Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(46)
“Follow me.” He got out onto the sidewalk and put several coins in the meter while she watched with warring impulses. Sleeping on her couch had made him irresistibly rumpled. His jaw was unshaven, his t-shirt was wrinkled, and when he ran his hand through his unwashed hair it stuck up in a funny wave on one side. He came around to the driver’s side and opened the door. “Come on.”
She gripped the wheel and looked up at him. “Why?”
“Nothing bad. Promise.”
The last thing she wanted was for him to suspect he made her nervous, so she got out and leaned against the car, buying time by reaching into her bag for an Altoid. He marched ahead to a small shop with faceless female mannequins in the window and—
She froze, the sharp peppermint stinging her tongue. “No.”
He came back to her and grabbed her elbow. “Yes.”
The skinny androids in the window were wearing Nike, Addidas, and Fite. “If you want to show me Fite, show me at work. I have to go home and get ready for my sister.”
“You cannot own a fitnesswear company and never shop the stores. This is a boutique. Hardly our bread and butter, but it’ll do.”
“Forget it.”
He propped his hands on his hips. “Coward.”
“Please. I know what you’re trying to do. You said it last night, but you should give up right now because stronger campaigns led by larger armies have been waged and lost.” She wrenched her arm free. “I am not going to work out.”
“Apparently not,” he said. “Not here and not at Fite.”
“That’s not what—”
“Because refusing to walk into a store that sells our product out of some leftover childish resentment you have with your parents just shows you’re not capable of holding a leadership position.” He looked at his watch and glanced down the street at the BART tracks that crossed over College Avenue. “I’ll try to catch the ten-sixteen. Guess I’ll see you Monday.”
“Nice try, Liam.” She let him walk away. Then he kept walking. The shop was small and sandwiched between a used bookstore on one side and a taqueria on the other—nothing fancy. She wondered how they stayed in business, competing against the big box and department stores. Damn. “All right, Liam. Come back. All right!”
Without smiling, but with a funny tension around his mouth that suggested he’d like to, he nodded and walked directly to the door of the shop without waiting for her to catch up. He went inside with her on his heels, swearing under her breath, and nodded at the young saleswoman who was dusting a display of aromatherapy jars and vials along the far wall.
“Morning,” the woman said. “I’m Kimmie if you need help.”
“What size are you?” Liam asked Bev, pushing his way through a round rack stuffed with clothes.
“We’re just browsing, thanks,” Bev told Kimmie, nudging Liam with her hip to get him out of the way. Then she popped another Altoid and muttered to him, “Depends.”
“Don’t tell me you’re shy,” he said. “You don’t seem the type.”
“Female, you mean?” Not many women would want to blurt out their measurements to an Olympian with an attitude problem. “I guess a large—but most stuff doesn’t fit me right. I have to try everything on.”
He tilted his head and let his gaze drop down over her body, setting her nerves on fire. When his lips parted slightly as he stared at her breasts, she thought about pulling up her shirt and demanding to know if he’d seen enough. But the salesperson looked barely twenty, probably made minimum wage, and didn’t deserve the drama.
“You have a very low waist-to-hip ratio. Not to mention waist-to-bust.” He scowled.
“I have big breasts and a big butt. Nobody designs for me.”
“You—” he stepped closer and lifted his hands around her waist, fingers outstretched in the air above her body as though measuring the space around her. “It’s just that you’re so small in the middle. Relatively speaking.”
Heat and more heat. “Relatively.”
Then he was touching her, with no gap between his hands and her body. She felt his large hands wrap around her waist. He barely touched her, but the contact burned. Then the pads of his fingers slid down over the curve of her hips. “Fascinating, really,” he said, his voice like gravel.
Her chest felt tight. “Glad to be of interest.”
He glanced up at her, withdrew his hands and stepped away. “Don’t get upset. I’m just trying to figure out what you should try on first.”
“I’m not upset,” she said. She wasn’t breathing right. His touch hadn’t felt professional. The tension she saw tightening his jaw had not been professional tension. He was thinking about the exact same thing she was thinking about, and from the angry cloud darkening his face as he shoved shirts aside on the rack next to them, he didn’t like it any more than she did.
“You won’t be able to talk to Jennifer about fit problems unless you know for yourself how they feel,” he said. “I’m obviously unable to judge for myself, and my mother and sister have given me their opinion. Now it’s your turn.” He pulled out several pair of dark pants bearing the Fite logo and a pair of t-shirts and thrust the pile at her.