“They’re inappropriate if you’re going to be living here. Get new fucking shoes.”
Fire flares in her eyes before she narrows them at me, her fingers digging a bit into my chest, something I feel even beneath my jacket.
“You don’t get to deem what I’m wearing inappropriate; I am not yours.”
Without coming to any kind of understanding of what I’m doing, my body moving without the permission of my mind, I step closer, and Hallie takes one step back, her back bumping against the car. Her eyes widen as I move, and even though some rational part of my brain knows I should stop, should step away, should run to my house, I don’t.
I can’t.
Instead, I speak once I have her pinned to her car with my body. “Trust me, Hallie, I am incredibly aware you are not mine.” A moment passes before the tiniest smirk plays on her lips, almost like it’s calculated, a show, some facade she’s putting on, but I can’t put my finger on why.
“Thank God for that,” she says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She tilts her head a bit, a look I’ve seen her use in Colt’s bar a dozen times when someone hits on her that she’s not interested in, almost like she pities him.
“You couldn’t handle a woman like me, Jesse.”
My cock twitches with the challenge, both in her words and on her face.
“Oh, I could handle you, Hallie Young.” Her tongue darts out, wetting her lips, and a panting breath leaves them, coasting along my own lips
It wouldn’t take much to bend down and kiss her.
To prove to her I could handle her, that I couldmorethan handle her.
“Dad!” my daughter calls from the front door, and I step back as if she'd burned me. “Dad! The hot water isn’t working!”
I sigh and nod, taking a step toward the house.
“Give me a sec, I’ll be right there,” I call, and the door slams shut again without another word. When I turn back to Hallie, whatever moment we almost had is clearly over, her door open as she slides in and starts the car. Still, she looks over her shoulder, something so similar to regret on her face.
“Too bad we’ll never find out.”
And then she’s slamming the door and driving away, leaving me to watch her leave, fully confused.
Later that night, after I get Emma to bed, for the first time in a year, I allow myself to remember that night almost a year ago—the last time she left me feeling confused as she walked away from me.
NINE
TEN MONTHS AGO
For Christmas last year, instead of gifts, our parents gave a weekend ski trip in Killington, Vermont, to Madden, Wren, Hallie, and me. They’d planned and pre-purchased the entire thing so none of us could argue and booked three rooms (the girls shared a suite, but they were smart enough to realize that Madden and I might actually kill each other if we roomed together, since they tried it when we were kids for about two years before building an addition on the house, probably sensing the impending bloodshed) and lift tickets for a day Wren had a long weekend from school and planned to watch Emma for three nights. We left on a Thursday and returned on Sunday afternoon just in time for family dinner.
It was a great weekend spent on the mountain and relaxing with my siblings and Hallie. We spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday on the mountain before getting dinner and heading to bed tired as could be, but on Saturday night, after a long day on the slopes and then a casual dinner, we all sat in the lodge for our last night, laughing, drinking, and relaxing. It was the most at ease I’d felt in my lifetime. The trip as a whole made me realizethat since Emma had come into my life, I hadn’t had much time to myself.
Around nine, Wren let out a loud yawn, saying she was tapping out since she rarely got the opportunity to go to bed early, and then it was Madden, Hallie, and me. An hour after that, Madden started flirting with another guest and left Hallie and me sitting around the fire. Both of her hands were wrapped around a warm mug of hot toddy as she sat in an armchair, and I was on the couch catty-corner to her.
“You gonna head up?” I asked since both Madden and Wren were gone, and I knew it had been a long day for her. We’d spent many nights over the years chatting together, usually in situations just like this at her brother’s bar, with Madden chasing some woman and Wren running off to do some favor for someone, so it wasn’t like it was odd, but I didn’t want her to feel forced to sit with me. But then a soft smile spread on her lips, and she shrugged. A cozy look was on her face, a little bit tired from a long day, a little bit recharged after a weekend with people she loved to spend time with, and a little bit buzzed since that was her third cup of the evening.
“I'm not really tired,” she said, and the words hung between us as if she was waiting for me to say something—to add something—to extend the night a little longer. It was apparent she wasn’t ready to call it a night yet, and honestly, I wasn’t either. The next day, we were checking out and driving back home, but I didn’t want this feeling of relaxation to end. I wanted living in this small bubble, free from the pressure and stress of my everyday life, to last just a little bit longer.
It was the first time since Emma’s mother had left that I’d let myself have a weekend away without the stress of wondering about her, both because I knew my parents were watching her and because I finally felt like she was old enough to leave for a bit.
“Neither am I. Let’s hang here for a bit longer,” I said, and the widest, brightest grin lit her face. We spent the next two hours talking, laughing, and just enjoying each other’s company. Eventually, she moved to sit on the couch beside me, just a few inches apart, and like it had happened countless times before, I felt a pull toward her. Countless times, I’ve hung around longer than needed or intended, just wanting to stay and talk more, to hear her thoughts and opinions on everyday subjects, or to listen to her talk about some show she was watching or describe a book she was reading.
I just liked hearing her talk.
At some point, she said something that made me laugh out loud, my head tipping back as the sound rolled out of me, and it felt so foreign. Afterward, I looked around the room to see if anyone was staring since it must have been extremely loud or out of place, only to realize everyone in the lodge was still lost in their own conversations.
