Page 85 of Hot Puck
No. I’m grinning because in front of me are two sleep-rumpled heads, with identical sleep-encrusted caramel-brown eyes, and bodies encased in matching green Grinch pjs.
It takes them a moment but when their eyes focus, they widen, their mouths opening in shock.
“You wore them!” Cassidy rushes forward and throws her arms around me.
“I said I would.”
“I know but I figured?—”
“What’s all the noise out here?” Chase comes out of his room, a matching pair of pjs on, and the twins burst into giggles.
“Ah, yeah.” He tugs on the bottom of his shirt where it only just covers his groin which is shrink-wrapped in green pants that only go to his shins. “They’re a little small.”
I have to cover my mouth to hide my grin.
“Don’t you laugh.” He points a finger at me. “You look like you’re a little girl wearing your mom’s clothes.”
I do. When I let the twins shop for our matching Christmas pjs—which is a Hawkins tradition they wanted to continue—I didn’t think to tell them what sizes to get. It didn’t even enter my mind until we opened them last night.
They got their own and Candace’s sizes right. But me and Chase? Yeah, their guesstimates were off. Way off in their brother’s case. I’ve already made a note in my calendar to go with them next year.
“The top’s not so bad.” Chase tugs on his shirt again. “But I’m going to grab sweatpants before we open presents.”
With a collective gasp, the twins let go of me and take off for the stairs.
“Be careful,” I call after them before turning back to Chase. “Want me to get Candace or should we let her sleep?”
“Let her sleep. She was up at three.” He yawns and scratches his head. “Took me an hour to get her settled again.”
“Teeth?”
He nods while scrubbing both hands over his face. His shirt lifts, giving me a glimpse of washboard abs and my insides clench. “I’ll, um.” I point over my shoulder. “Go make sure the girls don’t tear everything open before we get down there.”
I spin on my heel and walk away from him, even though everything inside me wants to head toward him.
That’s the other thing that’s changed since we talked. I’m back to seeing him as a sexy, I want to jump him man. And with how intense my lust is, I’ve obviously been suppressing my attraction because there isn’t a day I don’t want to jump Chase—don’t think about jumping him.
It makes it difficult to keep our marriage platonic. And the hardest part is I know he reciprocates my feelings. I vividly remember how it felt to have him touch me. I can’t remember the last time a man touched me.
But we promised to be friends, and I can’t go around wishing he’d break that promise and kiss me. I can’t break it either. We have the girls to think about. They are the most important part of our patched-together family and I won’t risk hurting them.
“Look at all the presents!” Crystal runs up to me the second I reach the living room. “There wasn’t this many last night!”
Cassidy is busy moving presents into two piles. “I don’t believe in Santa.”
“Ah…”
“Then where did all this come from?” Crystal asks her, pulling things out from under the tree beside her sister now.
“Gem and Chase of course.”
Cassidy is so adamant she’s right. And she is, in a way. Except some of the presents wrapped beneath the tree weren’t purchased by me or Chase.
They were discovered hidden away in boxes inside their parents’ bedroom. The service I hired to help pack and unpack their house found them and brought them to my attention.
Chase doesn’t even know about them.
And I hope I’ve done the right thing by wrapping them. Since I met them, I’ve tried to make sure none of the Hawkins children forget their parents, tried to make sure the siblings keep their memories alive and have everything their parents wanted them to.
