face get hot. “Sorry, you’re right. Priorities.”
He started for the door, and Cassie grabbed his arm to stop him. “No, you’re right. Priorities,” she said. “They can’t go out dressed like that.”
As she pointed to Brady’s and Jayden’s attire, Jeff actually took a moment to see them. Brady’s ginger hair had been cut to a curl under his ears, smoothed back out of his lean face. He’d lost some weight on his lanky frame, as well, giving more intensity to his gray eyes. A white cotton shirt was tucked into brown hide pants and partially hidden beneath a leather vest.
Jayden wore a similar outfit in the colours of his House: black pants and a dark green coat with the hawk of Feldall emblazoned in gold on his breast. The coat had been redesigned to clasp at the neck and hang over his right shoulder, covering the absence of the arm underneath. As usual, he carried his sword at his right hip, a dagger in a smaller sheath next to it.
Both of them looked like they’d walked out of a Renaissance festival.
“We go shopping?” Jeff asked, unenthused with the idea.
Cassie screwed up her mouth, thinking. “The stores would be getting ready to close now, I think. They’ll have to make do with something of yours. Brady’s sort of the same size as you.”
The three men eyed each other, wondering how that would work. He and Brady were about the same height, but anything Jeff lent him would tend to the baggy. Maybe not too badly with all the stairs he’d climbed. But Jayden ….
“No way I’ll fit into anything this man wears,” Jayden said. At six-foot-four, the warrior just about loomed over Jeff, and his broad shoulders would likely tear the backs or buttons off anything he borrowed.
Cassie’s face set into a stubbornness that reminded Jeff of his mother. “Unless you brought a change of clothes, our options are limited.”
When no one else appeared ready to argue with her, she marched over to Jeff’s closet and started flipping through hangers. Jeff stood frozen, wondered when they’d entered the phase in their relationship where it was okay to go through the other’s things—and then accepted that he’d rather leave this task up to her.
She grabbed a green short-sleeved dress shirt, and then moved to the dresser for a pair of jeans and grey undershirt for Brady, and a t-shirt for Jayden.
“I think you’ll have to keep your own pants,” she said to him, scanning the length of his legs. Jeff felt squat and ungainly by comparison.
“Wonderful. Thank you,” Brady said, elbowing Jayden with a not so subtle nudge.
“Right. Thanks.” Jayden didn’t sound very convinced, eying the shirt uncertainly.
Jeff grumbled and gestured Brady towards the bathroom. Jayden apparently didn’t need the privacy, removing his coat and then tugging the white tunic up over his head. Jeff noticed Cassie’s interest pique, her gaze glued to the warrior’s chest, but had a hard time holding it against her, just as riveted himself. While he guessed her interests were more primal, Jeff couldn’t stop staring at his scar. Compared to the lines on his face, Jayden’s torso looked ravaged. The healers had focused their priorities, it seemed. Jeff remembered the way the giant bear had struck, the massive paw swiping down, the burst of blood. Jayden should have died, no question about it. Instead, three white gashes crossed from Jayden’s right shoulder, where he’d lost the arm, almost to his left hip. They were deep, and the skin moved stiffly as Jayden manoeuvred into the black t-shirt.
In spite of the damage, Jeff could understand Cassie’s fascination as well. The man had more muscles than the latest superhero actor.
Finally, after what felt like a slow-mo reverse striptease, Jayden pulled the t-shirt down over his must-be-magically toned stomach, and Jeff was forced to watch the way his favourite Black Sabbath shirt stretched over the warrior’s biceps. In the modern dress, Jayden still looked