Dustin held up his long-sleeved dress shirt and knew it would be drenched in sweat by the time he reached the car in the scorching Florida heat. Too hot, too uncomfortable, and too wrong for going out with Trace on a non-date. “Hey, Trevor. You got one of those short-sleeved shirts I could borrow?”
“You mean the ones that you make fun of, calling me a Shriveling Salty Senior?” Trevor hollered up from the downstairs living room.
Dustin stepped out of his eight-by-eight claustrophobic closet-sized room and looked over the balcony at Trevor with his feet up on the coffee table and computer in his lap. “Yeah, but that’s you in your old-man bod. I’ll rock the look. Besides. It’s hotter than a skillet set on the sun.”
“You keep telling yourself that, but desperation doesn’t look distinguished on you.” Trevor set the computer on the coffee table and climbed the steps to the second floor. “If you want to dress to impress Trace, then I’ve got the perfect outfit for you.”
“I didn’t ask for a makeover. I’m not a thirteen-year-old girl. A shirt, dude. That’s all I wanted. I’ve ordered some clothes, but they haven’t arrived. Apparently even the Zon can’t deliver in a day out here.”
Trevor disappeared into his closet and came out holding a linen shirt with a lavender stripe down the front.
Dustin shot his arms up in front of him in a barrier to bad fashion. “No. Not happening. I’m not wearing that. Give me the plain white one.”
“It’s dirty.”
Dustin eyed the hamper. “How dirty?”
Trevor removed the frou-frou shirt from the hanger, balled it up, and threw it at him. “This is Florida. The shirt smelled five minutes after I put it on. Take this or don’t and wear one of your stiff-neck, suffocating shirts.”
Dustin snarled. “First you drag me out here, and now you force me to dress in this girl shirt.”
“There’s a statute of limitations on you blaming me for your decision to move here. And that’s not a girl’s shirt.” He shoved his pointer finger into Dustin’s chest. “Besides, you won’t fit in anything I own.”
“You calling me fat?”
“If the shirt fits.” Trevor laughed and buddy-slapped Dustin’s shoulder on his way to the hallway. “I’m talking about your muscles. You’ve always been the muscle-strutting type. Don’t deny it.”
“Can’t help it if I look good.” Dustin slid the sleeves of the linen sissy shirt over his shoulders and buttoned it. Much cooler than his dress clothes but not a grimy work T-shirt. It’d have to do, light purple stripe and all. “Wait, why do you own this shirt? It’s a large. You’re at best a medium.”
“Wind sent it over this morning. She bet you’d have a date with Trace by this afternoon. You owe me twenty bucks by the way.” Trevor’s voice faded with each step he took down to the living room.
Dustin grunted, grabbed his wallet and keys. “Non-date. Both of us have to eat, and I’m sick of eating with your ugly manipulating mug,” he shouted over the balcony.
Trevor held a hand to his heart. “I’m hurt.”
“Keep on and you will be.” He shuffled down the steps to the main floor. “I was going to offer to bring you something home, but forget it. You can starve.”
“Got a hot date of my own, so no worries. Jewels and I are going for a moonlight picnic on a sandbar,” Trevor said, sounding like he’d lose his bachelor status at any moment. Ugh. Too soon. Way too soon to be chained to another woman since it hadn’t been that long since Marsha had dumped him like a rabid raccoon. Jewels was nice and all, but who wanted to rush from one marriage to the next? Dustin had managed to avoid it his entire life. Didn’t get why anyone wanted to be part of that institution.
He drove the two blocks to Jewels’s house. Wind’s car was out front. With one hand on the door handle, he hesitated. The shirt. Had Wind sent it as a joke and he was about to deliver the punchline to the front door? He’d deserve it. Not sure why, but when it came to women, he’d realized a long time ago that he provoked their anger and resentment. He had to, or it wouldn’t have happened so often.
With a deep breath, he wrenched the car door open and marched up the front walk.
Wind opened the door before he reached the front step. A coldness whispered up his spine. “Good evening, handsome. Ready for your big date?”
“Um… non-date.” He shifted between his feet and ran a hand through his hair. “Listen, I hope you don’t think—”
“That you will break Trace’s heart?” Wind sauntered to the last step, placed a hand on his shoulder, and leaned in as if to kiss him. “Listen, relax. I’m not upset. I’d hoped you’d ask her out. But if you hurt her…” She tapped his lips with a finger from her free hand. “Well, you won’t have to worry about swimming with sharks, because I’ll feed you to a gator.”
Wind pirouetted and opened the front door, waving him inside.
Houdini scurried into the room, up the gangway, around the platform, and hopped onto his shoulder, chattering as if giving him the big brother speech.
“You tell him, Houdini." Wind pointed to the melodramatic ferret he was sure she had sent to acting school. He reached up to pet him, but Houdini smacked his hand away, hopped over the couch, and then disappeared down the hallway.
“You remember what I said.” She mimed a knife across her throat, hanging, and stabbing.
Dustin smiled, grinning away her threat. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. “No worries. We’re not dating. Complete opposites don’t even begin to define us as a couple.”
Wind broke free of him, laughing with Broadway projection.
“What’s so funny?” he grumbled.
“You.” She fanned her face. “In your denial, you admitted you liked her.”
“What? No I didn’t.” Did he? Wait, no. He didn’t think of her as more than a friend. A sexy, passionate, beautiful friend. But a friend. “How’d I do that?”
“You said couple, which means you’ve thought about it. Besides, you protest more when you are tiptoeing around something.”
“How would you know that?” Dustin lowered his voice to a conciliatory whisper.
“Because unlike Trace, who deserves better than either of our shallow selves, we are too much alike.” Wind winked and whirled to face the hallway. “Trace, your date’s here.”
“Non-date,” she shouted from an open door on the right. Trace marched to the edge of the hall in a blue button-up shirt that highlighted her waist, her breasts, her eyes.
“What?” Trace stared down at her feet and then back at him. “You’d think I was wearing a dress.”
Wind shoved a handbag at her. “Pepper spray in here in case he gets handsy.”
He hoped she was kidding.
Based on Trace’s grimace, she didn’t want to carry it, but then she huffed and pulled a wad of money and cards from her pocket and shoved it into the purse. “Let’s go.”
He rushed to the door to open it for her, but he wasn’t fast enough and his hand covered hers on the knob. If he wasn’t wrong, she gasped at his touch.
She took in a deep breath, calling his attention to her chest. Her gaze snapped to him with a glower. “Non-date. Remember?” She tugged her shirt around her neck and wrenched the door open. “By the way, nice shirt. Wind dress you?”
She marched outside, leaving Dustin to look to Wind.
“Stop treating her like you would a normal date. She deserves better. She’s not a filet on your plate. She’s a flower in a vase at the center of the table.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Wind fluttered away, leaving him to decipher her cryptic message. A problem even Pythagoras couldn’t solve.