He sets a bowl of warm, lightly spiced apples on the table, the kind of simple food that belongs in a place like this. They’re not just cooked, but considered. It hits me then that he’s not only feeding me but keeping me steady. My stomach rumbles quietly, but what I really feel is the ache of not knowing how to ask for more than breakfast. I want to ask what happens next. I want to ask if he’s pretending that kiss didn’t matter. However, I knowbetter than to shove emotion into places where it hasn’t been invited.
When I turn, he’s looking at me as if he hears my questions even though I haven’t asked them. Something in his expression softens when our eyes meet, but he doesn’t reach for me. That restraint winds around my ribs like a tightening cord. I cross back to the table and sit down, the scent of the warm fruit rising up in a curl of steam between us.
“This place,” I say softly, stirring the apples with the edge of my spoon, “feels like it’s waiting for something.”
He doesn’t answer right away. He sits across from me and rests his forearms on the table, fingers clasped. His voice is low but clear. “It’s not used to people.”
“Neither are you.”
That gets me a flicker of something in his eyes. Not irritation, but something closer to honesty. He doesn’t argue. I didn’t expect him to. Instead, he reaches forward and adjusts the handle of my mug slightly, just enough to stop a tiny drip from trailing down the side. It’s a small thing, but it makes my chest feel as if it’s breaking open.
“I used to think quiet was the only thing that felt safe,” he says. “Now it just feels incomplete.” His eyes flick to mine, like he’s not sure if it’s safe to want more.
I hold his gaze, the breath caught in my throat as if it doesn’t know whether to come out as a laugh or something else entirely. The moment stretches, and something shifts between us again, subtle but certain. I want him to touch me, not because of the kiss we shared, but because I want to know if this connection is still alive now that many hours have passed.
Instead, I reach across the table and let my fingers graze his. He doesn’t pull away. His hand is warm and rough, the calluses brushing against my skin. His fingers curl gently around mineas if he’s remembering how to hold on. That touch is quiet and sure, and it answers more than words ever could.
“I don’t want this to end when the road clears.” I hear the honesty in my own voice, and it surprises me how much I mean it. “I came here looking for a Christmas story in a quaint mountain town, something festive and simple I could wrap up in a photo. This doesn’t feel like a story anymore.”
His thumb moves over the back of my hand once, slowly, before he lets go. I miss the contact immediately, but he rises and walks toward the small shelf near the wall. When he turns back, he’s holding something that makes my breath catch.
It’s a hand-carved ornament, rough around the edges, shaped like a small camera. The detail is a little flawed but clear, like someone made it from memory, not reference. He sets it gently on the table beside my bowl, then meets my gaze without flinching. It’s imperfect, handmade, and exactly right. It isn’t beautiful because of the lines, but because of the intention behind them.
On the back is a tiny, carved heart.
My throat closes. "You made this for me?"
“I made it years ago,” he says. “Didn’t know who it was for until now.”
The cabin holds still in that moment, as if the logs themselves are listening. My hand hovers near the ornament, not quite touching it, afraid to shatter the spell. My heart thuds once, hard and certain. It recognizes something before my mind can catch up.
I look up at him. Everything in me goes quiet. There it is, the thing I hadn’t dared to hope for. Him seeing me. Choosing me.
He may not say the words. But this, this is him choosing me.
Something deep inside whispers that I’ve been waiting to be chosen like this all my life.
The flannel still smells like him. The apple steam curls between us. I know I’m not ready to leave when the roads clear.
Chapter four
Jax
The snow has settled deeper, soft around the trees. It quiets the world in a way nothing else can. I watch it from the window while the kettle hisses behind me, trying to lose myself in the quiet. I can still feel her in the room. When she’s not moving, even when she’s reading in the armchair with her legs curled up and her chin tucked into the collar of my shirt, she fills the space with a steady heat I can’t seem to step back from. It’s like she belongs here in my life, even though I didn’t ask for it.
I pour water from the kettle over dried mint and other herbs, watching the steam rise, and set the mug by her hand. I don’t speak. I just want her to feel looked after. She looks up and smiles, her fingers brushing mine when she reaches for the mug’s handle. It’s a small touch, the kind of thing people probably don’t notice.
I notice everything about her. The brush of her fingers sends a jolt straight to my chest. I pull back a second too late, the sudden touch making my cock stir. My skin’s already humming where she touched me, and my mind’s already gone somewhere I shouldn’t let it. I tell myself it’s just tea. Just a morning routine,but nothing feels simple with her in the room. I study the way she wraps her fingers around the mug before taking a sip, the way her lashes drop as she inhales the steam, the way her lips part just enough to cool it before she drinks. I should look away before my cock wakes up fully. Instead, I memorize the sound she makes when the warmth hits her throat.
She glances at me from beneath the fall of her hair with soft, questioning eyes. “You always take care of people like this?”
The answer sits heavy in my chest, thick with the weight of memory. I shake my head once. “No.”
That’s all I give her. I see her register it, but she doesn’t push. That’s what undoes me. She lets the silence breathe and doesn’t try to drag things out of me or poke at the places I’ve sealed off. She just sees them and stays.
She shifts the blanket off her lap and rises, her feet in a pair of my thick winter socks on the warm floor, her movement unhurried but full of purpose. I track her instinctively. I can’t help but stare at the way her body curves as she stretches, the way she moves like she belongs in this room, like she’s already learned the way the floorboards creak.
She moves toward the bookshelf I built against the far wall and runs her fingers along the edges of the spines until her fingers rest on an old sketchpad I haven’t opened in years. “Do you mind?” she asks, and I shake my head. She slides it from the shelf and cradles it in the crook of her arm.
