With that, we were excused from our duties and I led the way off the steps and away from the expectant eyes of the town. The thing was, the idea of coming back here someday sounded pretty damn good to me. A home in Abbott Springs with a wife and a couple of kids—I could picture it. But I didn’t want that life to be in the shadow of my father. I wanted more.
Looking up, I caught Aubree staring at me from behind a refreshment table and thought, More. She was helping Abbott’s Sweet Confections pass out free cups of steaming hot apple cider. Her cheeks blazed pink in the winter chill, and she gave a soft half-smile before looking away.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. My brain kept playing that word on repeat as I looked at her. More.
Aubree
When I told my friends in Manhattan about Winterfest in Abbott Springs, they accused me of making it up. It almost defied description. Imagine that Frosty the Snowman devoured the town from Gilmore Girls, chased it with the Christmas-morning glee of a thousand giggling children, and then vomited it up in the middle of rural Ohio. That, my friends, was Winterfest.
Until the year I turned fifteen, Winterfest was my favorite weekend of the year. It surpassed Christmas—because I was that kid who already had everything. It surpassed my birthday—because despite what my friends might have thought, I didn’t care for being the center of attention. Then Mom had made a promise she’d never intended to keep and an event that had once felt full of love and warmth left me lonely as shit.
But Mom was going to come—finally—and it just felt right. This was the year Winterfest would be good again.
“You see that?” Mrs. Hale pointed to Cynthia and Kennedy, who were at the top of the sledding hill where people were beginning to gather for the sledding races. “I think there’s something going on between them. Now wouldn’t they make the perfect couple?”
They were absolutely adorable together. Kennedy with his hometown, clean-cut, good-guy looks, and Cynthia with her classic blonde beauty. “She’s just the kind of girl everyone would expect him to end up with,” I replied. She wasn’t right for Kennedy. He needed someone who would shake things up, keep him on his toes, and push him outside of his comfort zone. Someone who wouldn’t ask him to live his days under his father’s thumb in Abbott Springs.
Mrs. Hale narrowed her eyes, her brow furrowing as she frowned. “Hmm. I think you’re onto something, Bree.” I waited for her to explain what she meant but she didn’t add anything further. Finally she shooed me forward. “Those sleds aren’t going to race themselves.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t think I’m up for the sled races this year.”
“Hey, Bree! Looking good!”
I turned to see Craig approaching us, his smile bright as he looked me over. Craig and Kennedy had played ball together in high school and gone on to play at different colleges. They were a little competitive, and Kennedy couldn’t stand him. I didn’t care for him much either, but he was mostly harmless.
“How’s it going, Craig?”
He lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “It’s good, but it’d be better if you’d be my partner in the boy-girl sled race.”
“She’d love to!” Mrs. Hale said, winking at me.
I flicked my gaze to Kennedy, who was being pulled toward the sled shed by Cynthia. “Sure.”
Craig’s smile turned into an all-out grin.
When we reached the top of the sledding hill, Kennedy was standing way too close of Cynthia. Her laughter whirled through the air, and he tugged on the pigtails that were sticking out from underneath her wool hat. Pigtails. What was she? Six?
“It’s good to have you back, Bree. This town isn’t half as fun without you.” Craig slung his arm around my shoulder and led me over to the old shed where people were pulling bright orange sleds into the snow.
Kennedy and Cynthia were heading out as we stepped up.
“Hey, man!” Craig said, extending his hand for Kennedy. They did one of those complicated guy fist-bump/high-five secret-handshake things. “Why’d you take off so soon last night? I thought we’d shut Juke’s down together.”
“I wasn’t up for it.” Kennedy shifted his gaze to me and then back to Craig. “You and Bree racing together?”
Craig pulled me in closer to his side. “Apparently it’s my lucky day because I talked her into it. You two want to join us for drinks after? Loser buys?”
Normally, I would push Craig back a few feet and give him a lecture about personal space, but as juvenile as it was, I liked the jealousy I saw in Kennedy’s eyes when he looked at us.
“We’re up for that,” Kennedy said, smirking at me. “Hope you brought your wallet, Picasso.”
I ducked out from under Craig’s arm to grab the last decent-looking sled. “Don’t count on it.”
They were calling all racers, and we hurried over to line up at the top of the hill. Craig and I climbed into our sled, me sitting between his spread legs, him wrapping his arms around me as our gloved fingers held the rope.
His chest was warm against my back, his breath in my ear.
Next to us, Cynthia wiggled her ass against Kennedy’s crotch and giggled. I had to concentrate really hard on not calling her out on it.
“I should have asked you to do this years ago,” Craig whispered in my ear. “Kennedy always keeps you close like he has some sort of claim to you. Everybody knows you two are fuck buddies, Bree. I’m just wondering when it’s my turn.”
What the fuck?
I turned, grasping for words more eloquent than “fuck off.”
“On your mark,” said a gray-haired man with an orange flag. “Get set!”
“See you at Juke’s,” Kennedy called, winking.
“Go!”
Then, someone gave our sled a push and we were off, flying down the hill alongside Kennedy and Cynthia, my heart pounding from adrenaline and anger.
The wind whipped around my face as we flew past a couple of other sleds and into the finish line, where Mrs. Hale stood clapping and cheering.
“It’s a tie!” the line judge declared.
Craig grabbed my ass, and I jumped. When I turned, he winked at me. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself,” he murmured. Then he stood and offered me his hand.
I grabbed it, caught him off-balance, and pulled him down into the snow. “Sorry,” I said, standing on my own and stepping away from him. “Couldn’t help myself.”
Kennedy was glaring at Craig, his jaw hard.
“Kennedy and Bree,” Mrs. Hale said, “can you go one more time? I have pictures of you two sledding down that hill together all through high school. I want a new one.”
“We can just pose here,” I suggested, but Kennedy was already tugging on my coat sleeve.
“Come on, Picasso. One more trip down the hill won’t hurt you. It’s tradition.”
And just like that, I was heading back up the sledding hill, following a petulant Kennedy.
He didn’t say a word to me. He positioned the sled for the next race and climbed in.
I crossed my arms and scowled until he gave me the courtesy of a little eye contact. “I’m not climbing into that sled with you if you’re going to be grumpy.”
He lifted a brow. “What? You afraid I’m going to snuggle you to death?”
More like I was afraid he wouldn’t. To be in Kennedy’s arms and have him do his damnedest not to touch me? I couldn’t imagine much else that painful. “You could steer me into the lake or something.”
“Get in, Picasso.”
“I’ll pass.”
He threw up his hands. “I promise not to steer us into the lake. Come on.”
“Racers on their marks!”
Kennedy reached over and grabbed my arm, tugging me into the sled with him. I collapsed between his legs and swallowed hard at the feel of his solid chest behind me. I grabbed the rope with both hands.
“I don’t understand you,” he whispered.
“On your marks!” the announcer called, and Kennedy slid his finge
rs over mine. He wasn’t holding the rope so much as holding my hands. “Get set! Go!”
I’d been trying to keep some distance between our bodies, but my stick-straight posture couldn’t hold against the momentum of our ride down the hill and my body sank into his. I closed my eyes to the whipping wind and concentrated on the feel of our bodies pressed together, the heat of his breath on my neck.
Too soon, the sled slowed and I opened my eyes to the chaos of the finish line.
“Got it!” Mrs. Hale announced, holding up her camera. “You two are adorable.”
“We’re a good team, aren’t we?” Kennedy asked. Then he whispered, “Hold on,” and was pushing off again. Trees blew by in a blur as we rushed down the wooded portion of the hill and Kennedy expertly steered our sled on a wild path through the trees. We picked up speed, faster and faster until the lake was in front of us and Kennedy had to pull up sharp to stop the sled.
We veered right and spun a one-eighty before the sled flipped and sank into the thick bed of snow, and Kennedy’s body was on top of mine. He propped himself up on his elbows and grinned down at me.
“Where’d you learn to drive?” I shoved him off me and pushed out of the snow before I could register the feel of his body on top of mine. The weight of it as he looked down at me.
He hopped out of the snow and dusted off his pants. “There’s excitement here, too, Bree.”
“You’re kidding me, right? A sled ride through the woods is supposed to convince me not to go to Paris?”
“No. Yes.” He drew a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Just think it through, okay? You’re so impulsive, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I propped my hands on my hips. “Fine. I’ll think it through if you do something impulsive.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
I lifted my palms. “I don’t want life to pass you by, Kennedy. Stop thinking and start living.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth. I didn’t so much step forward as gravitate toward him.
“I think they’re down here somewhere.”
I barely registered Craig’s voice as I stared at Kennedy, daring him to touch me.
“There they are,” Cynthia called.
Kennedy backed away from me, and my heart sank.
“Are we still getting those drinks?” Craig asked.
I swallowed and forced a smile, but my head was spinning with confusion. “I need to go home and take care of a few things. You guys have fun.”
Kennedy—October
“Stop, please.” I chased Kelsey down the stairwell and out into the cold, but I felt like most of my mind was still back in the room with Bree. Naked Bree.
Fuck. I really wasn’t interested in chasing after Kelsey right now. I wanted to know what the hell Bree had been thinking. But this wasn’t one of those times you just let your girlfriend steam for a few hours and get over it on her own.
“Kelsey! Stop. You’re overreacting.”
She spun on me, her eyes blazing. “There was a naked girl in your bed. I’m supposed to be cool with that?”
“She’s a friend from back home.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
I dragged a hand through my hair. What was Bree thinking? And why had she been naked? Because she was waiting for me? Hell, for all I knew she’d come to town, hooked up with one of my roommates, and fallen drunk into my bed. “I don’t know what she was doing there, okay? I didn’t know she was coming to town.”
Kelsey’s eyes glistened with tears and she sniffed. “I thought you were a nice guy, Kennedy. I thought I could count on you to not be an asshole like everyone else.”
“What do you want me to say?”
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as she studied me. “I want you to tell me that you aren’t attracted to her. I want you to tell me that if we weren’t together and you’d gone back to your room to find her tonight nothing would have happened.”
“But we are together,” I objected.
“I need to know that you would have sent her slutty, tattooed ass away, even if you didn’t have a girlfriend.”
“She was drunk, Kels. I don’t fuck drunk girls.” Even if the sight of the drunk girl in question had turned my whole body into a live wire.
She scoffed and lifted her chin to study the night sky. “You’re so noble, aren’t you?”
There was nothing I could say, so I shoved my hands in my pockets and waited as she fought some sort of internal battle. It took every fiber of my self control to stand here when I wanted to run back up to the room. Back to Bree.
“You’ll cut it off with her?” Kelsey finally asked.
“What?” Okay, it made sense why she’d be confused. “No, Kelsey, Bree and I are not together. We never have been. She’s an old friend. That’s it.”
“If we’re going to stay together, I need you to break it off with her. Tell her you can’t be her friend anymore. That’s the only solution here.”
Two weeks. Maybe two and a half. That was how long Kelsey and I had been dating exclusively. In what world were such demands acceptable after two weeks? “You want me to drop a lifelong friend because she got drunk and made a mistake?”
Her hand was soft as she reached up to stroke my cheek. “You’re so sweet, Kennedy, but that was no mistake. She was there to seduce you, and she’ll do it again. She doesn’t even care that she’s ruining your friendship, and she definitely doesn’t care that she’s threatening your relationship with me. So, yeah, it’s her or me.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“She’s been my friend since we were kids. She spent half of her high school nights staying in the room next to mine at my parents’ house. I’m not just going to throw away our friendship.”
She dropped her hand and backed up a step. “And yet she just proved how easily she was willing to throw it away. Goodbye, Kennedy.”
I watched her go, the leaves crunching under her boots as she scurried up the steps to her dorm. I waited for the hurt and regret to hit, but it never came. Our relationship was too new to feel like a loss.
I jogged back up to my quad. My roommate Ted was watching TV in the common room when I came through the door. I blew past him and into my bedroom, but it was empty.
“She left,” Ted called.
“Fuck!” I slammed my fist into the wall, and a sharp pain shot up my arm. I rubbed at the pain and squeezed my eyes shut. Leave it to Bree to pull something like that and run away.
When I looked up, Ted was leaning in the doorway. “No offense, man, but you chased down the wrong girl.”
Aubree
I was soaking in the tub at home when I heard the pounding of feet racing up the stairs. I sat up, water sloshing around me and my heart kick-starting as I reached for a towel. After Kennedy’s almost kiss, I needed to be alone, but the sound of heavy steps in my empty house sent my mind back to the night I’d been here alone and those men had broken in.
“Come on, Bree! Where are you?”
The door swung open at the same moment I registered that it was Kennedy calling me.
He stepped into the bathroom, and I sank back into the bubbles, my hand pressed against my chest. “You scared the shit out of me,” I grumbled, closing my eyes.
“Why did you just run off like that? Don’t you think it’s time we finish this conversation?” His gaze dropped to the bubbles and the blood drained from his face, as if he only just realized he’d walked in on my bath. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’ll wait in the bedroom.”
Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the bathroom, leaving me alone with the bubbles and my pounding heart.
So much for a relaxing bath to clear my head.
I pulled the drain on the tub and climbed out, drying my arms and legs and running the towel through my hair before wrapping it around my body and tucking it under my arms.
I didn’t have any clothes in here, since I h
adn’t expected company, so I had no choice to face Kennedy in nothing but my towel for the second time in as many days.
When I stepped into my bedroom, he was sitting on the edge of my queen-sized bed, elbows resting on his knees. There was a bottle of whiskey dangling from his hand.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” he mumbled. “Cynthia told me Craig made some comment about meeting you here and I thought—”
“You thought I was going to spread my legs for him just because he asked.”
“No. I thought—” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what I thought. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t owe me an apology.”
He pushed to standing. “Get dressed and come hang out with me.”
“Always trying to get me to put more clothes on,” I muttered. I turned to find my bag.
“What?”
Shit. I hadn’t meant for him to actually hear me, but it was too late now. I lifted my chin. “You are the only guy I’ve met who’s not related to me who wants me to put more clothes on.”
“You’re upset that I want you to get dressed before we drink and shoot the shit?”
I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “I’m not upset about anything. I’m merely making an observation.”
“An observation about how you want me to look at your mostly naked body?”
I spun on my heel and stomped back to the bathroom, but he beat me to it and his hand stopped the door before I could slam it shut. I could only stare at him wide-eyed as he kicked the door wide and leaned against the frame.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you doing?”
He took a slug of whiskey. “I care about you, Bree. And if asking you to put clothes on makes you feel bad, then I’m not going to do it. My mom taught me to consider the feelings of others.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. I’m not going to sit around in my towel while we drink.”
“Then lose the towel.”
I growled. Actually growled, I was so incensed. He had me cornered in the bathroom, with a nothing but a towel on, and I felt like the world’s biggest fool. “Do you even know that I’m a girl? A woman? A female with working parts?”
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