For a minute, he thought she was going to scream and the expression on her face said that she certainly hadn’t been expecting him. Actually, he hadn’t been expecting her either. His plan had been to come in for a tuxedo fitting – something he was seriously jumping the gun for Eva’s wedding – and figured it would be a legit excuse to see Penny. He’d casually stop in at the bridal shop and say hello and then…
“Spencer? What are you doing here?”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “Doing a test run on tuxedoes to help Eva and Brett out.”
At first he didn’t think she believed him, but then she visibly relaxed. “Oh. Okay.”
“So what are you doing in the tuxedo shop? I didn’t think you worked in here too.”
She quickly explained about the owner needing to get home to a sick child – again – and then she stepped away and began to explain to him about the tuxedo options that had been pulled for him.
If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear she was nervous and that pleased him a little. If she was nervous around him, that meant that she wasn’t unaffected by him – or by their kiss.
Good to know.
Because kissing Penny had been all he could think about all week. He should be back in Atlanta right now.
But he wasn’t.
He should be working on reports for the building he was designing.
But he wasn’t.
What he was doing was trying on tuxedoes when he didn’t need to just on the off-chance he could see her again. How twisted was that?
By now Penny was standing next to a dressing room and holding a tuxedo hanger in her hand. “Martin already placed a shirt and shoes in the fitting room for you,” she said, “and this is the first tux he pulled for you to consider based on your measurements.”
“I never gave him my measurements,” Spencer said.
“Um…what?”
He nodded. “All I did was call and ask if I could come in and try some on,” he explained. “No one asked for any sizes or measurements. I guess I can try this on and we can go from there, right?”
Then he watched as her shoulders sagged and she sighed. But she immediately went back into sales mode and gave him a nice but professional smile. “Okay, we’ll need to get your measurements first. No need for you to try to fit into a suit that isn’t your size. That’s just crazy.” She stepped away and hung up the suit she had in her hands. “Why don’t you step up on the platform over there by the mirror and I’ll go get the measuring tape.”
Wait…measuring tape? Couldn’t he just tell her what size he normally wore? That would certainly make things easier – especially since Brett hadn’t made any decisions on tuxedos and he wasn’t planning on ordering anything tonight. Then again, if he did happen to go in that direction, there’d be no need for him to stand up on the platform for measurements. And that would mean…
“Just step up on there and face the mirror,” she said. “I’ll need to make a note of your shirt and sleeve size, waist, outseam…”
Then he felt bad for giving her extra work. “Wouldn’t it be easier to give you at least some of my sizes so you don’t have to go through all of this?” he asked and hated that he was quite possibly depriving himself of some extra time with her.
“Under normal circumstances, yes,” she explained. “But for this sort of thing, we require specific measurements. Every designer is cut just a litter differently so it makes everyone’s job easier to just go by what the measuring tape says.”
“Ah…gotcha.” Doing his best to hide a grin, he simply stood and did as he was told as Penny’s hands roamed all over him – in a completely professional way – as she took the needed measurements.
Best. Friday. Night. Ever.
At first, he felt all kinds of wrong that even though there was nothing sexy about what she was doing, it was still mildly arousing – her hand skimming down his leg…her arms wrapped around him to get his waist measurements…
He cursed the fact that they were in the middle of a tuxedo shop and that he had on so many damn clothes!
Once she was done, she moved around the shop and pulled tuxes in his size and then sent him back to the dressing room to start trying them on.
They didn’t talk about much – she kept all of the conversation focused on Eva and Brett and their wedding and tuxedo style questions. Not that he cared. Basically, this was all going to be Brett’s decision and right now, Brett had no idea that Spencer was even looking at tuxes.
No one did.
If his sister caught wind of what he was doing, he knew he’d get her approval and possibly her help. And as much as he knew he was going to need some of that where Penny was concerned, he wanted to do it in his own time and in his own way.
He just never thought trying on tuxedos was a length he’d ever have to go through in order to spend time with a woman.
“Let me know how that first one fits,” Penny called out to him.
And as he closed the dressing room door, he figured he had at least an hour to try to break down some of her defenses and convince her to go out with him again.