The words come out low. Rough. Her breath catches. I should step away. I don’t.
Instead, I take the box from her, fingers grazing hers again — slower this time, a challenge I shouldn’t be issuing.
Her lips part. A mistake. A warning. An invitation.
I look away before I do something I can’t take back.
We work in silence. Thick silence. Every time she shifts, I notice. Every time she exhales, I hear it. Every time she brushes past me, the heat from her body punches through the cold air like a brand. And she keeps doing it. Brushing me. Bumping into me. Moving around me like gravity itself is messing with her equilibrium.
Or mine.
“Okay,” she says finally, dusting her hands on her jeans, “that’s the last of it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I don’t mean for it to sound like a growl. It just does.
She looks up at me, eyes soft. “You didn’t have to help.”
“Yes,” I answer, “I did.”
“Because it’s your job?”
“No.”
She swallows. Hard. “Because…?”
Because I can’t let you strain yourself. Because I can’t stand the thought of you slipping on ice. Because every time you ask me for anything, something in me answers before my brain can catch up. Because I’m already in deeper than I want to admit.
But I don’t say any of that.
Instead, I grunt. “Because you’d probably climb inside the truck to reach something and get stuck.”
She splutters. “I would not.”
“Yes, you would.”
“You think I’m helpless?”
“I think you’re accident-prone.”
She steps closer, hands on her hips. “I amnotaccident-—”
Her boot slides on a patch of ice. I catch her by the waist before she hits the ground. Again. She blinks up at me, breath puffing white between us. “Oh.”
My hand tightens around her hip. Too tight. Her sweater is soft beneath my palm. Warm. Dangerous.
“You were saying?” I ask.
She swallows. “That was… situational.”
“That was predictable.”
“Maybe you’re just… everywhere I go.”
I stare at her. “Maybe you need someone everywhere you go.”
Silence drops like snow.
