Page 44 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

“I’m not sleepy, I’m just… fuzzy.Babe.” I realized that I’d somehow slumped backward onto the pillows of my couch, and now I kind of felt like I was floating on a marshmallow. “I can’t fall asleep if I haven’t watched The Office yet.”

“The Office?”

“I watch it before I go to bed, whenever I had a shitty day and I’m alone,” I explained. “I really have to watch it if I watched a horror movie. Ilovehorror movies. But if I watch one at night, I can’t go to bed alone and scared. What a fucking combo. So, The Office solves all of that. One or two episodes before bed keeps the scaries away.”

Jesse was looking at me like he was trying hard not to laugh. “We can turn on The Office if you want.”

I reached out and pushed his arm. “No way. I don’t feel bad whenyou’rehere. And right now I’m like a little marshmallow s’more, anyway.”

“Hmm?”

I was saying things out loud that I should have been keeping inside. “You look good in this light,” I told Jesse. “Like a fucking painting. Way better than the other night when we had no power on in here.”

“Did I look bad in the dim light?” he teased.

“No. You’re always beautiful,” I murmured.

I felt so warm inside. The sound of his laugh was even better. I hadn’t heard that enough, but Jesse seemed more relaxed now.

God, it was good to see him happy. He deserved to be happy like that more often, and I wanted to fucking smack the guy who had ever taken advantage of Jesse. Who wouldn’t want him? Who wouldn’t want to keep him forever?

“And you’re on another plane of existence right now,” Jesse said.

“No I’m not,” I said, struggling to sit up a little straighter and mostly failing. “I’ll prove it. Ask me anything.”

“Where are we right now?”

“Heaven, as far as I’m concerned.” He reached out to shove me, but I grabbed at his hand, clasping my palm around it. “This is mine now. Ask me another.”

He let me keep his hand, and I gently started stroking it, laying little patterns onto his palm with my fingertips.

“Were you feeling okay earlier today? Truthful answers only,” Jesse said, and I saw that his expression had gone a little more serious.

I paused for a moment before I spoke. “No. I was… very sad. But I was really glad to see your face in my backyard, I can tell you that much.Veryhonest answer.”

“That’s a relief.”

“What?”

“You looked ready to bring out a shotgun when I first stepped into the yard.”

“No way.”

He made a stern expression, showing me how my face must have looked earlier, and I laughed. “I wasn’t mad. I was worried.”

“Worried…”

I swallowed. “Worried that you’d see the real me. The fuckingbad parts.”

He squeezed my hand. “No such thing. You’re going to be fine, Mason. You’re a lot less chaotic than you think you are.”

“You haven’t seen half of it yet,” I told him.

He quirked up an eyebrow. “Tell me more.”

“Don’t want to scare you.”

“You couldn’t freak me out if you tried,” he said.

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