“Rode in worse,” I answer. “Got gear in the saddlebag. I’ll be fine.”
She doesn’t move until I’ve checked everything twice, until the bike is ready, until I swing my leg over the seat. Then she steps down off the porch and comes toward me, boots crunching in the snow.
“Helmet?” she asks.
I grin and tap the one on the handlebar. “Always, sweetheart.”
“Good,” she says, like she has any say over my level of self-preservation. I kind of like that she thinks she does.
I plant my boots, steady the bike, and lean down as she comes close. She looks up at me, cheeks pink from the cold, eyes too bright.
“This is the part where I’m supposed to be cool and casual, right?” she says.
“Only if you want to be.”
She laughs once, shaky. “I don’t want to be.”
“Then don’t.”
She steps closer until her knees bump mine. Her hands rest lightly on my thighs, like she’s grounding herself there.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“For the chili. For the hot shower. For the bed and the blankets and the fire and the way you didn’t treat me like I was broken even when I felt like I was. For telling me the truth, even when it wasn’t… what romance novels would have written.”
I smile, crooked. “I’m not much of a romance novel, Holley.”
Her eyes flick over my face, that same soft affection shining through. “You’d be surprised.”
The slow burn that’s been simmering all week spikes one more time. I reach out, sliding a hand behind her neck, thumb brushing the warm, delicate skin there.
“Come here,” I murmur.
She leans in, and I kiss her.
It’s not frantic. Not claiming. Not goodbye-forever. It’s slow—like everything good between us has been. My mouth moves over hers with all the heat I can’t put into promises, all the care I can’t turn into commitments.
She kisses me back like she understands that language better than any other.
When I finally pull back, her forehead rests against mine for a second, both of us breathing a little harder.
“Visit me,” I say again, voice low, earnest. “Don’t overthink it. Just… come.”
“Okay,” she whispers. “I will.”
“I’ll check on you,” I add. “Don’t disappear on me.”
“I won’t.”
I search her eyes one last time, making sure she believes me when I say this isn’t a vanishing act. That I will be, in my own way, consistent.
“Lock the doors,” I say. “Stay off the roads if it ices again. Raise hell about that heat. And Holley?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop sleeping in the car.”
