“Are you a photographer or something?” I called.
He reappeared from the bathroom, now in sweats and a skinny little cropped t-shirt that would barely have covered a quarter of my chest.
“Hm?” He made straight for the box, which I’d placed on the floor. Ripping open the top, he plunged the top half of his body into it to examine the contents. His arse wiggled up in the air in a very provocative way. Sue me for looking. It had been a long, unrewarding day so far.
“Imma velloggler,” he said, his voice muffled in bubble wrap, which took me a few moments to translate into ‘I’m a vlogger’.
“I never met one of those,” I said. And I met a broad church of customers in my work. “Is there any money in it?”
“What are you going on about?” He suddenly straightened and whirled to face me, arms full of plastic-wrapped garments. Those big, soft eyes had gone even wider, if that was possible. He looked close to tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately. I’ve found that’s the best way to defuse any trouble—and I’m almost always at fault for something, so it covers all the bases.
“What?”
“About earlier. You know. Seeing you starkers. Nude. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” But what had I been interrupting? Who would be cavorting about barely dressed on a day like today?
“Oh. That.” He looked dazed and still very upset. “No, it’s about these! This is a disaster!” He shook the parcels fiercely, like a terrier worrying a rabbit. “These are the wrong size as well!”
I shrugged. Such an excess of verbal exclamation marks didn’t bode well for my customer feedback score. The clothing looked the same as what he’d been wearing—more ugly swimshorts. I pulled the paperwork out of my pocket to check I hadn’t mixed up the day’s boxes, but I knew I hadn’t.
Mr A vibrated with distress right in front of me. I never thought I’d want a sexy man to put more clothes on in my presence, but his button-like nipples were very distracting through the thin material.
“I have to start recording in the next fifteen minutes,” he moaned. “What am I going to do?”
“Why are you buying shorts, anyway?” I asked. “It’s December, and one of the coldest on record. The rest of London is putting on their thermals.”
“Don’t you know anything about fashion?” He tossed back a loose strand of that cheeky bleached hairdo and pursed his most suckable lips. “The summer season has to be prepared at least six months in advance. My sponsor sent the wrong size—the ones I was wearing when you arrived—with the promise of new samples, and that was over a week ago. Now they’ve arrived barely in time for my podcast, but they’re still too big for me to model!”
I wasn’t sure what I could say. What was in the box agreed with what was in the manifest, as far as I could see. Last job of the day, remember? I was aching to get home and get warmed up. But first, I needed a signature—and my customer needed to put on a sweater or something. I could see the goosebumps on the barely-there swell of his belly, just above his waistband. I bet those goosebumps would be gorgeous on a man’s tongue: cute boy like him would use a sweet-scented shower gel, his hair would be silky, his sweat would taste like a summer, soft-fruit salad…
“You must wear them!” he announced. Despite being several inches shorter than me, he faced me down, like some pocket-sized Roman emperor trying to impose his will on his people. But… not gonna happen. Not when ‘his people’ was a bad-tempered, wilful, Christmas Grump like me.
“Fuck that,” I said quite cheerfully, considering. “I deliver parcels, mate. I’m no clothes horse.”
“Just a couple of them.” He was looking me up and down. God knows what he could see of me under all my wrappings, but his eyes narrowed and he nodded. “You’re a good two sizes bigger than me. You’ll fill them.”
Wait a sec. Was he implying I was chubby?
“Can you shave off that beard?” he asked, then rushed on. “Never mind, I only need you on camera from the neck down. What’s your name? I need to know who you are.”
“Gray Turner,” I said without thinking. When he tilted his head, the diamond stud seemed to wink at me.
Anyway, ten minutes later... Don’t ask. Not. Even.
I stood under the spotlight in a pair of swimshorts, neon yellow with some ludicrous pineapple-shaped scribbles all over the arse.
“No shirt. And no briefs!” Mr A had insisted. “Gods, do you want to have visible panty line?”
If I’d even known what that was, I might have made more of a protest.
Oh, I’d refused to model, many times after he asked—no, ordered—me. Then he started pleading with those big, puppy-tangled-in-toilet-tissue eyes. Meanwhile, the snow had stopped falling outside but rain had started instead, the huge drops thundering against the roof, whipped across the windows by the icy wind. I’d be drenched before I got back to the van—if I even made it without slipping down those treacherous stairs.
When he saw me gauging the distance to the exit, he said softly, “You can’t go out in that yet. I’ve got beer.”
I’m not saying it was the offer of beer that sealed the deal. But here I was. At least he let me keep my socks on.
He powered up the laptop, did some fiddling with the keys and stuff. Then it was as if he turned the switch on another, online persona. “Hi everyone!” he trilled. “O-M-G, nearly the most terrible disaster tonight, as the shorts I was hoping to bring you weren’t the right size for me. But then, as a special treat, I have a guest model instead.”
Oh fuck. Was this thing going out live? I glared quickly at him and mouthed “no names!”
His eyes narrowed briefly but his brilliant smile didn’t waver. “I’ll call him My Personal Santa, because he arrived with the snow and was laden with parcels. But he’s all summer heat, boys and girls. He’s built like a God, and his eyes spit fire when he’s annoyed.”
Oh, for God’s sake.
For another few minutes he gabbled on, waving at me to turn and bend, and—at one specific point—slide my hand inside the waistband, running my fingers across my stomach. I made sure to stare at him as I did it, and was gratified to see his smooth little cheeks pink right up.
“Now let me show you a selection of the other styles, you are gonna love them!” Mr A set some kind of video carousel running, and announced to me that the mic and webcam were now off.
“Thank you, Gray,” he said, very sweetly. “You saved my life!”
“Is that the end of it? I’m fucking freezing here,” I ground out. Not very gracious, I know. But I was.
“Yes, no more modelling today. Here,” he said, reached under the desk, and tossed me a scarf.
It was gorgeous: more like a shawl, created in blocks of different fabrics. Plenty long enough to go around my neck and over my shoulders, and amazingly cosy. I may have let an appreciative moan slip out as it caressed my skin. One stripe was in cool linen with a funky spaceship design on it, followed by a fluffy woollen band in primary colours. Another stripe looked like it had come from a pair of kid’s dungarees, spotted with sequins and with the tiny pocket sewn shut. A swathe of lush velvet at the end brushed my nipples and I glanced up guiltily at Mr A. I knew—I just knew—I was getting hard.