Page 63 of The Holiday Grump
“That’s sad.”
She smiled again. “That’s why I love Hideaway Harbor! I can hide here, too, but it feels way more real. People are not passing by, pretending to live here. Theyreallylive here. There’s past, present, and future, all happening in the same place. And everyone cares so much. About everything.”
“They do.” I sighed. “Hideaway is its own funny ecosystem. People get quite wrapped up in it.”
“I’ve noticed.”
I felt like apologizing for whatever she’d experienced so far, but she didn’t look weirded out. She looked happy, like she wanted to be part of it.
“They love you here,” I said. “They’re like vampires when it comes to young blood arriving in town.”
“I don’t mind.” She shrugged, smiling like she was more than happy to feed the vampires. “It’s way better than constantly making people uncomfortable.”
I shifted a little closer. How could I make her believe she wasn’t making me uncomfortable? And even if she was, I probably needed it, like a good gym workout after sitting still. I needed discomfort. I couldn’t even begin to describe what it meant to see her here, in my house. Like I’d just woken from a long sleep and suddenly noticed I was still alive, and time was running out.
“I bet I can makeyouway more uncomfortable than you’ve ever made me.” I grinned, raising my eyebrows, and leaned so close that I felt the warmth of her body. “I won’t even have to try.”
It was a gamble. I held my breath, watching for her face,ready to retreat if she showed any signs of true discomfort. But if she really thought she was the only one saying or doing the wrong thing, I could put her mind at ease.
Noelle held my gaze for a long moment, her disbelief slowly morphing into fiery excitement. She flashed me a smile she probably intended as wicked. It was adorable. “You’re on! No one beats me at awkwardness!”
“Great! Let’s heat the sauna.”
CHAPTER 21
Noelle
Ifound it hilarious that Fredrik thought he could make anyone uncomfortable. He was the most reserved guy I’d ever met. Every word out of his mouth was carefully considered, and most of them probably never left his lips. He always paused before speaking.
But the way he smiled at me, presenting this ridiculous challenge, made my entire body vibrate. I knew I was witnessing a rare phenomenon, like one of those flowers that bloomed for only a few minutes at midnight. I couldn’t peel my eyes off his pearly white teeth. Had I ever seen him smile before? I couldn’t remember. He was gorgeous.
I thought he’d try to embarrass me with words, maybe to make me blush, but he’d chosen a different tactic. The sauna. It was a mistake. I’d grown up with Finnish saunaculture. He couldn’t bring out anything that would rattle me.
Half an hour later, I followed him across the snowy backyard. My memories of Finland were set in summer, but the snowy scene felt idyllic and equally Finnish. Maybe even more so.
“Here’s the changing room,” he said, opening the door to a log building.
The heat hit us at the door, radiating from behind the glass door leading to the sauna. Showers were behind another glass door. The changing room looked traditional, with wooden benches and hooks on the wall, and towels stacked in one corner.
“I’ll let you go first,” he said, hovering at the doorway. “But you should consider rolling in the snow. It’s a tradition. And it’s also customary to go to the sauna fully naked.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. If he was blushing over that line, I’d already won this contest. “If we’re going with tradition, you’ll strip right now and join me in there.”
“What?”
I pulled off my sweater and tossed it on the bench. “I told you I had a Finnish grandma. Mummi. We visited her in Finland twice. She lived by a lake and had a sauna. It wasn’t fancy like this with running water, but she heated it every day. We’d all go in together, naked. I’d swim in the lake naked. I loved it.”
He shrugged, dropping the bag he’d been carrying on the bench. “Noted.”
With a funny smile on his face, he took off his jacket, then pulled off his sweater and thermal shirt. He had a different energy today. More alert and intense, the cornersof his mouth tugging up with ease I hadn’t seen before. I stared at his muscled chest, suddenly unsure about my bravado. We were playing chicken and considering how much I wanted to trace the dark hair leading down his stomach, there were worse things I could be than a chicken.
But I couldn’t back down. I pulled off my pajama bottoms and tank top, throwing them on top of the sweater. Last night he’d seen me in my lace panties, but that wasn’t the full picture. I’d been running low on clean laundry and paired my purple panties with an orange sports bra. A terrible combo if there ever was one. Good thing we were just friends playing a silly game.
Fredrik turned to face the wall, yanking down his corduroys.
“Is my mismatched underwear making you uncomfortable?” I asked.
“What? No!” He angled his body slightly toward me but still wouldn’t look at me.
