Page 68 of Noel I Won’t
But I could make an exception when my feet were about to fall off from the cold.
Hopper carried me up the steps, muttering about stubborn, sexy men with more passion than sense.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing my cold nose into the hollow of his throat.
“Let’s go inside,” he said quietly.
“No!” I tightened my grip on him as he tried to set me down. “Not y-yet. N-not until…”
He looked down, meeting my eyes, his ablaze with exasperation. “Until what?”
“Until you forgive me!”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said softly. “You want what’s best for your family. I overreacted.”
I shook my head. “No. You’re wrong.”
His forehead creased. “What do you mean?”
“I love you, s-stupid!” I rushed out before a big shiver racked me once again.
He stared at me, shuddering in his arms, probably turning blue, and finally smiled.
“Noel, you fool, I love you, too. Now, can Ipleasetake you inside before you freeze to death?”
His words were a shot of warmth, but somehow, that made me more aware of how damn cold I was.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Hopper muttered as he set me down to open the door and pushed me through it.
I hissed, my feet thawing enough to really fucking burn as the warmth of the house hit. My entire body tingled as numbness fled.
Hopper swept me up again as soon as he was through the door. Cinnamon had followed and was dancing around us.
My mother appeared in the doorway. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” I said quickly.
Hopper huffed with exertion as he carried me to the living room. I chose to believe he was breathless from that declaration of love and not from carrying my heavy ass across the room.
He settled me onto the sofa, covering me with blankets, using his coat sleeve to dry my feet before cupping them in his hands.
He’d just been out in the cold, too, yet his hands—which had been encased in gloves—were burning hot against my icy skin.
I winced. “Fuck. Love hurts.”
My mother laughed. “Oh, dear. You are dramatic, aren’t you? You must get it from Ed.”
My father snorted. “You’re not fooling anyone, Maggie. He gets it fromyou.”
“You’re the one who serenaded me in the middle of the night! My father had to run you off.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” he grumbled. “Besides, you made heart eyes at me at church. Everyone saw it.”
Heart eyes, huh? Pretty sure Hopper and I could give Mom a run for her money.
He gazed down at me as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
