Melting - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,11

on whether they liked it or not.

“Fuck you,” I growled, then yelped as the button caught under my nail and bent it backwards, deep enough to hurt.

I shoved my injured thumb in my mouth just as my bedroom door swung open.

Wes.

Wes was standing there, fully dressed this time, hair dry and artfully disheveled, eyes wide.

I wasn’t sure whether or not he knew he was one of the prettiest boys in town. Prettiest I’d ever seen, anyway.

“I can’t get it in the hole,” I said.

Wes blinked at me as I realized exactly which words I’d chosen to express the trouble I was having with my jeans.

He bit his lip, at least trying not to burst into laughter, but clearly struggling with it.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, ready to die of embarrassment.

“I can help, if you want,” he said, nodding to the still-open fly of my jeans.

Well. Letting him help could hardly make this worse.

And a glance at the clock told me it was ten minutes past six. He’d been waiting for me. I couldn’t keep him waiting any longer.

“Sure,” I said, throwing the last of my dignity out the window. It was in tatters now anyway.

Wes crossed the room and stood in front of me, reaching out to grab my jeans without hesitation.

I gasped as his fingers skimmed over my bare skin, a spark of electricity bouncing between us, and that was enough time for him to hook the button through the hole.

I barely had the chance to blush over him zipping me up with the practiced efficiency of a man who was used to dealing with other people’s pants before he took his hands away, as though it was nothing.

“You gonna wear that t-shirt?” Wes asked, nodding to me.

I tugged on the hem of the old, slightly shrunken shirt I usually wore under my chef’s whites at work to save myself sweating directly into them. “Not necessarily?”

“No, keep it on, it looks good,” Wes said, already turning his attention to the stacks of neatly-folded clothes on the bed.

No one had told me I looked good in anything for longer than I cared to remember, especially not an old t-shirt and a pair of jeans that, I was beginning to accept, didn’t quite fit.

Too late to change out of them now.

“Hmm,” Wes said, dragging me back to reality as he pulled a couple of button-downs from the piles, setting them out. One in a deep red wine color, one in navy, and one in charcoal.

“I think you should go for the red,” he said. “You can pull it off. And then you can get someone else to pull it off,” he added with a grin.

I didn’t have any better ideas, even if I was dubious that anyone other than me was going to end up pulling it off.

Aaron hadn’t liked that shirt, either.

I reached out to touch it, fingertips catching on the soft fabric.

Marissa wouldn’t have packed it if she didn’t think I looked good in it, and Wes had said I would. That was two votes. I didn’t know Wes well enough to necessarily trust his opinion, but Marissa was silently backing him up.

It was a little snug across the shoulders and around my arms, but not too snug. Just enough that it clung to my body. It felt fitted.

Aaron had always wanted me to buy shirts two sizes bigger than this. Maybe he’d take the ones he’d given me, too, and I wouldn’t have to look at them again when I got back.

“Oh yeah,” Wes said, approval dripping from his voice. “Definitely the red. Don’t button it!” he interrupted as I reached for the buttons.

My hands dropped away instantly.

“Casual dinner,” Wes explained with a sheepish little grin. “And it’s still warm out there, you don’t wanna suffocate. Plus the contrast between the washed white and the deep red is nice on you.”

I hadn’t had so many compliments in such a short space of time in years, and I wasn’t sure what to do with them.

“Could you roll up your sleeves for me? I just wanna see something.”

I did as he said at least partly because I was starting to hope he was going to say something nice about the way I looked again. It wasn’t as though I thought I was hideous or anything, it just felt good.

I couldn’t have said exactly why if my life depended on it, but I knew the feeling was there all the same.

“Oh yeah. Oh yeah,” Wes said, eyes lighting up