My brow arched as I took the bottle from him. My hand closed around the tiny glass. My fingers brushed his for the briefest second, warm and rough, and I hated the way it made my pulse trip.
I unscrewed the cap, trying to look annoyed, not grateful.
Matteo didn’t say a thing. He just picked up the rest of little champagne bottles and started handing them out with lazy efficiency. Zach caught his, Trevor and my brothers too, and the girls, all giving easy thanks. When he reached Natalia, though, he bypassed the champagne entirely, cracking open the fridge and handing her a bottle of fresh orange juice instead.
“Thank you,” Natalia said, smiling, her voice warm.
The conversation in the cabin picked up again, laughter and banter weaving between clinks of bottles. Trevor teased Natalia about wedding things, Zach leaned in to tease his brother about business, and for the first time since the summer, I noticed the way Matteo and Zach looked at each other. Less like rivals, more like brothers. Their tones were easier now, sharper only with the quick edges of habit, not hostility.
Gìo and Nat even sorted out their previous issues and were back to being best friends.
Everyone fell into the rhythm of it – the family they had built, the friends who felt like siblings.
Everyone except me.
Because no matter how cozy the cabin became, no matter how much I curled beneath my blanket with my whiskey burning warm in my throat, I couldn’t ignore theheat radiating off the man beside me, the quiet power in his silence, or the weight of his nearness.
And no matter how I tucked myself into the blanket, I couldn’t shake the chill…
The air was perfectly comfortable – Natalia even complained about being too warm – but something in me refused to thaw. My toes curled under the thick fabric, and I hugged it tighter around my body, trying to focus on the burn of the whiskey instead of the shiver that refused to leave my bones.
No one noticed.
No one, except him.
Matteo shifted slightly, his frame brushing mine, the faintest ripple in the stillness. I didn’t look at him, not at first, but then the blanket lifted just an inch at the edge, his large hand pulling it across, tucking it more securely around me. Before I could protest, the heat of his body rolled in over me, solid and unyielding at my side.
I stiffened, my back brushing against the warmth of his big bicep, and glanced quickly around the cabin. Everyone else was wrapped up in their own conversations – Trevor making Natalia laugh, Zach going on about some surf thing in Maui that him and Tony were going to do. Maria and Kali were whispering about something. Even Zane was in deep business conversation with Gìo.
Nobody was paying attention to me.
“Better?” Matteo’s voice was low, threaded with that lazy confidence that always made me want to argue.
I narrowed my eyes, willing my voice steady. “I was fine.”
The corner of his mouth curved, smug, like he knew I was lying. But he didn’t call me out, didn’t push. He just shifted slightly closer, his shoulder brushing mine, his heatsinking past the blanket and into me until the shivers finally eased. And suddenly… I was a little too hot.
We slipped into conversation so naturally, I almost forgot to guard myself. He asked about Hawaii, what I wanted to see, if I’d been before. I told him about a waterfall hike Maria had begged me to try, about luaus and fire dancers, about snorkeling even though I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of fish. He listened – really listened – his deep voice weaving questions and teasing remarks between my words, like we’d done this a thousand times before.
Somewhere between the laughter, the warmth, and the low hum of the jet engines, my eyelids grew heavy. My head tilted without my permission, my body betraying me as it leaned ever so slightly into his arm at my shoulders. His arm was firm, steady, impossibly warm – like leaning into a wall of heat.
Before I knew it, the blanket and his body heat had lulled me under, and I drifted into sleep with the sound of his heartbeat, steady and unyielding, just beneath my ear.
I hadn’t experienced feeling uncomforted since I was a teenager. I despised the feeling. And for as long as I could remember, I’d done everything in my power to never feel it again.
My arm was numb.
Long past the pins and needles.
Long past uncomfortable.
And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to even breathe differently.
I didn’t want to wake her.
Fuck, she was beautiful.
In an unreal sort of way.
