“You’re not wearing makeup.”
She covers her face with her hands and drops her head towards her chest. “I don’t make a habit of wearing it to sleep.”
Wrapping my hands around hers, I peel them away from her face. Inch by inch, she lifts her beautiful eyes towards me.
“You should go natural like this more often. I like it.” The television light dances off her bare face, and I find myself leaning in. Her eyes widen before she blinks and shifts away.
“Goodnight,” she says. Her hands search around the bed until she lands on the remote. She clicks the television off.
“Goodnight, Hadley.”You’ll be ready to kiss me soon enough,I think to myself. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and make my pallet on the floor before heading to the bathroom to get ready for bed. You’d be surprised at how many ways you can avoid a person in a small, enclosed room.
Instead of sleep finding me, I lay on the floor gazing up through the darkness. I’m so close to spilling my soul to Hadley. How much I love her, want her,needher. I can’t be misreading things. All the signs are there. She flirts with me, and I flirt back. Any accidental touch sends jolts through my body. And it’s not just the physical. I’ve known I wanted to be with Hadley for a long time now. She’s the light of my world. Her playfulness, feisty attitude, kind heart, and ambition quickly became my only requirements for a wife as we went through high school and entered college, but I knew she wasn’t ready. I’m starting to think she may never be ready, at least in her own eyes, but I want to work through that with her. By my side. As her man.
“Braxton?” Hadley’s quiet voice breaks through my thoughts.
“Yes?”
“I can’t sleep. Could you play one of those worship songs? The one you played when we were stranded earlier?” Her voice cracks at the end of her request.
I’m stunned silent.
But I grab my guitar, sit in the chair across the room, and play, my movements illuminated by the night sky pouring in through the window.
Chapter Nineteen
Braxton
Howisamansupposed to concentrate on snowboarding when a woman like Hadley is wearing a perfectly tight base layer top? She shed the thick ski jacket after two rounds of lessons and now sports a pristine white, tight top that hugseverythingand hot pink snow pants. Her platinum hair is braided down her back. Goodness, I can’t look away though I know I need to.
I’m so tired of looking away.
But I’ve wanted to do this activity my entire life, so I have to look away if I want to make it down this mountain again. No distractions.
Inhaling a huge breath, the cold air cutting my throat, I thrust my hips in one solid motion like the coach taught me. I move, but not as much as I need to. There is still too much distance between the downward slope and me. I thrust my hips again, this time adding a little hop with my board. I’m at the edge of the slope, ready to descend into blissful, frigid snow. One more thrust and hop, then the wind licks my face as I race towards the bottom.
Snowboarding. Is. Epic.
I’m almost to the end of the Easy Way trail when I lean a little too far forward, causing my board to come out from underneath me, and making me fall flat on my face as my momentum continues to carry me across the icy snow.
Still epic. I’m proud to say that was the first time I’ve fallen so far.
“I can fall better than you,” Hadley taunts me. I shake the snow off my face just in time to see Hadley skiing around me, body moving forward while she looks over her shoulder at me. She pizzas her skis to try and stop, but tumbles over them instead. The way her legs went over her head clearly shows that she very well can fall better than me. Her high-pitched wail brings me to my senses. I unlatch my board and trudge through the snow to her.
“Hadley!” I holler her name, mostly as a way to let her know I’m coming for her. I pick up my pace, collapsing beside her in the snow. “What hurts?”
“My wrist,” she cries out. I put my arms around her and help her sit up, noticing she’s holding her right wrist.
“Here, let me see it.” I gently peel her hand away from her wrist. It doesn’t look bruised or swollen, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be later. “Let’s get you to a medic.”
Hadley nods and tries to stand up, but her skis are still attached to her feet.
“Hold still,” I tell her before reaching down and unclasping her skis from her boots.
“I can do it.” She swats my hands away with her good hand. I ignore her and finish unclasping the latches before helping her up. Then I pick up her skis, poles, and my snowboard, and we shuffle through the compacted icy snow to find medical personnel.
All while she protests my help.
“We made it through lessons and three times down the Easy Way.” I laugh, shaking my head and ignoring her plea to let her carry her skis and poles. Hadley glares at me, but a smile breaks free of her pained expression. “Always an adventure with you, Hads.”
