Forgive us Father for we have FLANned, it has been merely 2 days since we last uploaded!
Here is your swimwear chapter - we couldn't keep you in suspense any longer.
"Swimwear?" Had he not been so distressed at being in this situation in the first place, Harry would probably have laughed at the way she leant forward, checked to see no-one was listening in before whispering it softly into his ear as if it was an obscene word. She knew she was right from the way he stuffed a hand into his pockets and tried to look anywhere but at her. Realising that standing at the bottom of the escalators was not going to help either of them get everything they needed, she thought about Adam's advice, found a bit of courage that she didn't know she had, and dragged him back onto the escalators.
"Ruth, I don't, you don't,"
"Third floor," she interrupted, sounding just as nervous as he did. They left the escalator and headed to the next. "Opposite wall to the ladies swimwear. Might be a sale on; there was in the ladies."
Harry was still quietly processing the last ten minutes in his head, when his eyes suddenly snapped up at the new realisation he'd just had come to. "You've bought new swimwear?"
Ruth blushed, although at Harry's suppressed smile or her own outstanding ability to drop herself in it, she didn't know. "I didn't say that. I might have just noticed the sale banners."
"Or, you might have bought something from said sale." His own embarrassment was quickly dissipating as he found enjoyment in making her squirm and blush, all the time dazzling him with her coy smile and letting her gaze flit briefly to his. "Let's have a look, shall we?"
"No! Harry!" she protested in a voice which held half mortification and half the teasing lilt which dared him to anyway.
"If there's no swimwear in there, then there is no reason to protest, is there? I rest my case," he stated, reaching for her hand and trying to gently unfurl the fingers which had tightened around the handles of her bags.
They stepped off the escalator in unison, and three bags went cascading to the floor as both realised the other was not holding the handles, but the other's hand instead. Whether or not Harry would have succeeded in his quest to acquire the bags, or not, was now irrelevant, as most of the contents, including a striking sea green halter bikini and a black plunging swimsuit which appeared to cut away across the hips.
"Ah-ha," he commented, flirtatiously, before realising he was holding the bikini briefs, and dropping them back into the pile of clothes. She looked at him as if he might have gone slightly mad, and he bent down to help her frantic stuffing of things into the carriers.
"Shall we just get what it is you need and go home?" she suggested, immediately cringing and back tracking. "I mean, you go home, and I'll go home. Not we'll go home."
She let him lead the way now that he could see where he was headed, and followed a few steps behind, banging the heel of her palm against her forehead.
"What about these ones?" he asked, holding up a pair of Bermudas.
"Are you a surfer?"
"No."
"Are you a middle aged pimp or gangster?"
"No."
"Are you having a midlife crisis?"
"Debatable," he muttered.
"Then no, definitely not those ones."
Harry didn't know quite what to say, but after half an hour, he knew he was beginning to try Ruth's patience. He wished she'd just pick a pair and suggest them, but she was plainly feeling too awkward to do so, and he was feeling too shy to suggest it to her.
"Ruth, I'm not getting anywhere. You said the Speedos were a no-no, you wouldn't let me get these, these, those or those," he said pointing. "I'm running out of options."
She stood still for a moment, and then strode over to the far corner, returning with two things in hand. "These, or these," she stated, handing him a pair of plain deep red shorts, and – more to feed her own imagination than anything – a pair of tight, blue shorts, not unlike those belonging to a certain other tasty spy of late.
"Ok then, which?"
"Er," she blushed, restraining herself from her gut answer.
"What?"
"You'll have to try them on."
"Ruth?"
"Harry, we've been here half an hour trying to find you some and now that we've done it, you can't just refuse to try on the only candidates. There really isn't any other way to tell what looks best on you."
With that, he grabbed them from her, and sulked off to change.
---
"What do you think then?" she called from outside.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I like both."
"Well get both."
"I don't need two pairs."
Ruth rolled her eyes. Trust men to see things practically. She didn't need a bikini and a swimming costume, but that hadn't stopped her.
"Well let me look then."
"Ruth!?" Harry's voice, it seemed, could stretch several octaves when given the right prompt.
"Well choose yourself then."
"I can't."
"Fine, I'm coming in, just open the door a crack, and no-one else will see."
"No."
"Harry, unless you either choose or open the door in the next ten seconds, I'm grabbing a stool from the next cubicle and peering over the top…and you can be the one to come and explain to security why."
Ruth began her countdown loudly, much to his annoyance, but he declined to move, refusing to believe she would carry out her threat.
"…two, one."
There was the sound of scraping wood on tiles and a mortified expression attached itself to Harry's face as he realised what was happening.
"I've decided, I've decided, it's ok," he shouted, turning himself through 720 degrees in his flustered state.
"You picked that pair, I hope," came the small and flustered voice from a head which was now disappearing behind the cubicle wall.
"You, er, you like them?" he asked.
"Shit!" he heard her whisper. "I shouldn't have said anything. The, er, the colour is good on you though."
She sank onto the stool and pushed the cubicle door closed, wishing that somehow it's walls might close in on her and leave her to her humiliation. Head in her palms, however, she found it hard to focus on what an idiot she'd made of herself, when all she could see, burned into her retina, was the image of him in the shorts. The blue was subtle and yet striking all at once, the dark navy piping sitting wonderfully against his cream skin. She pictured the way the bottom of the shorts sat high and snug against his upper thighs, and the striped sides caressed their broadness. And then – Oh God, then – she allowed herself to picture how well he filled them, finding herself clammy and shaking at the recollection of his form teasing her from within the confines of the cotton-lycra.
Still stunned from her appearance over the top of the door, Harry kept a wary eye on the top of the cubicle as he began to change back into his own clothes. He decided that partial nudity in front of Ruth was more than enough for today. As it was, she had been eerily silent since her cameo in his changing room and he desperately hoped that it was a good silence, not a horrified oh-my-God-his-body-is-repulsive sort of silence. Dark thoughts getting the better of him, it was a very self conscious Harry that walked out of the cubicle, and, on not seeing Ruth waiting outside, his initial thought was that she has fled in horror. He turned as the door to the cubicle next to his opened and was relieved to see Ruth step out looking incredibly pink. He noticed the way her gaze kept drifting from the shorts in his hand down the length of his body and back up again.
"I, er, I decided on the blue ones."
"Good choice," she managed to squeak and he smiled widely, enjoying the fact that although she was incredibly flustered she didn't seem able to tear her eyes from his now fully clothed body.
They stood a few feet apart, gazing intently at one another as a thick tension settled between them. Harry took a small step closer to her and her breath caught. Her heart pounded loudly in her chest, she tried to swallow but her throat had gone suddenly dry, she was rooted to the spot, clutching on to the carrier bags in her hands for dear life as he took another step, narrowing the distance between them to mere inches. She opened her mouth as if to say something but no sound came out, and trembled as he reached out with his free hand. She was sure he was about to stroke her cheek when someone cleared their throat loudly and broke the spell.
"Sorry, could I just squeeze through?"
"Of course, yes. Sorry." Harry wasn't sure who was most embarrassed, him, Ruth or the small, overweight, bespectacled man that was trying to get into the changing rooms to try on what appeared to be a leopard print pair of Speedos.
They made a sharp exit from the changing area, joining the queue of shoppers waiting to pay for their goods and burst into nervous giggles.
"Well, shopping with you has certainly been an experience, Ruth."
"I'm going to take that as a compliment Harry."
"You should. You're help has been invaluable, I could have ended up like that poor sod if left to my own devices!"
"I can't imagine you in leopard skin anything Harry, never mind leopard print Speedos!" She paused, uncomfortably. "Not that I, um, imagine you in different c-clothing or, or without any, um... well..."
Mortified at her rambling, she trailed off and stared resolutely at the floor. Her gaze was so intent that Harry wondered, briefly, if she was looking for a place in the floor for the Earth to open up and swallow her.
"It occurs to me, Ruth, that you wouldn't have to imagine anymore...not after the last half hour anyway. I, on the other hand, would indeed have to use my imagination to see how you might look in, say, a sea green bikini..."
That had certainly got her attention. His deceptively casual tones belied the look of interest mixed with a hit of mischief that danced in his eyes. She could not believe he had said that. To her. Right here. In the queue for the checkout at Debenhams. Where anyone could be listening to them. She took heart from the fact that no-one seemed to be paying them or their flirtatious banter the slightest bit of attention. She could sense him watching her, waiting for her to say something and for once she decided to forget that they were employer and employee.
"Not at all Harry...you don't have to use your imagination for that..." she leant in close to him, squeezed his bicep gently and looked at him from beneath her long lashes.
"I don't?" he managed to choke out, mesmerised by the way she was looking at him.
"No." Her voice lowered to a seductive purr. "You'll see me in it next week."
And this time, if you want Harry to see Ruth in her bikini, you really will have to review - we haven't written that bit yet!
