Page 38 of The Hopelessly Bromantic Duet
Perhaps he’s right. When I look in the store’s mirror, I look like who I want to be. Not just a financial journalist in staid blues and whites and grays, but a man who can create. A guy who can spin a yarn. The author penning his first novel.
Wheeling around, I meet his gaze. “You’re right. This is my style. Thank you,” I say.
He beams. The wattage on the spotlight goes up again, and so does the needle on the swoon-o-meter.
At the final shop of the day, I’m fading, but Jude possesses not only a second wind but a third and fourth, as well. He motors from rack to rack, grabbing a black shirt with cartoon cacti, a yellow shirt with a print of tiny green avocados, and one more with baseball bats.
“Yes! This one is perfect for my American friend,” he says, thrusting the baseball print my way.
I smile. “It is. Especially since my brother plays Major League Baseball.”
He blinks in confusion. “What?”
“I didn’t tell you this?”
Jude scoffs. “You hardly tell me anything about yourself.”
He’s . . . not wrong.
But this is about my kickass brother, not a window into my heart’s desires. “Chance is a relief pitcher for the Cougars?—”
“The Major League Baseball team in San Francisco. That’s amazing.”
“He’s got a killer cut fastball, and he’s ice on the mound. I bet he’s going to be their closer any day now. He’s also my identical twin,” I say.
Jude’s jaw comes unhinged. “Your identical twin? You’re taking the piss out of me, aren’t you?”
“It’s one hundred percent true.”
He points at me. “There’s actually another man out there this fine-looking?”
A smile takes over my face. “He’s straight.”
“I don’t fucking care. That’s not the point. The point is there are two fucking men on this planet who are, what? Six-ten, and built like hot redwood trees?”
“We’re six-three,” I say, but I can’t shake my smile.
And since I don’t want to turn off his spotlight, I decide to blow his mind some more. Grabbing my phone, I click on my photos and show him a pic I took of Chance and me at the airport a week ago. “We shot this selfie before I left New York for London.”
Slack-jawed, Jude stares at the screen, shaking his head. “Dear God. You two must have been a pair of lady-killers and gent-killers growing up,” he says.
“I was not. I assure you. I barely got any action in college.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“It’s the truth,” I say, putting my phone away.
“Are you bad in bed?”
I snort-laugh. “No.”
“Are you sure? Every man thinks he’s good in bed.”
There’s a playfully dirty challenge in his tone. We are not in the safe flirting zone anymore. This is the red zone, warning lights flashing everywhere.
I race toward danger, ignoring the hell out of them. “I could prove it to you sometime,” I say, feeling reckless thanks to that spotlight.
Then Jude does that thing. He scrapes his teeth over the corner of his mouth, and I go hot everywhere. “I wish you would,” he says, all low and rumbly, driving me crazier than he did the night I met him.