I slide the door open with my foot. “Yowza. Which gym do you go to? All of them?”
“It’s the one in the bottom of the McBride building, a half block away from work.
I have to swallow a mouthful of drool. “Are you sure we have to go to your brother’s wedding?”
I have never seen so much of his skin, and it glows with health; honey gold, flawless. The deep lines of his collarbones and hips are an impressive frame. In between are a series of individual muscles, each representing a goal set and box ticked. Flat, square pectorals with rounded edges. The skin of his stomach pulls tight across the kind of muscles I usually stare at during Olympic swimming finals.
He irons his shirt and all the muscles move. His biceps and lower abdomen are ridged with those blatantly masculine veins. Those veins ride over muscle and tell you, I’ve earned this. His hips have ridges that point down toward his groin, obscured in suit pants.
The amount of sacrifice and determination to simply maintain this is mind-boggling. It’s so Josh.
“Why do you look like this?” I sound like I’m about to go into cardiac arrest.
“Boredom.”
“I’m not bored. Can’t we stay here, and I’ll find something in the minibar to smear all over you?”
“Whoo, are those some horny eyes or what.” He waggles the iron at me. “Get finished in there.”
“For a guy who looks like you, you’re awfully bashful.”
He doesn’t say anything for a bit, stroking the iron over the collar. I can see how much effort it is taking him to stand shirtless in front of me.
“Why are you self-conscious?”
“I’ve dated some girls in the past . . .” He trails off.
My arms are crossed. My ears are about to start whistling with steam. “What sort of girls?”
“They’ve all . . . at some point made it pretty clear my personality is not . . .”
“It’s not what?”
“I’m just not great to be around.”
Even the iron is steaming in indignation. “Someone wanted you only for your body? And they told you that?”
“Yeah.” He redoes one cuff. “It should feel flattering, right? At first I guess it did, but then it kept happening. It really doesn’t feel good to keep being told that I’m not relationship material.” He bends over his shirt and analyzes it for creases.
I finally understand the Matchbox car code. Please see me. The real me.
“You know what I honestly think? You’d still be amazing, even if you looked like Mr. Bexley.”
“You’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid, Shortcake.”
He’s smiling a little as he keeps ironing. I’m almost shaking with the need to make him understand something that I don’t fully know myself yet. All I know is, it hurts me to think he feels bad about such a fundamental aspect of himself. I resolve to objectify him less, and turn away until he puts on his shirt. It’s robin’s-egg blue.
“I love that color shirt. It matches what I’m going to wear, um, obviously.” I cringe at my dress again. I go to my handbag and dig in it, finding my lipstick.
“Can I see something?” He’s got his tie flapping loose as he takes the tube from me and reads the bottom.
“Flamethrower. How appropriate.”
“Do you want me to tone it down?” I rattle my handbag, searching.
“I fucking love your red.” He kisses my mouth before I start to apply. He watches me applying the lipstick, blotting, reapplying, and by the time I’m done he looks like he’s endured something.
“I can barely take it when you do that,” he manages to say.
“Hair up or down?”
He looks pained. He gathers it up, and says “Up.”
He lets it fall and scoops it in his hands like snow. “Down.”
“Half up, half down it is. Quit fidgeting, you’re making me nervous. Why don’t you go and have a drink at the bar downstairs? Liquid courage. I can drive us to the church.”
“Be down in, like, fifteen minutes okay?”
Once he’s gone and the silence fills the hotel room like a swelling balloon I sit on the end of the bed and look at myself. My hair falls around my shoulders, and my mouth is a little red heart. I look like I’m losing my mind. I strip down, put on my support underwear to smooth out any lumps, hook my stockings up and look at my dress.