Page 25 of Mom-Com
If Milly looked like a princess, then her mother, in that dress, was certainly a queen.
“It’s a little tight.” Lily-Marie shimmied, adjusting the top, and I swallowed hard.
I seemed to be having an out-of-body experience there in the fitting room. I knew I should stop staring at her breasts. In fact, I was shouting at myself to avert my eyes, but my body wasn’t responding. Well, it was responding, but not in the area where my eyes were located.
“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” Lily-Marie’s voice held a hint of a waver, which was just the motivation I needed to bring myself back to my body. She couldn’t be left to think she wasn’t absolutely everything in that swath of silk.
My gaze flew to her face and I found her blushing hard, her hair piled on top of her head, leaving her neck deliciously free of her long locks. She looked highly uncomfortable standing there in her bare feet, which just didn’t make sense. She was a damn vision in that dress. A stunner. A model. She should never wear anything else.
“N-no.” I swallowed again and tried harder. “You look absolutely gorgeous. Perfect. Maybe the right word is ethereal. Queenly. Beyond this world.”
Her eyes widened and her lips lost their downturn. I patted my back, gave myself a gold star, awarded myself a raise. I’d said something to make her stop doubting herself. My epic triumph caused my chest to pound all the way up to the top of my head.
Then she smiled full out and that’s when I knew.
I was wrong.
This experiment wasn’t failing, per se. It was just designed poorly. In a bizarre twist of fate—and science—the intended highway of feelings flowed the wrong direction. The list of fifty ways to find a wife wasn’t making Lily-Marie fall for me.
Iwas falling forLily-Marie.
11
Lily-Marie
I shifted from foot to foot, absorbing what Jameson had said. He thought I was ethereal? That was high praise from a stilted science professor. Maybe he moonlighted as an English professor occasionally.
I wasn’t oblivious. I saw him staring at my breasts, and I mean, really, how could he not? They were practically on display at an exhibition in this tight dress and glaring overhead lights. But then he looked at me and I could have sworn I sawawein his gaze. I couldn’t tell you the last time a man had looked at me with reverence.
Maybe never.
And though I’d sworn Jameson wasn’t for me, I melted a bit right there in the dressing room. His compliments held weight, turning them from an “aw-shucks” moment to his opinion weaving into the fabric of what I believed about myself. I felt myself standing taller, sucking it in less, admiring the curves I saw in the mirror behind him rather than looking at them with disdain.
Before I could even formulate an answer, the boys rushed in, a bubble of excitement, their words overlapping each other.
“Whoa, there. What’s going on?” Jameson jumped in and I appreciated him calming them down. In the car, the kids had gotten a little out of control and I kept waiting for him to say something to them, but he’d kept quiet until the very end.
Clark put his hand on Stein’s arm, taking the lead. “We were sitting in the shoe department, where you told us to stay, but then we saw a guy walk by with the new Gucci shirt Beckham wore last week on Instagram. So, we asked him where he got it and we went and got you one to try on.”
“Yeah, Dad! Try it on. We all got to try on clothes, but you didn’t. This shirt is, like,everything.” Stein handed it to Jameson like it was the crown jewels when it was really only a hideous red plaid shirt with green camouflage on the collar and cuffs. Like two different shirts got in a tussle and decided to just blend together to settle their differences.
Jameson took the hanger from the boy and eyed it like you would a skunk: with caution. “Wow, a shirt that’severything, huh? I should definitely try it on.”
Jameson stepped right in front of me and hooked the hanger on the door behind my head. I tried to scooch out of his way, but with the door behind me, there was nowhere to go. Starting at the top, Jameson unbuttoned the shirt he had on, the most confident smirk I’d ever seen gracing his face. Only a few buttons in and I knew what was going on.
He had no undershirt on below.
So, with each button, a new inch or two of tan skin was revealed. And oh, what a torso of skin it was.
Someone somewhere cranked the heater and I was afraid I’d have to buy the damn ball gown because I started to sweat in it. You leave bodily fluids, you buy it.
Then he was ripping the shirt off and muscles I didn’t know the man had were rippling and moving and stretching like I had my own not-so-private striptease. Shoulder boulders that dipped into biceps that had seen a curl or two. My gaze drifted over his chest, two mountains I suddenly had the urge to squeeze with my bare hands. And then, the body part I’d never actually seen up close before.
Even with all the visual porn, I was aware my kiddos were in the room and I bet he knew it too, so no, he didn’t flash methatbody part. More the shame. What I meant was, I saw an actual six-pack of ab muscles. Previously, I’d only been witness to your typical dad-bod midsection. Even with all the boys I’d seen at the pool or at the beach in high school, well before those boys had become dads, I’d only seen sub-par abs that didn’t hint at any sort of sections. It was just one large, soft area of belly.
This... Well, this was an actual six-pack with valleys in between the bulges of muscle, and let me tell you, for research purposes only, I counted them. One, two, three, four, five, six. The man had a six-pack.
No sooner had I verified the count than he put the hideous shirt on and covered it all up again. My eyes went from overheating from visual perfection to nearly crossing at the clash of colors and patterns.
