Love in All the Right Places (Chick Lit bundle) by Chris Mariano, Agay Llanera, Chrissie Peria Page B

advice. For free.”
    “Are you turning me into your project?” Gio laughed. So maybe he had horrible fashion sense. That wasn’t a crime.
    “You could say that.”
    He pushed the shirt back. “But no palm fronds.”
    In the end, he gave in and tried on two shirts for her. One was a white shirt that was a few sizes smaller than what he was used to wearing. The other was a deep blue short-sleeved button down. Neither one seemed to be his style but Min Hee seemed to approve.
    “How about this one?” Min Hee asked, pulling out an off-white polo shirt with a lizard print over the chest. She held the shirt out across his shoulders and they studied in their reflections in the mirror. But Gio wasn’t exactly looking at how the shirt fit him; his eyes strayed to the girl in white beside him. For a moment they seemed to be in matching outfits, a surefire way to distinguish Korean couples from the other tourists on the island.
    Her eyes flicked to his face in the mirror, as if reaching the same conclusion he did. She immediately stepped away, averting her gaze. “Here,” she murmured instead, as she handed him the shirt.
    Gio reached out to take it from her when they heard loud Korean voices walking into the store.
    They were standing near the back of the shop, where the solitary fitting room was located. Min Hee craned her neck and peeked past the clothes rack to catch a glimpse of the new arrivals. Then without warning, she pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes and then backed into the dressing room, tugging him along with her.
    Gio had to steady himself against the walls of the narrow room so he didn’t crash into her. She was so near but he doubted that she had any idea what she was doing to his insides. She hadn’t seemed to notice how closely they were standing.  Her hips brushed against his shorts. He smelled the faint scent of vanilla. “Uh, Min Hee?” he asked.
    “Shhhh!” she said, putting a finger to her lips in irritation.
    He needed to steady himself. It was better to talk than to keep pressing closer to her in this cramped space. So he dropped his voice, but not the topic. They had seen plenty of Korean tourists the whole day; Boracay was swarming with them. “Do you know those people?” he whispered.
    He had a feeling she was already glaring at him behind her sunglasses. She put her finger to her lips again, still oblivious to his nearness.
    “They won’t see you in here, you know,” he stated the obvious. He could feel his upper lip prickling with nervous sweat. “And why am I even here?”
    “I don’t know, why are you?” she whispered back.
    Gio looked down at her, where her fist was still clutched around his shirt. They were standing very close. “ You pulled me ,” he said in a low voice.
    That was when she looked up at him. He could barely make out her eyes through her dark glasses, but her lips parted—in surprise or in retort, he never knew. He suddenly had the overwhelming urge to kiss her.
    “Sir?” a new voice interrupted. “Sir, only one person at the booth at a time.”
    Gio felt his neck go warm. “Uh, yes. Uh, I just dropped something,” he said, immediately stepping out of the fitting room. “Sorry, my uh, sister needed my help,” he explained lamely, switching to the local dialect.
    The woman nodded straight-faced, but Gio had a feeling that she wasn’t buying it. So he just avoided her eyes and moved away. He tried to look busy picking out new things from the racks and then handing them to Min Hee—anything to keep from recalling how her shoulder had pressed against him, how her soft hands made mush of his insides. It was a good distraction. Finally, the group eventually left and he called out to her, “You can come out now; they’re gone.”
    Min Hee stepped out, still wearing her sunglasses, the pieces of clothing he had found partly obscuring her face. She didn’t seem to care that she looked silly. She looked uncertain, as if she didn’t quite believe Gio