“What do you see?” I ask.
Her lips part. She hesitates. Looks at me like I’m something she shouldn’t want but absolutely does. “I see…” She swallows. “…someone good.”
Damn her.
I close my eyes for half a second, trying not to react, trying not to give away how those words crack straight down the center of me. She pulls gently, and I release her wrist — reluctantly, like letting her go is an act of self-harm.
She takes a shaky breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to?—”
“Don’t apologize.”
Her eyes widen. “You’re… you’re not upset?”
“I’m never upset when you tell me the truth.”
“But you looked?—”
“Like I didn’t know what to do with it.” I smirk, humorless. “That’s accurate.”
She stares at me for long, stretched seconds. Like she’s trying to decode everything I’m refusing to say. Then, suddenly, she pushes a thermos toward me.
“Hot cocoa?” she asks, voice trembling just enough to tell me she felt all of that — every charged, unspoken inch of it.
I take the thermos. “You bribing me now?”
“It works on the rest of the crew.”
“I’m not the rest of the crew.”
“No,” she murmurs, eyes dragging over my face, “you are very much not.”
The words hit me like a live wire. I take a slow drink, watching her over the rim. “Be careful with statements like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll start believing them.”
She steps closer, enough that her coat brushes mine. “Ash…”
The sound of my name on her lips is a threat. Or maybe a plea.
I set the thermos on the truck, turning fully toward her. She tilts her head back to meet my eyes. We stand there, locked in something thick and hot and unspoken. The snow falls around us, settling in her hair, her lashes. She looks like something soft, something bright, something I should stay away from. I don’t move. She doesn’t either. Then, she breaks the spell with a shaky laugh. “We should get these supplies inside.”
“Yeah,” I say, staring at her mouth, “we should.”
But neither of us moves.
She licks her lips, a nervous habit probably, but it punches the air out of me. Something in me snaps. I step forward. She steps back. We end up inside the storage room doorway, inches apart, breathing the same air, surrounded by garland and half-lit strings of lights.
“Lucy,” I whisper, “don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re waiting for me to make a mistake.”
“Maybe I am.”
I lean in — not touching, but close enough she feels every word. “If I kiss you,” I say quietly, “it won’t be a mistake.”
