Page 10 of Forced to Share
“Uh, surprise! I made it back home and brought it with me. I thought it would be a fun memory.”
She smacked my arm before giving me that bear hug I’d been craving. It was almost enough to cut off my airsupply. In any normal circumstance, it would have been embarrassing. What guy in his mid twenties wanted to be smothered by his mother? Me. That was who. My mom and dad meant the world to me because they’d supported me in everything I’d ever wanted to do. They hadn’t even blinked when I came out. Mom had cracked a joke about it answering some questions she had, but that was it.
“It would have been better had we had done it all together, don’t you think?” She released me, grabbing my shoulders to look at me.
That stung a little, because I’d meant to just surprise her with it, but she was right. It would have been better, especially since Leah was home this year.
My face heated as I shifted in her grasp. “Maybe. I’m just glad that you like it.”
Chapter 6
Jeremy
Ifelt like I was intruding on something I shouldn’t have been. It was sweet to see Austin with his mother and how excited she’d been, but it was their moment and not mine. I slipped out of the room and back into the kitchen to make myself another cup of coffee. The night before had been rough, full of tossing and turning, realizing that the person I truly desired was right down the hall and not in bed next to me.
I stood at the window as I sipped the bitter liquid. My thoughts kept wandering to what was going on in the other room. Things had felt so natural with Austin. It was like the years apart had vanished and we’d been able to pick back up where we’d left off and ignore all the hurt.
The longer I stood there, the white flakes began to fall from the sky. Growing up in California, I’d never really experienced a white Christmas until I’d moved to New York. The type of cold they experienced in the Northeast was something else entirely. I thought I would die that first year.
After I finished my cup of coffee, I made my way back up to the bedroom. Leah was still sleeping, and I didn’t want to disturb her. I searched through my luggage and found the e-reader that I’d packed. It had been a while since I’d read a good book, but figured that if we were there for two weeks that it was time that I caught up on some books I’d been hoarding.
Buying and reading books were two entirely different hobbies. Even in the electronic format. Thanks to the minimal space in our apartment in New York, I collected more of the digital variety versus the physical.
As carefully as I could, I climbed onto the bed, lifting the covers over my lap and opening up the latest psychological thriller. I dove in, and the story gripped me from the first page. It was about a man who had bought an old bookstore only to discover a hidden basement that had all sorts of old artifacts. At night, strange things started happening, and people were breaking into the store, trying to get to the basement.
The story had just started getting really juicy. Another woman had broken into the store in the middle of the night wielding a machete, ranting about evil spirits and how she needed to destroy the shop. When the protagonist was locked in a heated battle, trying to stop the woman from hacking away at the books and other parts of the store, I felt a pressure on my leg. It was enough to make me jump and almost throw my reader across the room. Damn intense moments and all of that.
“What are you doing?” Leah was groggy as she stared up at me, though my heart beat a million miles a minute.
“Well, I was reading a book. You just scared the shit out of me.”
She laughed as she sat up, pushing her long hair out of her face before grabbing a hair tie from around her wrist and securing it in a messy bun on top of her head.
“I’ve been awake for like, ten minutes. I was starting to wonder if you’d ever notice.”
I laughed, though it sounded awkward and forced. If she hadn’t touched me or said something, I would have been too engrossed in my book to pay attention.
“It’s snowing...”
I didn’t know what possessed me to say it. Looking at the window, the flakes were falling thicker than before I’d come up there earlier. My eyes widened at the realization.Those were much fatter flakes. It was enough to have me shooting from the bed to the windowsill.
A thin coating of white covered the ground. It wasn’t enough to have me that concerned. I’d certainly seen more in my time in NYC, but I knew enough that in areas like this, that could change really quickly.
“Yeah? We usually get a decent amount around here. I normally don’t get to come home because of it. Looks like it held off this year until I could make it.”
That should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. If things got bad, would we be stuck here for more than the two weeks? I had a job back in the city, one that I had just recently started and didn’t have a shit ton of time off saved for.
“Would you chill out? I see you panicking over there. You forget this is Chicago. They’re used to this crap around here.”
It still didn’t ease my anxiety, and Leah crawled from the bed to stand behind me. She draped her arms over my shoulders and kissed my neck. Most men would probably find the move arousing, but for me all it did was make something slither in my gut that didn’t feel right.
Instead of sinking into her attempts at comfort, I pulled away entirely. My phone sat on the charger, and I picked itup. The move was dismissive as hell. I knew that. It didn’t stop me, though.
“According to the forecast, this is going to keep up for the next several days and through the holidays.” I took a deep breath. It wasn’t the end of the world. I’d even seen it in New York, where it dumped for days on end only for us to suddenly be hit with a warm stretch and it all melted in a day or two. Maybe similar things like that happened here.
Leah came up behind me again, pushing my phone out of my hand. It landed on the bed with a soft thump, and my heart started thudding a million miles a minute again. Her arms curled around me, and that squirmy, uneasy feeling returned.
“You know what I always imagined?”
