Page 99 of The Bodyguard

I clamped my eyes closed.

“You really don’t like the sight of me shirtless,” he said, as he wriggled into the top.

“It’s like looking at the sun,” I said.

“Maybe you should wear those glasses.”

“Maybe I should.”

Then Jack asked, “Like looking at the sun in a good way? Or a bad way?”

“Both,” I said, now rummaging the shelves.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Here’s an idea,” I said, after a minute. “I’ve got eyeliner in my purse. Maybe we could draw a mustache on you.”

In the wake of that suggestion, the room went quiet. And it stayed quiet for so long, I had to turn back around.

And there was Jack, in a scrub top and his boxer briefs, one leg partway in the pants, and bent over laughing so hard, he wasn’t making a sound.

No sound at all. Laughing too hard to even make noise.

Finally, he lifted his head up to the ceiling to take a big breath. “You want,” he said, “to draw a mustache on me?”

“Look,” I said. “This is creative problem solving.”

But he was still laughing. “Can I get a monocle, too? And a puppy nose and some whiskers?”

“Put your pants on,” I said, lacing my voice with irritation.

But he was pretty irresistible.

I felt an urge to laugh, too. But I tamped it down.

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