Page 10 of Naughty & Nice
“Oh!” she shouts before suddenly she is gone.
Confusion is chased away by panic when I realize why she is gone. Because within seconds, so am I. Right in the middle of Santa’s Workshop, we both hit the snow packed ground beneath us. Breath punches out of my lungs as I go down hard on top of her. I barely catch myself, plunging my hands into the thick snow drift we’ve fallen into.
“Oh shit. Oh, I am sorry, Jos’,” I choke out, pushing off her to keep from crushing her beneath me.
“Holy ghosts,” she wheezes before suddenly it turns to laughter.
It’s late and the streets and most of the town is empty. Just weeks before Christmas I imagine we’re lucky to get the place to ourselves for even a few moments. Today has been nothing I expected it to be when I got on Highway 6 to get out of Harmony Hollow.
“I knew one day I would see you again,” I say to the skies instead of saying it directly to her, “I thought for sure it would be on a job site. Until I realized you were refusing to work with me. I knew just what I would say and what I would feel when I saw you, Josie. I told myself for so long I knew exactly how this moment would go.” I take a deep breath and pull icy air into my lungs.
“When I think about it,” she too talks to the skies, as if we’re both giving some painful confession to someone who can absolve us of our pain, “I imagine it five years ago. I think about what I should have done. How badly I wanted to go back to that cabin.... or call you to my place and tell you to bring curry and naan. I never thought...tonight when you walked in that tiny little joint and found me there, I just knew I got it all wrong.”
We both go quiet as we sit in the snow with our mistakes. Out here it feels bigger and deeper somehow, as if it can fill up the skies and drown out the music. My body goes numb, but I can feel my heart pounding. I feel the heat of her beside me, so I know we’rebothsurviving.
“Well since we are being honest,” I sigh heavily even as a smile twitches at my lips, “I never liked curry, but I did love the naan.”
“Oliver! You loved that curry,” she says accusingly.
With a huff she pops up on her side before she slips again on the same ice that put us on our asses. Twisting to face her, I laugh when she lies back in the snow, giving a bounce of her shoulders. Lying there covered in snow, she starts making snow angels in the snowdrift.
It is ridiculous and beautiful and reminds me just why I fell in love with her. Even in the most difficult moments during our build together, she made me laugh. She made things light when they started to go dark.
Lit up by the holiday lights she glows the brightest.
I don’t know why she waited five years to take a build with me or why it’s one in my own hometown. I don’t know if her words tonight about fixing our mistakes and the damage she caused mean what I want them to. What I never thought I’d get a chance to want again.
I do know this moment is one I don’t want to regret.
Reaching out, I brush her damp hair from her face, skimming my thumb over her red lips. Her eyes flash to mine as they go wide. I trace her full bottom lip, the memory of that velvety touch pressed on every inch of me making me forget all about lying in the frozen streets.
Bending over her, I give her a chance to refuse me. It might kill me if she does, but something tells me she won’t. Lowering my head, I barely brush my mouth over hers. I taste the wine from earlier but beneath that, I taste her. The strawberry sugar of her mouth blossoms beneath my kiss.
I keep it light, just tasting her mouth, reminding myself of its sugary sweetness. Until suddenly a taste is not nearly enough. I am starved for the twist of her tongue, the bite of her teeth, and I can’t get enough. I push up over her, pressing her into the snow as I claim her mouth completely.
Just like an addict I don’t take a taste but instead I mainline my addiction.
