“A socially acceptable length of time ago.” Her skin itched, and she tried to rub the feeling away from her arms. The cabin’s gabled roof meant one of her walls was slanted, but she’d never felt the room was too small, only that it was perfectly cozy, tucked over the kitchen and away from everything else in the house, but with Kol standing across from her, breathing wasn’t quite so easy.
“This was your bedroom when you were a kid?” He reached for a teddy bear on her dresser.
She snatched the bear away and scowled because that was much better than flaring with embarrassment anew. “This is my bedroomnow.”
He stepped deeper into the space stuffing his hands into his pockets, his gaze tracing over the bookshelves and the framed national forest posters. She’d strung up fairy lights on the walls, using them in lieu of a glaring overhead lamp which had also always felt cozy to her, but as she looked at the place through Kol’s eyes, she could only see a teenaged version of herself.
“So you still live at home?”
“I live at homeagain. And it’s not home,” she said without thinking, gently placing Mr. Barnabus Brown back in his spot. “Well, it wasn’t supposed to be, this place was always just for vacations, but mom wanted to come here when she got sick, and I moved back in to help, and then Dad and I never left.”
He stopped perusing the spines of the hefty textbooks on her shelf and gave her a more intrigued look. “Five years ago? Were you still in school or—”
“I didn’t finish my degree, but sometimes life gets put on hold when more important things happen.” She sliced a hand through the air. “So, give it an hour until everyone’s asleep, and then you can go.”
“Go? Where?”
“I don’t know, wherever you were going to go beforethis.” She gestured to the space between them.
“You’re really going to send me out into the cold? I’m not covered in fur like a fehszar, and the grove’s cabin is sort of a long way off.”
She pouted, looking down to his chest. He probably wasn’t covered in fur, but she wouldn’t mind him proving it. Then she shook that thought right out of her head. “What’s a fehszar?”
“You know, with the antlers? Thealbino moose? She’s one of those creatures that needs the protection of the alcyon spruce orchard to keep existing. And what’s with sending me outside anyway after telling off your brother? Aren’t you a big girl who’s allowed to have boys in her room?”
Kol’s words burned into Piper, and she fixed her gaze away from him. Shewasa big girl, and shecouldhave boys in her room if she wanted, but she’d never actually brought anyone back to this place, knowing it would make her father uncomfortable. On occasion, she spent the evening elsewhere, but mostly she took care of things herself, which reminded her…
Piper sprinted the length of the room, slamming the drawer on her bedside table shut and pressing her back to it. Maybe guarding the nightstand like a sentry wasn’t subtle, but it was better than him seeing what she kept inside. If she only had a few minutes to clean up first, having him stand across from her in her bedroom would have been a little easier, but her attention had been pulled in so many different directions that she’d let her own space fall into utter disarray, but…but it was freezing outside, and it was dark, and it wasfreaking Christmas. “I guess you can stay. In here. With me. If you have to.”
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, and the greasy knot in her belly pulled tighter, and then he just rolled his eyes, heaved a sigh, and started poking around at the fuzzy rug that ran along the far side of her room. “You can at least spare a pillow, right?”
“Yeah, but…” She didn’t want to finish the thought that she had no other blanket, the rest divvied up amongst her visiting family and her surprise cousins getting the extras she kept in her closet. Piper kept her bed pushed against the far wall and set under the pitched ceiling and skylight. It was tight, moonlight pouring in to illuminate the singular pink duvet, but it was perfect for her.
Her alone.
Great.
“Just get in the bed.”
Kol was kneeling by her bookshelves, inspecting the floor, but he squinted up at her. “Where are you going to sleep?”
“Next to you, I guess.”
“Now youwantme to sleep with you?”
“No! But there’s no more room at the inn, so…” With a jerk of her head, she gestured to her last bastion of solace in the whole house.
Kol stood, stepping nearer but for once hesitantly. “After you.”
“No, afteryou.”
He scoffed. “I have to sleep next to the wall?”
“Obviously. You might be an elf, but you’re still clearly male, so I get the outside,” she snapped. “And I want to know if you get up in the middle of the night and try to steal my tree like the god damned Grinch.”
Kol glared at her for a long moment then relented with another hefty eye roll. If they weren’t such a pretty blue, she would have been extra annoyed by that. “Fine, but I don’t have any pajamas.” And with that, he pulled off his sweater.
A nonsense sound bubbled up in her throat, but she choked it back before it spilled out and embarrassed her. Her face was doing enough of that, wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. More of his stony skin was exposed, pulled taut over a muscled stomach, the lines defined in the dim lights, but then his shirt fell back into place, and she realized he wasn’t stripping down completely in front of her—the tiniest shame but also a relief.
