Page 29 of Holiday Interference
My shoulders tense automatically, like he might bring the outside world back in with him.
He doesn’t.
“You okay?” he asks behind me, voice low, rough from the cold.
“Yeah.” I keep my gaze on the window. “Just needed a second.”
The silence hangs warm between us.
“You wanna watch something?” he offers. “I mean, unless you’re planning to solve a crime ring out the window.”
My smile is small and involuntary, and my chest aches in that bittersweet way it does when someone knows how to make you laugh without trying.
I glance over my shoulder to see he’s ditched the hoodie and is just in a fitted thermal and joggers now. His hair’s damp from the snow, curling a little at the ends. There’s a wet spot on his shirt near the collar, clinging to the muscle there.
My stomach does a slow, traitorous flip.
“I could be persuaded,” I say, a little too lightly. “You have decent taste?”
“Highly debatable,” he murmurs, brushing past me to grab a mug from the cabinet.
My breath snags when his arm brushes mine—just barely—but my skin lights up like it noticed anyway.
And that’s when it hits me.
I could try to leave.
The roads aren’t much better than last night, but I know there are some crazy ass drivers out there driving Uber. I could call a car. Text someone. Make up an excuse.
But I haven’t evenlooked.
Haven’t opened my phone.
Haven’t checked the forecast.
Haven’t reached for a single escape hatch.
That should bother me.
But it doesn’t.
Instead, this strange warmth unfurls low in my belly, winding through my limbs like honey.
Not the dizzy, headlong kind of want I’ve known before. This is slower. Safer.
More dangerous because of it.
Because the longer I stay here, the more I let myself sink into this feeling…
Intohim…
The harder it’s going to be to pretend it didn’t mean anything later.
And I think I’m past pretending.
We settle on the couch with a blanket that smells like his laundry—clean and woodsy, with a hint of something warm I can’t name. I tug it higher on my lap, needing something to do with my hands.
Cal flips through streaming options like he’s stalling. Or testing me.
