Page 71 of Crumbling Truth
Chase, a quiet lumberjack type who looked at his gorgeous wife with hearts in his eyes, smiled shyly up at me. “I heard those Christmas cookies were to die for. Got any left?”
“You’re lucky I set aside a friends and family stash,” I whispered as I reached under the counter for the box I had packed up earlier. “You have to share with Ollie and Julian though, if they’re here.”
Sofia groaned in mock disappointment, but a grin lit her rosy cheeks. “Yes, ma’am!”
Despite my insistence that I didn’t need help—and that I wasnotlonely or pining for Theo, which Sofia asked about in a low voice when Chase turned to greet a coworker—the two of them hung around the truck until it was time to close up. Oliver and Julian had dropped by at least three times, as well, and I started to wonder if Theo had asked them to check in on me.
I was just packing up at the end of the night when I heard a chorus of exclamations. When I peered around the corner of the truck, I found Theo being passed around for hugs like he’d been gone for a century instead of days.
After his years away, I couldn’t really blame them for celebrating his return.
His gaze landed on me and his eyes went soft. The rest of his friends—our friends—stepped away and left him to stride toward me as though pulled by an invisible thread.
“Hey,” he murmured, cupping my face between his hands. That warmth he always radiated seeped into my cold cheeks. “I’m so sorry I missed it. Did everything go okay?”
Unable to speak around the strange surge of emotion clogging my throat, I nodded. Theo bent down slowly, like he was savoring the sight of me, until his lips met mine. I shivered at the butterfly-light caress, drawing closer when his hands settled on my hips. By the time he drew back to smile at me, I’d forgotten he even asked a question.
“I missed you,” he said, apparently forgetting as well.
“You’re right on time for cleanup,” I replied. The words came out as wispy as the puff of my breath in the cold night air.
Theo’s smile only widened. “Good. Get into the truck, your hands are frozen. I’ll take care of everything that’s left.”
Though I considered protesting, Iwasfreezing and the prospect of a few quiet minutes in front of the heating vents sounded too good to pass up. There wasn’t much left to do, anyway, and Theo finished it in record time before launching himself into the passenger seat with an exaggerated shiver.
“Where’s your truck?” I asked.
“I walked over from the house so I could ride home with you. Didn’t you get my texts?”
I grimaced. “I forgot my phone at home.”
Theo groaned as he slapped a hand to his forehead. “Fuck, now I’ll have to watch you reading all the sappy shit I texted you all evening.”
“Sappy, huh?” I asked, grinning over at him.
At that moment, he looked beyond happy to be there, beaming across the space between us. His cheeks were as pink as Sofia’s had been, his dark eyes gleaming with pleasure. I let it flow over me like warm honey until his comment sunk in.
“You walked two miles in a foot of snow?”
His grin turned boyish. “Uphill. Both ways.”
I snorted a laugh. When we pulled into the plowed driveway at home, his continuous smile from the drive finally slipped a little, but I refused to bring Alex into this moment with us. Fortunately, Theo didn’t voice the question in his eyes.
Before we unloaded what was left in the back, Theo pulled me into his arms and kissed me, bracing his arm behind me against the side of the truck to keep my body away from the cold metal. I knew how badly I’d missed him, but I hadn’t realized just how intensely my body had, as well. It felt like I was blooming against him, like the warmth flooding my veins was filled with heat-seeking missiles tugging me straight into him.
Laughing, I pressed my hands against his chest. “It’s too cold out here for this, Long John. Let’s get the leftovers put away and then you have me all to yourself.”
“Fine, fine. But I intend to take full advantage of that,” he warned, his voice low against my ear.
Envisioning all that was likely to be involved in that particular promise, I didn’t even notice the car that pulled into the driveway until my parents stepped out of it.
Chapter Thirty-One
Theo
IsawEsther’sexpressiongoslack, her golden skin paling even in the fluorescence of the new motion lights I’d installed along the driveway. When I spun around, I expected to find an assailant, an attacker, a man in a ski mask with a crowbar.
What I didn’t expect to see was a middle-aged couple wielding crumpled up pieces of paper in their waving fists.
