“They said we’re welcome. If—you know. If we’re still here.”
I stop stirring, set the bowl aside. It’s the perfect texture right now, just like my grandmother’s, and I don’t want to overmix it. I look toward the window, where the snow is steadily falling. “I think we’re still going to be here.” I try to sound sanguine about it, but I can hear the disappointment in my voice.
“Kris, I really am sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s the job, you know? Who knows, maybe we can make some progress.”
He looks down at his feet, shakes his head slightly. I’ve sucked all the silliness right out of the room, mentioning the job, and I didn’t mean to.
“Listen, of course I’m disappointed about my family. But this”—I wave a hand vaguely around the room—“it’s sort of nice, you know?”
He looks up at me, a question in his eyes. My this—it’s not the job. But I’m not sure how to make a start at telling him.
I smooth the front of my sweatshirt, notice some flour dust here and there, and I concentrate on brushing it off while I speak. “You know, every year, at Christmas, when we’re away from work for so long, I—I miss you, you know?”
He doesn’t say anything, for long enough that I finally have to look up at him. He stands still as a statue, his arms crossed over his chest. The posture is cold, but the way one of his hands grips the opposite elbow, the way his eyes are fixed on me, the way he’s pulled his bottom lip, scar-side, slightly in—all of it is warm, warm, warm.
“You miss me?” There’s something in his voice I haven’t really heard before. Half surprise, half wonder. Like looking under the tree on Christmas morning.
I lift my shoulders, let them fall. “I do.”
After another long pause, he speaks again, his voice low, tentative. “They said we could come over tonight, too. If we wanted.”
The air between us crackles, like that moment just before I asked for his kiss. But I’m not going down that road again, not without an invitation.
“I don’t mind staying in,” I tell him.
He nods, bends, and checks the cookies again. When he straightens, he fixes me with another warm look. “Good,” he says. “We’ve got movies to watch, anyway.”
Chapter Nine
JASPER
“Unbelievable!” I shout, waving a hand in the direction of my laptop. “He’s in a Santa suit, not a ski mask! How does she not recognize him?”
Kristen laughs, keeping her eyes on the screen while the aforementioned man wraps his arms around the short, plucky woman who has spent the last ninety minutes not making the extremely obvious connection between her quiet doctor neighbor and the Santa who’s been doing visits to the children’s hospital wing where she works as an events planner. “But let me guess,” Kristen says. “You’ve got no problem with Superman.”
I frown as the two people on-screen kiss—chaste, close-mouthed, and not for longer than four seconds. Over the course of several movies, I have learned that this is the only type of acceptable kiss, and embarrassingly, each time I see one, I think of how unchaste Kris and I had been about it on our first try.
“Superman’s different,” I grumble, shifting on the love seat.
“Here comes the big reveal.” We’re quiet as the man tugs down his beard and lowers his eyes, looking sheepish about his identity.
“Seems like a consent issue, if you ask me,” I say.
“You know, I think you like these movies.”
No, I think. I like watching these movies with you.
I like everything about this day with her. When I’d woken up this morning, it’d been barely five a.m., and Kristen and I had moved in the night—my back pressed against the arm of the love seat, ass to the edge of the cushions, feet still resting on the floor. Her curled beside me, feet tucked up and head resting on my chest. She sleeps so heavily, and she snores, too, which would probably mortify her to know. I’d watched the snow outside the window and thought: this.
This is what Christmas morning is supposed to feel like.
But soon enough I’d remembered it’s not what Christmas morning feels like to her, so I’d gently disentangled myself and gotten to work. The cookie recipe from her sister, the massive assist from the Dreyers, a cable password borrowed from Ben and Kit for the movies, and my own determination to get it right. Somewhere in the back of my mind the job is kicking around; I’d thought about it all through my snowy walk back and forth to the Dreyers’. But in the cottage, I set it aside. For Kristen. For her Christmas.
On-screen, what’s happening is what I’ve learned is the “low moment”—the couple is about to split. The lady who can’t recognize her neighbor’s eyes, cheeks, teeth, or voice is walking down what I’m pretty sure is the same Main Street set from the previous movie, a single tear tracking down her face. I’ve looked sadder than this after cutting my face shaving, so probably it’s only another few minutes before we get the promised happily ever after.
I sneak a peek over at Kris. She’s got both hands wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate, her brows furrowed in concern. She does this every time, even though it always works out, and for a few seconds I get lost in the expressions that pass over her face as the music swells—Doctor Santa, I’m guessing, is about to make a speech. Another chaste kiss is coming, I’m sure.
“That was a good one,” Kris says, when the credits roll. She looks over at me. “Don’t make that face!”
I school my expression. “I liked it. Very uplifting.”
She snorts, takes a sip of her cocoa. This plus the cookies—she smells like a bag of sugar, probably, and despite my general lack of a sweet tooth, I’ve never wanted to taste something more. I stand from the couch, holding out a hand for her mug. “Want a refill?” I ask, distracting myself. “Then we can watch another.”
She looks up at me, one eyebrow raised. “It’s almost midnight. Four’s not enough?” I can tell by the way she’s said it—four’s enough for her for now, and she’s got something else in mind. Something I’m guessing I won’t like.
“I’m not doing the singing,” I say, trying for a joke.
She doesn’t take the bait. “I kind of thought we should talk about yesterday. What happened in the kitchen, I mean.”
I sit down again, try to keep my face neutral. “I told you. I was off my game.”
“But what Gil said bothered you. I know you, Jasper.”
I sigh, stare down at my hands. “I know you do.”
“Does it—is it something to do with what you told me last night? About how you’re not welcome at home anymore?”
“Kris—”
“Tell me,” she says, and the way she says it. Exactly like that last challenge she put to me, with the same weight behind it. She sets her mug on the table, closes the lid of the laptop. Shifts on the love seat so she’s facing me, her knees hugged to her chest and her arms wrapped around her snowman-covered legs. With the laptop closed most of the light in the cottage is from the garish fiber-optic tree. I take a deep breath, something thudding inside me at what this might reveal to her. Where it’ll lead.
“Gil—the way he is with Tanner—that’s very different from how my dad was with me.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “My dad—all he ever wanted was for me to take over his ranch. No matter the cost—school, fun, whatever. Drove me crazy, working for him.”
“Working for—?” Kris says, clearly confused at the way I’ve described it.
“Mean as hell, he was. About chores, about everything. When I got into science I’d try to bring him stuff, stuff I’d read about agricultural management, but . . .” I trail off, thinking about the way he’d once knocked a book from my hands, right into a trough of water. He’d probably have pushed me in too, but I was bigger by then.
“Well,” Kris says stiffly. “He must regret it now. He must be proud of what you’ve done.”
“He hates what I’ve done. He threw me out when he found out I go
t into college.”
“What?”
I shrug, passing on the details of that day—Dad stuffing my things in garbage bags, yelling. Mom watching, saying nothing. He told me if I hated my life so much on the ranch I could take the bags and what was in my truck and never come back. It wasn’t so bad that he’d said it; he’d always had a temper.
It was so bad that he’d meant it.
“Listen, there were lots of things he wanted for me that I didn’t want. The ranch, yeah. But even when I was younger. He wanted me to play football; I didn’t. He wanted me to take out a girl from a nearby ranch; I didn’t. He wanted me working every second I was free—no studying, no books, nothing. Everything I did back then, it was against his rules.”
“How could he throw you out?”
“Easy. We didn’t get along. I pushed all his buttons.” Signing up for science fairs. Taking the PSATs. Being in AP courses. “He thought something was wrong with me.”
“Wrong how?”
“Not sure, really. I wasn’t into the same things he was. He couldn’t understand me, and I can’t say I blame him. Everyone in my family, they’ve all done the same sorts of things. I’m an outlier.”
“What about your mom?”
“She’s all right, but she didn’t much understand me either. I think it was a relief for her. We all get along better now, see each other a couple of times a year for a dinner out or something. They’ve both said they’re sorry for how it all happened, but I don’t think they’re sorry it did. My dad’s got one of my cousins in at the ranch now, and that makes him happy. They still don’t invite me back.”
“Jasper.” Her voice is full of sadness. Way more than event planner lady.
“I wasn’t an easy kid. Once I knew what I wanted—I’d do anything to get it, break any rules he set, no matter how mad it made him. I was determined.”
“You’re still like that. Determined.”
“Best and worst thing about me. That’s what Ben says.”
“I don’t see how it’s the worst thing.”
I give her a look that says, yeah, right. “I almost ruined my friendship with him—with you—so I could start the firm. I was so determined for us to get out on our own I couldn’t see straight.” After a few years at Beaumont, I’d felt like I was twitching every day under the thumb of my various bosses, like being back on that ranch.
“You figured it out, though. You apologized.”
I smile at her. “You helped.”
She smiles back softly. Looks down at the space between us.
“Back then, I guess I felt—I’d given up so much for my career. My family, my—” I break off. My feelings for you, is what I want to say, and I realize that this is why I was afraid of this conversation. I swallow. “I had to make it work, getting out of the non-compete. I had to get us out on our own, be in charge of myself. Or else—what had all that suffering, all that loss been for?”
For a few seconds neither of us says anything, and in the silence I realize—that’s the best way I’ve ever explained it, what came over me a couple of years ago. I ought to call Ben, make sure I tell him, too. We’re okay now, me and him, but I owe him more. Those first couple of years away from the ranch especially—at the college my dad had so hated the idea of—Ben had been my family.
I feel her shift, her feet curling slightly into the cushion before relaxing, and I know she’s working up to something.
“Is that why the kiss was such a bad idea?” she finally asks, almost a whisper. “Because of the risk to the business? To everything you’d sacrificed for?”
I look over at her, my heart kicking up into an uneven rhythm. This night, even more than last—the darkness, her quiet voice and everything I’ve just told her, those ridiculous pajamas she’s wearing—it’s so close to those fantasies of my sad, secret heart. The borrowed tree is the starlight; her soothing voice is the silence. She’s the softness, no matter what she’s wearing.
“You’ve always said,” I begin, gripping my thigh too tightly, feeling my restraint dull second by second. “You’ve always said things can go wrong when—”
“I know what I’ve said.”
I look over at her, see her lips compressed in frustration, determination. As much determination as I’ve ever had.
“That night, when we stopped, you seemed like you regretted it. You looked . . . startled.”
“I was startled,” she says. “Weren’t you? Did you expect it to be like that?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “I mean, I didn’t expect it to happen. But I expected it to be like that, if it ever did happen.”
“You did?”
“Kristen. I always did.”
She blinks. She’s shocked, I’m sure, but I’m not taking this back, not now, not with the way she’s looking at me. The day’s blown over me, like a drift of the snow outside. Unstoppable. Covering and muffling everything that keeps me away from her.
“Remember what I told you about my Christmases?” I ask her, my voice low, and she nods. Both of us have leaned in, closing the space between us.
“Making trouble,” she whispers, and I think I can feel the puff of breath on my lips.
“Let’s do that, now,” I say, almost against her lips—and God. Thank God.
She kisses me.
Chapter Ten
KRISTEN
December 24
It’s the best Christmas tradition, this one. The one I didn’t even know I was missing. After midnight, now Christmas Eve. Kissing Jasper.
Jasper kisses me like he’s been making this kind of trouble with me for years, and within seconds of our lips touching I’m in his lap, and it’s so fast, so hot, so natural that I don’t know if I crawled over or if he pulled me. I only know the way we feel together—our lips and tongues tangling, his fingers pushed through my hair, holding one side of it back, his other arm wrapped tight around my lower back, pressing me close to him. Between our layers of clothes I can feel how hard he is beneath me, everywhere—the strong arms that hold me, the broad chest I’m held against, the muscled thighs supporting me, the thick length between those thighs that I feel desperate to rub against.
I bite at his lip, scar-side, and he grunts. “Damn,” he breathes out.
“How did you get this?” I whisper, darting my tongue against it.
“I don’t remember,” he says, the words muffled against my neck, where he starts kissing. “A fence, maybe.” He lets out another frustrated exhale. “This sweatshirt is enormous.”
I tip my head back, exposing more skin, and he rewards me with a slow lick up the side of my neck, and—yeah. This sweatshirt is enormous, and too warm, and my breasts ache with the need to be closer to his chest, his hands, his mouth.
“Not”—I pause, gasp as he nibbles at the spot he’s just licked, try to get my motor skills under control enough to find the hem of this thing so I can get it off—“the sexiest lingerie, I guess,” I finish breathily. I have never been this turned on, ever. I hope he doesn’t think I’m having an asthma attack.
“It’s the sexiest thing,” he says, moving my hands away, pushing his own under the hem, his hands hot and calloused on my skin. “I love this sweatshirt.” His hands rise up, tracing either side of my spine, then the bottom edge of the pullover bra I’m wearing. “It’s so soft.”
“Wait until you feel what’s underneath,” I tease, and I feel his smile on the skin of my neck.
“You are trouble,” he says, and then his hands work fast, pulling the sweatshirt and the bra off all at once, and for a few seconds he stares, his face dumbstruck—a slow blink of his eyes, his lips parted. His hold on me is firm, his big hands on either side of my rib cage, and that feels so good, to be held like this by Jasper. To be looked at like this by Jasper.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathes. “Feels like I’m unwrapping you.”
“My turn,” I say, and the rest of our clothes come off like that—like presents under a tree, like we can’t decide
how long to pause and admire the gift we’ve got in front of us before we start thinking about what we still have waiting.
When we’re both down to just our underwear, me back to straddling Jasper’s lap, his hands caressing all over my skin and mine clutching at his biceps, shoulders, and hair, Jasper pulls his lips back from mine, moving one hand up my arm and pausing when he reaches my neck, so sensitive to his touch that I shiver. He looks at me, his expression serious, his eyes searching, the lights from the tree winking across his skin gorgeously.
“Kris,” he whispers. “Is this okay?” I realize he’s waiting to see whatever he thought he saw the last time we kissed. Me regretting, or me startled, whatever.
“It’s better than okay. It’s . . .” I lean forward, kiss him again, sink into his warmth, feel the vibration of the moan he makes against my chest. My senses feel overloaded, not just from the way he touches me, or from the way he looks and sounds and tastes. It’s everything about this day—the comfort I’d felt, lolling around in pajamas, like I would have at home. The glow of that ridiculous color-changing tree, the smell of the cookies baking, the familiar, cheerful instrumental holiday music in the movies we watched. All the things he’s done for me today.
“Christmas,” I finish, and that’s when he stands, his hands holding the backs of my thighs as he maneuvers us around the love seat. I absolutely regret every time I have teased him for insisting on gym time for himself during our work trips. Gym time is great; gym time should have a hallowed shrine built in its honor.
He puts me down gently, swipes most of the sheets and blankets off the bed, keeping one that he drapes over the mattress before coming back to me, wrapping me in his arms to move me farther onto the now half-made bed. “We should’ve taken care of this,” he murmurs, but I stop his mouth with mine. This bed had frozen us both over last night, and I don’t want that happening again.
I don’t know how long we spend like that—minutes, hours—spread out with him on top of me, kissing like it’s what we need to stay alive, our skin growing warm, fevered, our hands clutching and desperate.
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