He narrowed his eyes at me, but his lips still curved up in a slight smile. “You making little-guy jokes at me again?”
I held up my hands in surrender. “After getting beat up in bed last night? I don’t think so. Pick out a suit though. Please?”
“Fine.” He found the right-size wet suit and thrust it against my chest. I guessed I was his shopping cart now. “I do need trunks though. Or… actually, it’s probably better if I wear a teeny Speedo.”
Okay, maybe it was a good thing I had the thick neoprene suit in front of me. As soon as my brain supplied an image of his tight body in a scrap of swimsuit, I got a little light-headed. “No need for that,” I said before clearing my throat. “Trunks make more sense in the water.”
Cal’s expression called me on my bluster. “Mm. Methinks I struck some kind of nerve. Let’s see what they have…”
He led me over to a display of men’s suits and picked the tiniest one.
“I think that’s a headband,” I muttered.
“It’s a thong.”
“No.”
“It is, I promise.”
I cleared my throat. “No. I mean… you’re not getting that one. Pick something else. What about this one?” I grabbed the nearest pair of trunks and shoved them at him.
He glanced at the material and back up at me. “These are board shorts. They’d be pedal pushers on me.”
“What the hell is a pedal pusher?”
Cal hung the trunks back up and pulled out a much shorter pair. “I would have thought you’d know since you were probably alive in the fifties. What about these? I’m going to try them on.” Without waiting for my answer, he ducked behind the slatted door of a nearby dressing room.
When he opened the door again, I felt my entire body start to tingle. Cal Wilde stood there in the tiniest pair of boy shorts with absolutely everything else on display. His tanned skin set off by the navy suit, the curves and bumps of his trim muscles along his abs, chest, and arms, and the gorgeous swell of his tight ass as he spun in a circle to show off the suit.
“Gnfh,” I croaked.
His eyebrows lifted, and his lips widened into a cheeky smile. “Winner?”
“Too small,” I managed. “Too tight.”
He turned his back to me again and wiggled his butt. “Isn’t that the point?”
I clutched the wet suit in front of me to maintain whatever scrap of dignity I still possessed. “Try on the board shorts. You’ll be more comfortable in them.”
He walked a few feet away to another rack and sifted through it before grabbing a few more suits and returning to the dressing room. For some reason, I was having trouble breathing. The store’s air-conditioning was probably broken.
The young woman behind the register walked over after finishing ringing someone up. “Does he need any help?”
“He seems to be doing just fine on his own,” I muttered. “Won’t listen to a word I say.”
She laughed and looked toward the closed dressing room door. “My dad says the same thing about me.”
It took me a few beats to realize what she was implying. “He’s not…” I didn’t get the chance to finish telling her Cal wasn’t my son before the door opened again, revealing him in an even smaller suit. His dark happy trail wandered down into the top of a rainbow-colored Speedo that was more than happy to inform everyone in sight distance what his parents’ views on circumcision were. The rounded bulge in the front of that suit made my mouth fill with saliva.
“Mother of pearl,” the woman breathed.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I said. “Absolutely not. No. Take it off.”
“Don’t listen to your dad,” the saleslady said. “That suit is hot on you. It was made for you.”
Cal snorted at the word dad and then looked at me with eyes sparkling. “But Daddy, I want it.” He full-on pouted, and I had to bite back a laugh.
He turned around again and shook his ass. The woman next to me let out a sigh of longing, and I wanted to tell her I completely understood. Instead, I barked at him to hurry up. “We still have to go find you a damned Omega Seamaster when the jewelry stores open up.”
Cal’s smile died. “What? No. What?”
I shrugged, enjoying seeing him wrong-footed. “You told everyone you had an Omega Seamaster, so we need to find one.”
“But… that’s a four-thousand-dollar watch. Just tell them I lost it like I did the other one. We’ll play the dumb-blond card.”
“If we’re not going to get the other one I mentioned, then we need to get you something.” I made a hand gesture to remind him to hurry up, but he continued to stand there.
“Okay, but… you’ll keep it when we’re done, right? You’ll use it or give it to someone else as a gift?” He clasped his hands together and fidgeted. “And what if I lose it for real? Can I get insurance on it just in case? How much do you think that costs?”