Love on Lexington Avenue(27)

He rewarded her with a grin, but then gave up on the closet and went to her dresser, pulling open the top two drawers, going still for a moment when he realized he was looking at her bras and panties. Claire crossed her arms, shoes dangling from one finger, refusing to be embarrassed that her contractor was looking at her unmentionables.

With a single finger he lifted a thong. “Please tell me you’re wearing one of these right now.”

“Well, if you do your job right, it’ll be some other man’s job to find out,” she said, rather pleased with her quick retort.

Scott looked unimpressed. He turned back to the dresser, dropping the thong and closing the top two drawers, then opening the two below. He reached into the drawer where she kept her pajamas and general lounge-around-the-house clothes.

“What about this?”

She looked at the clothing in question. “That would be one of Brayden’s undershirts that shrunk in the wash. I wear it to watch TV and do laundry.”

It was also just about the only thing of Brayden’s that hadn’t been closed up in the room.

Scott gave the folded tank a quick shake to see it more fully, and Claire waited expectantly for him to realize what she already knew. The tank was thin and shrunken enough to be formfitting. He glanced back at her—chest region, specifically.

“What bra are you wearing?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“Black or white?”

“Why are those the only two options?”

He opened her bra drawer again and gave her a telling look.

“Right,” she muttered. There really were just two options, with the majority being shades of white. Vanilla once again.

She made a mental note to give her lingerie a strawberry lemonade overhaul. They made pink bras, right? She’d been ordering hers online from the same store for years; maybe it was time to see what else was out there.

An impatient Scott marched toward her and unceremoniously slid a finger into the neck of her sleeveless dress. His gaze locked on hers for a split second as his fingertip dragged across her skin, then he looked away, pulling the bra strap all the way out from beneath her dress so he could see it.

“Black,” he said, the strap snapping back into place against her shoulder. “Perfect. Wear this.” He shoved the tank top at her.

Claire looked down at the jeans, undershirt, and nude sandals, three items of clothing that she’d never have put together in her life. Every instinct wanted to protest, but then she remembered that her instincts weren’t to be trusted. Her instincts were what had landed her in a sham of a marriage, followed by a pathetic year of wallowing.

She headed to the bathroom to change, muttering, “You’d better be right about this, wingman.”

An hour later, it became irritatingly clear that Scott had been right. She’d gotten more looks from guys while wearing an undershirt in a dive bar than she had in her Givenchy dress at the Met Gala a few years ago.

Still, while she couldn’t deny that the lingering, appreciative once-overs were an enormous ego boost, so far there’d hadn’t been any action to back up the looks.

“Why are none of them coming over?” she asked, leaning toward Scott so he could hear her over the weekend soundtrack of people with a few drinks in them and an undercurrent of Journey hits coming from tinny speakers.

Scott tipped his beer back without glancing her way. “Me.”

“What?”

He glanced her way. “They think you’re with me.”

“They . . . Oooh,” she said, feeling stupid for not realizing that sitting as they were side-by-side after spending a solid fifteen minutes bickering about whether or not she should ask the bartender if they served champagne, they probably looked like a couple.

“I guess I didn’t think that through when I asked a guy to be my wingman. That’s why no women have approached you, right?” She wasn’t blind. Scott had gotten every bit as many lingering looks as Claire had. Probably more.

And though she still stood by her affinity for clean-cut guys in tailor-made suits, she had to admit that, objectively, she could see the appeal. Scott was entirely in his element here, and it showed with the easy way he moved, the confidence with which he did everything from ordering his beer to pulling out the bar stool for her.

And somehow the awful fluorescent light of this somewhat dingy but undeniably popular dive bar on Ninety-Eighth and Madison seemed to suit him.

Scott nodded once in response to her question.

“Sorry.” She winced. “Didn’t mean to crash your game.”

He smiled a little. “I’ll manage. Besides, tonight’s about you.”

“Right.” She rubbed her hands together. “Me getting some.”

He laughed, a good-natured real laugh that had her smiling back. “Don’t call it that. Not if you actually want to get some.”

She sighed, her hands falling to her lap. “This is hopeless.”

“Don’t underestimate your wingman. Hey, Dave,” he called louder to get the backward-cap-wearing bartender’s attention. “My sister’s glass is empty.”

It took Claire a moment to realize that Scott was talking about her. A moment later to realize that he’d deliberately said it louder than necessary so that the people nearest them heard it, too.