Page 35 of Dead Serious with Benefits
“To tell the truth, they’re the closest I have to friends,” he said with a shrug. There was something strange in his tone that I couldn’t quite place, not sadness, but neither was it happy. If anything, it reminded me of the ways he had spoken about emotional things, in that he didn’t seem to have a strong belief in one thing or another, but simply an acceptance of facts. “They’ve been exceptionally important in my life for the past couple of decades. Is that a problem?”
He sounded curious rather than defensive, and I shook my head. “No, but it was hard to miss that they were the only people you talk about.”
His eyes swept over me and then shrugged. “We’re close.”
I was tempted to add that it must be nice, being so close to your family. To treat them as comrades and close friends rather than people you were chained to, bound through blood and cash flow. People you could talk to and connect with, rather than constantly being on your guard, always waiting for the next blow. I didn’t say that, though, because that was more about my bitterness and envy than him.
“Good,” I chose to say instead. “Now, come over here.”
Strolling past the first door on the other side of the bed, I moved to the second, tucked into the corner, and opened it. The lights came on automatically as I stepped in, Arlo close behind. I gestured around. “This is the closet for my formal clothes.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Do you have closets for shoes, casual clothes, and underwear?”
“Well, that’s just excessive,” I said with a wink, knowing full well that two closets the size of small apartment bedrooms was excessive. “Two closets should suffice, I think.”
“More than,” he said, looking around. “We aren’t exactly built the same.”
“No, but you were the one who insisted you were going to buy a tux for yourself when it’s unnecessary, so this will have to be the middle ground.”
“Which still doesn’t solve the problem of nothing fitting me. You are bigger than I am.”
“In certain places perhaps, but around the shoulders, you might only be slightly smaller, which is an easy enough fix. The rest can be tailored just fine.”
He gazed at me sidelong. “Doesn’t tailoring take several days?”
“When you’re going through your standard service with a small team and a long line-up of people, yes. When you have a personal tailor with a dedicated team ready to do what you need at a moment’s notice because you can throw a ridiculous sum of money at them...no, at most, they will need about twenty-four hours. We have slightly more than that, so long as we get the measurements.”
He stared at me for a moment before nodding and turning back toward the selection. Not that there were dozens of outfits for him to choose from, so long as a tux didn’t go through the wringer while I was wearing it, there was no need to replace it. “It shouldn’t take you long.”
“No, men’s fashion isn’t particularly diverse, especially in formal wear,” he said, looking over the selection carefully.
“Well, itcanbe,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “But these sorts of parties don’t allow people to be that...showy. Traditional dress for a traditional party.”
“Traditional by your standards, perhaps,” he said with a chuckle. “Your average person doesn’t need a tuxedo except if they’re in a wedding party. And even then, most people rent them.”
“You do realize that I’m well aware of the differences between my lifestyle and that of your average person, right?” I asked dryly.
“I know you’re not ignorant, but even the most aware person can miss details of people's lives in an entirely different world.”
“Mmm, probably, but it sounded good,” I said with a snort. “Now pick your damn tux.”
“Okay,” he said with a snort, turning back to the selection.
“And while you look things over, I’m going to go get into a proper outfit,” I told him, walking back toward my bedroom.
“And I thought you were going to stroll around in your bathrobe all day.”
“You thought or you hoped,” I shot over my shoulder with a grin. When he gave me an unimpressed stare, I grabbed the tie to my robe and gave it a little tug. “I could always walk around in...whatever I have on under this.”
“Or what you don’t have on,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Was that what was coming next?”
“I thought about it, but you’re smart enough to know it was inferred. I wouldn’t want to insult your intelligence by stating what you can figure out for yourself.”
“Somehow, you don’t strike me as the sort to worry about offending people.”
“Maybe,” I said with a wink. “But there are exceptions to every rule, aren’t there?”
He gave a mild shooing gesture. “Your conversation skills are far better than your seduction skills.”
