Ah. I got it. She was worried I would get my ass beat by guys who shopped at a different clothing store than I did. Alex might see the world one way, but I obviously saw it another way. Guys, at least the guys I’d met, didn’t give a beating to someone else just because they didn’t agree with each other’s sense of style. If that was how it was there, I was in unchartered waters.
“Hey, I’m a lover, not a fighter. I’ll be good. Really.” I took a step for the door, hoping she’d follow me. That hope was wasted.
“Then you’re really not going in there like that, Mr. Lover Not A Fighter. You need to get at least one good punch in before they kill you. That way you can die with honor.”
She wasn’t going to let it go. Obviously. If the quickest way to get us out of there was for me to get changed, then fine. I’d go change. I hoped a darker pair of jeans and a blue shirt would work for her because that was about as versatile as my wardrobe got. “Fine. I’ll go get changed.”
“Not so fast.” She bounced up from the couch and followed me. “If you think I’m letting you dive back into that duffel filled with cowboy denim, you’re got another thing coming.” Grabbing my forearm, she steered me into her room.
It was more of a crypt than a room, and in the first few seconds, I saw so many props, costumes, and toys of a naughty nature that I doubted I’d ever be the same. As Alex tore through her closet, I did my best to focus on the empty patch of carpet in front of my boots. There were a pair of handcuffs to the left and a pair of underwear that really missed the memo on what underwear was intended to cover to the right, so I focused on that four by four inch span of carpet until I felt close to going cross-eyed.
“Here. These should work.” Alex held out an armful of guy’s clothing and waited for me to take it. “Brad wasn’t quite as beefy as you, but he was about as tall.”
“Brad?” I asked, realizing my mistake too late.
Alex sighed something that was too close to a moan for my comfort level. “My old boyfriend. Four exes ago. He was a frickin’ tomcat in the sack. He used to do this thing where he almost lifted me into the air before—”
“Thanks, Alex,” I interrupted, heading for the door. I didn’t need to hear any more about Brad and his mad tomcat skills in the sack. “I’ll try these on and meet you in the living room in five.” I was almost into the hall when Alex called after me.
“Ooooh, wait!” She rummaged around under her bed. “Boots!”
“I’ve already got boots,” I replied right before she flung a pair of black ones my way. I managed to snag them before they clocked me in the face. Okay, so they were boots, but they were basically the polar opposite to the kind I wore—round toed, scuffed up, and a buckle below the ankle. Motorcycle boots? I think?
“Not all boots are created equal,” Alex argued with my silent thoughts. “And those, Sex God, kick your boots’s ass.”
Again, I might have argued if I thought I had a remote chance of coming out the boot victor.
Chapter Four
I FELT LIKE I’d just been held down by a boy band and a motorcycle gang and what I was wearing and the way I looked was the scary result. The jeans were looser than I was used to, the long-sleeved shirt was tighter than I was used to, and the boots . . . well, they were nothing like what I was used to.
Not to mention my hair. When Alex came at me with a bottle of goop after I’d emerged from Rowen’s room in foreign duds, I just clenched my jaw, closed my eyes, and prayed it would all be over soon. I still hadn’t chanced a look in the mirror. If my hair looked anything like it felt, I didn’t want to see it. I was clothed, but I felt naked. The missing hat might have had something to do with that feeling.
“I know you don’t believe me, but you don’t have to. Because you look hot. Like smokin’, I-just-moistened-my-panties hot,” Alex said, running a yellow light in her black El Camino. It was about as ancient as Old Bessie and had aged about as gracefully.
Some sweet, refurbished, classic cars turn every head when they pass by. Alex’s El Camino wasn’t one of those. It was rusted out, the engine made a noise like a jar of marbles had been dropped inside of it, and the rearview mirror hung on by a thread. And the interior’s smell? Let’s just say it was offensive enough that I’d been riding with my head half out the window in the chilly, rainy weather since we’d left the apartment.
“Thanks?” I replied, shifting for the hundredth time. What guys saw in loose jeans was lost on me. I’d never been in a more uncomfortable pair.
“Oh, come on, Sex God. Give it a break. The self-deprecation act is getting old fast. Just admit you dig that I decked you out in a little swagger, and let’s get on with the night.”
I knew Alex and I spoke the same language, but sometimes I wondered if we spoke different dialects because I didn’t understand half of what she said most of the time. “Alex?”
“Sex God?” she mimicked.
I exhaled out my nose. “What’s up with the nickname?”
“What nickname?” She took a corner so sharply, I checked over my shoulder to make sure we hadn’t lost the bumper or something.
“Sex God,” I muttered.
“That’s not a nickname. I thought that was your given name,” she said with an evil grin.
I shot her an exasperated look.
She basked in my discomfort a few seconds longer before shrugging. “Truthfully? Because you are one.”