses off from the moment he’d come to stand next to me until we finished filming. We were always laughing.
And it just so happened he was easy to look at.
I was so lucky to have him around, period.
I wasn’t going to fuck this up. Not this time. It didn’t matter that his body had been blessed by Greek gods or that he was a wonderful person with a tremendous heart.
He was my friend, and that was it.
Reaching back, I grabbed the remote from the nightstand and turned on the television, waiting to hear back from Connie or Guillermo. I flexed my toes and feet, rolling my ankles from all the freaking dancing. Everything was achy, and goddamn was I sweaty.
I took my time flipping through the channels, leaving it on a rerun of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as I lifted my arms over my head and tried to stretch my lower back without contaminating the rest of Zac’s bed.
“I needed that,” my old friend said on a long yawn, scaring the shit out of me because I hadn’t even realized he’d opened the bathroom door. “I’m feelin’ brand new now.”
He was standing at the doorframe in another thin white shirt and… boxer briefs.
Yeah, those weren’t shorts on him. Those were boxer briefs. Navy blue ones.
Well, if he wasn’t going to make a big deal about it, neither was I.
He stood there rubbing his head with a towel, his legs long and bare. The muscles in his arms bunched as he dried his hair off. That usual smile of his was fixed onto his mouth. I swallowed.
“I bet. I could use one too,” I told him. His face. Not his boxer briefs.
“Jump in there. I brought an extra shirt and some boxer briefs you can borrow,” he offered, blue gaze on me as he drew the towel away from his head.
I glanced at my phone plugged into his charger. It might be a while.
“You sure?” I asked.
“Long as you don’t fart in them.”
I snickered. “I won’t mark over your territory.”
Zac laughed as he stepped further into the room, going straight for his bag and pulling out a dark blue T-shirt and, yep, boxer briefs too. I stood up and took the clothes from him, brushing my finger along the sweet spot of his ribs that had him dodging away from me on a laugh.
I took my time showering, taking advantage of the free shampoo and conditioner that