He climbed up after me, and the space shrank immediately. A little heat slid under my skin knowing there was nowhere for either of us to go without brushing.
It was fine. Totally fine. I didn’t need oxygen. Or distance. Or?—
He braced one hip against the wall. “So I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh no,” I murmured.
He handed me his notebook. It held scribbled notes, time estimates, little diagrams of crowds moving through an imaginary festival route. Damn it, I had to appreciate that level of thorough organization. Something low in my chest loosened at the proof he’d spent real time on this. On my event. On our event. On top of my truck rebuild.
Dangerous territory.
“We need to be sure these activities actually work,” he said. “In real time, with real people.”
“Right.” I flipped to the cocoa flight page. “We’ll need multiple warmers going at once. And I’m pretty sure the trivia questions need to be tiered or we’ll get bottlenecked by the local know-it-alls.”
He leaned closer to see the page. His hand brushed mine—warm, callused. My pulse hiccupped in a little stutter that vibrated all the way down to my toes.
He didn’t move away. “And ornament crafts are going to be a disaster. Have you ever seen a nine-year-old wield glitter glue?”
“Yes. It haunts my dreams.”
“So we need wet wipes. A trash system. Something absorbent.”
“God help us all,” I muttered.
We worked down the list, tossing out ideas, crossing out the ridiculous ones. He wasn’t just competent—he was thoughtful.Practical. Creative in a way I hadn’t expected, throwing out ideas that made me laugh and say no and then write them down anyway.
At one point, he passed me a marker. Our fingers brushed again.
The contact was brief, nothing either of us could call out. But it kept happening. His skin against mine, warm and rough, a little spark every time like static off a wool blanket.
Not an accident.
I kept catching him looking at me. Not lingering too long, but… deliberate awareness. His gaze skimmed my mouth when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, sliding down my throat to where my scarf gaped, snapping back up when my eyes met his.
Every time, something low and traitorous in my body warmed, awareness pooling in all the places I refused to acknowledge.
I tapped the notebook with my pen a little too sharply. “Okay, we’ve narrowed down the slate. But we have no idea how long anything will actually take.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He shifted closer, shoulder brushing mine. “We need to run a test.”
“A test?”
“A mock version of the stops. Just us. Try a few activities. Time them. See what works.”
My eyebrows shot up. “In the barn?”
He shook his head. “My kitchen.”
And I’d thought the coffee was bold.
“Your kitchen,” I echoed.
“Big island. Plenty of counter space.” A beat. His mouth kicked up at one corner. “I’ll cook.”
My grip tightened on the pen. Heat rolled under my skin, slow and treacherous. I pictured him moving around a warm kitchen, sleeves shoved up, hands sure on pots and pans, feedingme between trial runs. Me perched on a barstool, pretending not to watch his forearms flex as he stirred something. The easy way he took care of people turned directly, disarmingly, on me.
He saw something flicker across my face and looked almost shy. Powell Ferguson. Shy. His lashes dipped, and when he glanced back up, his eyes held a question he apparently wasn’t brave enough to ask out loud.
