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He considered me a moment before asking, “How do I know which of these will fit me?”
At this, the saleswoman turned to Frederick, letting her eyes trail down his long form and then back up again. They lingered on his chest a few beats longer than strictly necessary, given thatwe were talking about jeans. My hands clenched into involuntary fists at my sides, an unpleasant, hot sensation I was absolutelynotgoing to parse filling my chest.
“What is your inseam?” she asked. “What about your waist measurement?”
Frederick worried his lower lip, looking like he was trying to work out the answer to a difficult math problem in his head.
“It has been some time since I had my measurements taken,” he admitted. “I’ll admit I don’t remember them.”
“I’m happy to measure you,” Eleanor M. offered. She pulled out a fabric measuring tape from somewhere and approached him.
Frederick looked as terrified as if he’d just tripped over a hornet’s nest. He took a reflexive step back and away from the salesperson. “That’squiteall right,” he said, sounding scandalized. He looked at me, then at the rack of jeans. He picked up five pairs at random, holding each of them up to his body in turn. “Which of these do you think look most like they will fit me?”
I considered each of them as he held them up to himself, fighting hard against the instinct to imagine him in that dressing room, taking his trousers off and pulling on the jeans he was holding. “It’s... hard to say,” I hedged. “Why not take all of them with you into the dressing room and see?”
He nodded, like this made a lot of sense to him.
“I will be trying these on,” he informed the salesperson. “If you could bring me casual shirts in every size and color available that would be a good use of your time.”
“Don’t look.”
“I’m not looking.”
“Are youcertainyou are not looking?”
I rolled my eyes but kept them closed. “The door is closed, Frederick. Even if my eyes were open I couldn’t see you. But yes, I swear on my father’s kombucha that I am not looking.”
A pause. I could hear fabric hitting the floor from within the dressing room. “You swear on your father’s... what?”
I huffed a laugh. “It’s this thing my mom and I say when we want to make fun of my dad. In his retirement he’s gotten very into brewing it.”
“Brewing... what?”
“Kombucha. It’s this naturally fermented tea stuff. It’s pretty good, but Dad is obsessed with it now. There are dozens of bottles in his garage in various stages of consumption readiness.”
“I see,” he said, though I was certain he didn’t. A loud zipping sound came from within the dressing room. Frederick must have been trying on the jeans. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, trying not to imagine the denim sliding up his bare legs, the waistband settling low on his hips.
“Yeah,” I breathed, shaking my head to clear away unnecessary images. “Anyway, whenever Mom and I want to tease Dad, we’ll preface something mundane with ‘I swear it on my father’s kombucha.’ Mom and I laugh, Dad gets annoyed; it’s a great time.”
Silence from inside the dressing room. More rustling fabric. A hanger being taken from the wall.
The lock on the dressing room door turned. The door opened.
“Not one word of what you just said made any sense whatsoever,” Frederick said, stepping out of the dressing room. “But you can open your eyes now.”
I did.
My mouth fell open.
Frederick looked great in the parade of old-fashioned suits I’dseen him in since we’d met, of course. More than great. But I realized now that his consistently too-formal, out-of-date attire served as a constant reminder to me that Frederick was out of my league in every imaginable way—and completely off-limits.
Untouchable. Andother.
Now, though...
“What do you think?” he asked. “Do I look like I fit in with modern society now?”
With difficulty, I tore my eyes from the broad expanse of his chest now covered in a forest-green Henley that fit him like a glove and met his gaze. He was fidgeting a little as I looked back at him, drumming his fingertips against his upper thigh again, and looking at me with a nervous intensity that stole the breath from my lungs.
