guy. As a kid, I was always moving. Even now, if I gotta sit still for some reason, my knee will start to bounce. Even mellowed out, I just gotta be doing something.”
I felt a yawn starting—it bubbled in the back of my throat, expanded to my chest, blossomed in my belly, and then burst up through me, forcing me into a decadent, muscle-quivering stretch; spine arched, head tipped back, arms lifted up over my head…
Shaking myself out of the yawn, I glanced over just in time to see Rhys watching me, eyes wide, mouth slightly ajar.
The sheer, blatant attraction on his face was like a fishing hook setting in my gut, digging in, latching onto my own attraction to him.
His eyes were fixed firmly on my little chesticles, such as they were. Even when I looked right at him, his gaze stayed there.
I arched an eyebrow. “Take picture—it’ll last longer.”
He blinked. “Oh. Um. Wait…really? Can I?”
I blinked back at him. “Ha, no, you can’t take a picture.”
He blinked again, even more slowly. “Oh. Okay. Damn. It’d be a hot picture.”
I gave him a look that was equal parts puzzled frown and flattered grin. “I’m wearing your old sweatpants and raggedy T-shirt.” I plucked at them. “Why do you even still have this, anyway? It barely fits me, there’s no way it’d fit your giant shoulders.”
He chuckled. “My shoulders are hardly giant, but thanks for the compliment.” Rhys rolled a shoulder. “I guess I’m a little sentimental. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I hated middle school, and I hated high school, and I couldn’t wait to leave town, but it’s still the town where I grew up. I didn’t bring anything with me when I left except clothes and money and a handful of auto mechanic manuals and some tools. That shirt just sort of represents…home.” A sigh, gruff and annoyed. “It’s complicated. It ain’t home anymore, but yet in a way it’ll always be home even if I never go back. Which I won’t.”
I yawned again. “Yeah, I think if I ever leave this area, that’s how I’ll feel.”
He blinked slowly at me. “Shirt looks helluva lot better on you than it did on me.”
I snorted. “You need glasses.”
He crinkled his brow. “No, I have perfect eyesight. Had it tested. Better than normal, actually—I’ve got twenty-ten.”
“What’s that?”
“Twenty-twenty is normal eyesight where you can see something twenty feet away with perfect clarity. I can see perfectly clearly at twenty feet what someone with twenty-twenty can at ten feet.” He laughed. “According to the eye doctor, I shoulda been a pilot or a sniper or something. But I just like working on engines.”
I cackled. “Dude, you are so stoned. What does your better than perfect vision have to do with how I look in your shirt?”
He seemed to be puzzling that through. “Oh. Well, it means I can see very well how sexy you are in my shirt, so I don’t need glasses. Your boobs look fantastic in it. The little holes make me crazy, like I just wanna see more.”
I blushed, covered my chest by crossing my arms. “I…”
He put his face in his hands. “Wow. That was some really unfiltered bullshit, wasn’t it? Sorry.” A bob of his head to one side. “I mean, it’s true, but I didn’t mean to be forward, or to embarrass you.”
I was blushing so hard it hurt. “I’m just…not shy, I just…” I struggled for words. “I don’t normally wear a bra, because my boobies are small enough I don’t need the support, and I don’t work out so I don’t need to contain them, and I don’t really give a shit if my nipples poking into my shirt makes people uncomfortable. But I’m not, like, looking for attention.” I groaned, putting my face in my hands. Now we were sitting in matching positions. “Wow, I’m not sure why I said that either. We’ve both got stoned diarrhea of the mouth, I guess.”
Another jaw-cracking yawn, another back-arching stretch, another sideways stare from Rhys. And then he thumped his forehead. “I have a really bad habit of not thinking about what you need, don’t I? You’ve got to be exhausted. You’ve yawned like, three times in the last twenty minutes.”
“I am pretty tired. But, could I throw my stuff into your dryer?”
“Shit. I forgot that too. The thing with the pot sort of distracted me.” He stood up. “I’ll do it. You go crash. I’ll wait until your stuff is in the dryer.