Page 62 of You Wish
“I’m busy is all.”
“Uh-huh. Busy admiring festive armadillos?”
“I love armadillos.”
“You once told me that they carry hepatitis C and have the claws of demons.”
For a second, something like laughter threatened to break across her face, but she swallowed it down. Her cheeks were flushed a furious pink that the December air couldn’t take all the credit for. She shoved her hands deeper into her coat pockets.
“Jake, about last night?—”
He held up a hand, gentle but firm. “Stop. Don’t do the whole regret speech. I can see it coming a mile away.”
“Because it was a mistake—” she started, but he shook his head.
He caught a flyaway hair between his thumb and forefinger and twirled it. “I’m not asking you to figure everything out right this second. Or tomorrow. Or even next week. We’ll take it slow. Hell, we can take it at a snail’s pace if that makes you feel better. Just don’t shut me out before I even get the chance, Georgie.”
The use of her nickname cracked something in her expression—fear, longing, a sadness he wanted to scoop up in his bare hands and crush until it dissolved. She stared at him, lips parting like she wanted to argue but didn’t have the words ready.
And then a snowball slammed into his shoulder.
“What the fuck?” Jake twisted around. A pair of kids stood at the edge of the park, grinning like little demons, already packing more snow.
When he turned back, Georgia launched a big ball of snow his way, catching him in the chin.
“Oh, you think that’s funny?”
“I think it’s karma,” she said primly, though her eyes danced.
Jake bent, scooped a pile of snow into his gloved hands, and lobbed it gently at her chest. It burst across her scarf in a puff of white.
Her mouth dropped open. “Did you just?—”
“Truce?” he asked, though his grin betrayed him.
“Never.” She crouched, packed her own snowball, and nailed him square in the chest.
Within seconds, they were dodging between lampposts and benches like overgrown children, flinging snow until they were both breathless and red-cheeked, laughing so hard Jake thought his ribs might split. A snowball exploded against his back as he tried to circle behind her, and he caught the sound of her laughter—real, unguarded, bright enough to light up the whole square.
By the time the truce was called—Georgia waving a mitten like a white flag and Jake panting like he’d just run drills—the snow around them looked like a battlefield. Half-melted ammo littered the benches and lampposts, and his coat was soaked through like he’d been dunked in a lake.
Georgia bent over, hands braced on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Her scarf had slipped, exposing the flushed curve of her neck, and Jake felt something sharp and dizzying spike through him at the sight.
She caught him staring. “Don’t,” she warned between gasps.
“Don’t what?” he said, feigning innocence.
“That look. The one that says you’re about to turn this into a metaphor about battles or surrender or whatever nonsense you think sounds charming.”
He smirked. “You wound me. I wasn’t going to say a word.”
Her laugh puffed out in a white cloud, and for a moment, everything in him tugged toward her—the way she always did, like a magnet. But he didn’t move. Not yet.
Slow, he reminded himself.Don’t scare her off.
Instead, he gestured toward the square, where the glow of the coffee cart lights was haloed in falling snow. “Come on. Let me buy you a cocoa. It’s the least I can do after pelting you with frozen water.”
Her eyes narrowed, suspicious. “Hot chocolate isn’t going to fix this.”
