I knew she wanted more from me right now, but how could I promise her anything? I was leaving the country in just a few months. Anxiety chewed through my chest, squeezed my heart in its tight bite. I scrubbed my face. “I’m sorry, Maya. This was…totally unexpected. And I don’t know what to say or do right now that won’t make things more awkward. But most of all, I’m petrified that giving in to this will end up ruining what we had.”
She cringed, and I realized what I’d accidentally said.
“I mean, what we have. Still. Not just had.” Shit. “It’s just… This complicates things, and…I’m going to Paris soon, and—”
“I get it.” Her words were quiet but hit me with the force of a brick upside the head. “I know. You have plans, and I never meant to interfere with those.”
“You’re not—”
“But I am.” Her eyes slid away from me, and she stood. Her arms wrapped around her chest.
I tried to not stare at the beautiful curves of her body. The proud tilt of her chin. She was hurting, and I was the asshole who’d hurt her because of my stupidity—because of my weakness in giving in to this rush that had filled me, the hunger in her eyes.
I was the asshole because I knew we didn’t have a real future, but I’d done it anyway.
Shame flooded me. Through my own selfishness, I’d used Maya. The woman was one of my best friends. She deserved better than this. I stood and started to walk toward her, but she held up a hand. Her eyes were still turned away from me.
“It’s fine, really.” Her words were firm, and she finally looked at me. I couldn’t read her emotions at all. The walls were back up in full force, and something in my chest crumbled. “Let’s not make things worse by overdiscussing it. It was just sex, that’s all, right?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m not a piece of china. I’m not going to break.” She paused. “And don’t worry. We’re still friends. I’d like to think our friendship is stronger than that.”
“Me too,” I whispered. My body was buzzing from the strength of my orgasm. From the feel of Maya coming around me, holding me, kissing me. I could still smell her on my skin, and it was killing me that everything was all screwed up right now.
I wanted to believe her when she’d said things were going to be okay between us. But I knew better. How could we both go right back to being platonic after we’d just experienced that? Had just given ourselves to each other, dropped every wall?
I was an idiot.
“I think I’m going to take a nap before the bonfire,” Maya said.
My hint to leave. My stomach tightened again. I stepped toward her, made her look at me. Her body was one line of tension. We were still naked, yet there might as well have been a ten-foot wall between us.
“This isn’t right,” I told her. I grabbed her shoulders, frowned down at her. “This doesn’t feel right.”
She sighed. “I know. But it will eventually, right? Time will make this less awkward, I’m sure.” There was a strain of sadness in her voice that tore at me.
I gave a small nod.
“I’ll see you later, Oliver,” she said in a voice so low I almost couldn’t hear it. She stepped out of my grip.
She wanted to be alone. Hell, I needed to be alone, too. I had to think. Because everything was all messed up now, and I didn’t know what to do.
It was so hard, stepping out of her room. Slipping back into my discarded clothes and boots, donning my coat, walking out the door. The winter air smacked me right in the face, and I sighed.
I could taste her on my mouth. My back stung from her nails digging deliciously into my skin. I wasn’t hard anymore but I was still throbbing all over, hyperaware of her scent clinging to my skin.
Shit, shit, shit! How had everything gone so badly? I crammed my hands in my pockets and walked toward my house. My boots clomped across the sidewalk.
Maybe a few hours apart would give us both some perspective. Yeah, I’d reacted badly back in there, but we could talk at the bonfire, sort things out. Maya was reasonable, and though she was hurt now, I knew she’d listen to me. I’d reiterate why our friendship was so crucial, so valuable, so rare and precious that it would hurt me to lose it. Why I needed that as a true constant, no matter where I lived—Abbott Springs, Paris, wherever.
Life would be so much bleaker without Maya in my life.
Maya
The bonfire roared, flames licking the dark night sky. I tightened my scarf around my neck and sipped at my coffee. Stared at the bold, flickering fire. My heart still throbbed in a pain I couldn’t seem to shake off.
I looked at the clusters of friends and families around me. People laughing, kids dancing and singing, running around the bonfire with carefree abandon. Townsfolk said hi to me as they walked by, and I scraped together the strongest smile I could muster and said hi back. Asked them how they’d enjoyed the Winterfest this year. Made small talk like I was supposed to.
But on the inside…on the inside, I’d never felt so shaken and alone.
Memories of this afternoon with Oliver battered at my skull. The two of us breathing, moving as one. Skin to skin, heart to heart. Or so I’d thought. I’d laid myself out there, given him everything I could, and it hadn’t mattered in the end.
It hadn’t changed a thing.
My eyes started to burn. I blinked until the heat went away. I was not going to lose my shit here. I was not going to cry. From the start, I’d known the risks going into this, and I’d tried. At least I’d tried. Though it was going to kill me to walk away from everything and start all over.
For my sanity, I had to.
“Hey, Maya,” Craig said as he sidled up to me. His hot gaze raked over me as he eyed me with interest. “Where is everyone?”
I shrugged. “Probably running around.” We were due to meet for our toast on the bridge soon. Frankly, I didn’t even know if anyone would be there. Everything had changed, and old traditions didn’t seem to matter to anyone anymore. For a second, I’d actually thought about not going to the bridge. But my heart rebelled against that idea.
Even if I were the only one there, I’d drink some cocoa. I’d do my toast. Then I’d let this town go.
“So, wanna hang tonight?” he asked as he whipped his flask out of his pocket.
Huh. Oliver must have gotten it back to him, I thought offhandedly. I shook my head. “Not in the mood, but thanks.”
He stepped closer. “I just thought we could go chill out somewhere. Grab some food, have a few drinks.” The look in his eyes showed he was thinking about more than just eating and drinking.
I sighed, stepped back a fraction. Over his shoulder, I saw Oliver approach the bonfire. He scanned the grounds, gaze bouncing over the crowd, then stopped when he saw me. His face pinched as he took in Craig standing so close.
“I gotta go,” I said. Craig sputtered something in response, but I didn’t listen. Just kept my eyes locked on the man who had my heart, who drove me crazy and frustrated me. And even still, with all the agony in my heart throbbing in painful beats, I drank in the sight of his tall, lean form. Couldn’t help but remember how warm his hands had been on my naked skin. His mouth, his breath, his eyes.
I swallowed, ordered my crazy beating heart to relax. Oliver peered down at me, the flames flickering in his irises.
“Hey,” he said. His brow was knitted as his lips thinned. He drew in a slow breath, exhaled. “Look, we need to talk.”
I grabbed his arm, dragged him away from the bonfire and the crowd, toward an empty stretch of grounds by the lake. The moonlight spilled across the water, danced like diamonds on its black, rippling surface. Any other time, I would have stopped and stared in wonder at the sight. But there was no comfort in its beauty tonight.
“I have some things to say first,” I told him. My breath came out in cool huffs of air as I spoke. My pulse roared in my ears, and my stomach twisted in agony. “And I need you to just…listen.”
His eyes flared in re
sponse, but he nodded.
“I know you worry that what happened between us will impact our friendship. But you didn’t know that our friendship was already going to change.” Courage. I lifted my chin, stared into his eyes. “Because I’ve been in love with you for a long, long time, and I can’t ignore it anymore.”
I saw the pulse at the base of his neck flutter. He opened his mouth, but I held up my hand.
“Just wait. Let me finish, please. It’s not your fault or your problem how I feel. And I know this is probably a big shock for you because I was the one who kept my feelings quiet for so long. But I won’t apologize for it. Loving you has made me a better person, and I don’t regret it.” I sucked in a ragged breath. Fought that damned urge to cry. “You’ll never see me as anything more than Maya, your friend. But I can’t be satisfied with that. Especially not when we… Well, this afternoon, I got to feel what it would be like to be more.”
“Maya,” he whispered hotly, “you know you’re important to me and—”
“After you left the house, I realized something,” I interrupted, turning to face the lake. As I stared at the nearly smooth surface, I attempted to get my rampant emotions under control. I needed to finish saying this, to get it all off my chest before I chickened out. “It was never this town that I was so in love with. That made me feel so warm and welcome and happy. It was your family. It was you.” Tears spilled over my cheeks. I swiped at them, rubbed a gloved hand over my face. “I’m proud of you for following your dreams, you know. Sami left Abbott Springs for college, and while I miss her, I understood. And you’re going to do the same thing in Paris. Becoming your own person, pursuing happiness. When you guys come home, you’ll always have something to come back for. People who will be happy to see you.”
He stepped closer, and his hand brushed my upper arm. “This town loves you too, Maya.” His voice was a soft caress, and I could barely hear him over the laughs at the bonfire. “My family loves you like you’re one of our own. You are an integral part of this town, just as much as I am, as Sami is. So many of my happy memories over the years have involved you.” His voice seemed to catch on those last words.
He was killing me. In a gush of exhaled breath, I said, “I’m leaving Abbott Springs, Oliver.”
I heard his sharp intake of breath. “Wait, what? But…why?”
It was so hard to face him. My chest throbbed from restraining my sobs. But I let the tears streak down my face. His eyes were flashing as he stared down at me, and he almost seemed angry, jaw clenched tight. “Because I don’t want to be here without you,” I said as I gulped in cold air. “And I can’t go back to what we used to be—not yet, anyway. I’m sorry. I know that’s selfish, and I promise I will try to be your friend again. But I just can’t right now.” I paused, slowed my breathing down, and struggled to control my galloping heart rate. “I have to trust that, like you, if I return here, I’ll have a place to come back to.”
I spun around and walked away from Oliver, my heart crumbling into pieces where I left it at his feet.
A few strides into my walk, my hand was caught from behind.
“Maya, wait. Don’t go.”
And suddenly I was in Oliver’s arms, his lips pressing on my cheeks, my damp eyelids, my brow. I froze in surprise, too stunned to move, to breathe.
As he rained kisses across my face, he whispered, “Just…wait. Let me say what I need to say.” I heard an unsteady tremble in his words. He wrapped his leather-gloved hands around my face, tilted it up until I was staring at him through a blurry sheen of my tears. “I don’t want you to leave. It was idiotic of me to walk away from you this afternoon like that, and I’ve been kicking myself over it.”
“But I don’t understand,” I said. I swallowed. “After we… Well, you said—”
“I said a lot of things this afternoon, and they were pretty much all stupid.” He barked a mirthless laugh. Shook his head. The moonlight reflected in his eyes showed a depth of intense emotion in them that sucked the air out of my lungs. “I reacted out of panic. Instead of talking it out with you, I freaked, retreated into myself. But I need you to listen to me now.”
Silence thickened between us for a moment.
“Applying to the culinary school in Paris, that was me finally grabbing control of my life,” he continued. “Getting out from under the thumb of my family and following my dreams. And then you come along and in the course of three days rip the rug right out from under me. Change everything I thought I knew.”
“I’m sorry,” I managed to whisper. Hot guilt surged in my gut. Shit, he was right. I’d thrown this all at him, upheaved everything he’d thought was steady in his life. I’d known my feelings for years, but he’d been blindsided. I’d set my master plan in action but hadn’t even stopped to consider how it would impact him. And now everything was all so tangled and muddied that I didn’t know what was up or down anymore. “I didn’t mean to make things harder for you.”
“Maya,” he whispered in a ragged breath. “Stop being so…unselfish. You deserve to be happy too.”
“I don’t understand,” I repeated, despair leaking from my voice.
“You didn’t do anything wrong by telling me how you feel. I’m just an idiot, running scared. But being with you today, being inside you and seeing the blind trust you put in me, the way you’ve loved me all along without holding yourself back…it’s humbling and overwhelming. I don’t deserve it. I hurt you by pulling away and freaking out after we had sex. And I’m so sorry for that.” He leaned toward me, pressed his forehead to mine. Our puffs of breaths mingled, and I closed my eyes, absorbed his presence so near, a balm to my aching chest. “Maya, I still want—need—to be your friend. I don’t ever want to lose that. And I don’t want to lose you either. I’m scared as hell but I’m willing to risk it all to be with you.”
My heart stopped. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it made the faint twinges of hope light up beneath my ribcage, spread through my torso in a warm flow.
He cupped my face, dipped his head, and kissed me. I opened to him, felt the last vestiges of my pain dissolve. This kiss wasn’t frantic, but reverent. Soft, delicate. Like he was cherishing me. Tears flew to my eyes again, but this time from joy. I didn’t wipe them away.
He pulled back, licked his lips. There was no emotional wall up between us like there had been earlier. Now he was letting me see everything in a way I’d never experienced with him before—his soul was bared to me, raw and real. The fear was still lingering there, but I could also see a spark of optimism in his eyes. “I want us to work this out. I don’t know how to do that yet, but I can’t…” He sighed. “I can’t just let you go. I need you. I care about you.”
I bit my lower lip. My cheeks flushed with heat.
“And I think I might be falling for you too.”
At those words, my deep-seated love for him roared to the surface of my skin, my mind, my being, and I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were squeezed so tight. I just stood there, staring at him. “I want to be with you,” I finally managed to say.
His hand dropped down and captured my fingers in a tight, possessive grip. My lower belly flared with delight, and I felt my sex clench when I saw the heated look in his eyes. His thumb rubbed mine, and despite the gloves between our skin, my skin tingled from the intimate contact.
“Be my girlfriend, Maya.”
I nodded, gave him a smile so big it nearly split my face in two.
He swallowed, seemed to consider his next words. “I want us to make this work, and I think we can if we’re both honest with each other. No more hiding how we feel,” he said in mock consternation. Then his mood grew serious. “Were you really going to move away from Abbott Springs?”
I nodded.
“So you’d be willing to leave this town behind?” he pressed. “Maybe live somewhere else?”
Oh God. I pressed a hand to my fluttery stomach. He wasn’t saying what I thought he was saying, was he? I gave a jerky nod.
>
Oliver pulled me into his arms, leaned down, and brushed his lips against the shell of my ear. Delicious shivers worked across my skin. “What do you think of Paris?”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, kissed the flesh right below his ear. My heart was going to explode clear out of my chest. I was so overwhelmed with love for this man, this beautiful and strong and flawed and perfect man of mine. “I think it sounds like an adventure.”
We kissed again, long and deep and wet and intimate. When we finally parted, breaths panting, arousal flooding my body—and his too, as evidenced by the hardness pressing against my belly—we both smiled at each other. A secret, intimate smile filled with promises.
“We should go to the toast,” I whispered.
“We have a lot to toast to,” he replied.
Our fingers intertwined, and we walked along the lake toward the bridge, our steps slow and relaxed. I saw silhouettes of friends already mingling on the bridge, heard a high-pitched giggle and low rumbles of voices, and that last band of tension dissolved from around my chest.
No, things weren’t going to be the same. Everything was changing in our lives, but it wasn’t something to be feared. I stole a glance at Oliver’s profile, illuminated by the moon. I couldn’t wait to share this moment with my friends. With the man I loved.
Best. Winterfest. Ever.
by Lexi Ryan
For Rhonda, who put the idea out there, and Marilyn and Caisey, who jumped on board.
Kennedy
She should have been here. I stared at the empty wooden chair next to me, and it stared back. If furniture could talk, this rickety piece of shit was telling me I was an idiot.
Fucking fantastic. Now I wasn’t just contemplating talking furniture, the talking furniture was smarter than me.
“Have you heard from Aubree?”
“What?” Maya’s mention of my long-time best friend nearly had me jumping out of my skin. I should have expected her name to come up, but I hadn’t fully prepared myself for it.
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