And there was Chelsea, curled up against him in nothing but her lacy lingerie, her head on his chest, her hand on his stomach, like she’d always belonged there.
A laughing punch to the gut.
A clean, horrible moment of clarity:Oh.I like him. As in,likehim. Too much. Too much for this. Too much to stay here another second.
I’d backed out of the room so fast I’d slammed my elbow on the door frame. Spent that night, and the long, awkward drive home for Christmas where Nate was clutching his head mournfully, feigning sympathy and pretending nothing hurt. Pretended for years after that too.
Chelsea was like the cat that got the cream after the party, enjoying the cache of hooking up with Mac Woodruff’s even more handsome son like it was a real achievement. I bit my tongue hard enough to draw blood, and found myself relieved when she dropped out to become a high fashion model. My new roommate was a lot lower maintenance.
My newly realized feelings for my stepbrother that I had to repress for my own dignity and dislike of rejection, and also because, hello, did I mention he was mystepbrother? Not so much.
I keep telling myself, as I try to power through insomnia-causing memories, that I’m an adult now, it was just a stupid crush, and that version of me is long gone. But the embarrassment and hurt has had its wound reopened, and it’s sore.
“Ugh.” I press my palms to my face. “Pathetic. Grow up.”
The wind moans against the window. The generator stutters, coughs, corrects, over and over.
But, somehow, I finally drift.
***
I wake up to delicious, toasty heat.
For one blissful second I burrow deeper into it…
…and then realization slams through me like a two by four to the cranium.
Someone else is on this bed.
My eyes snap open.
The firelight from the other room has died to embers. The room is washed in the muted gray of a heavily overcast day.
And lying on the very, very edge of the mattress, fully on top of the blankets, is Nate.
Oh.
Oh god.
He’s not touching me, isn’t even close, really. He’s rigidly facing the wall, still in his thermal shirt and sweats, arms folded over his chest in a position that screamsI absolutely did not intend to be here.
But heishere.
And he’s warm.
And my heart is beating way too fast for someone who is trying to beannoyedwith his presence in this cabin on principle.
He must’ve come in sometime after I fell asleep, probably when the fire burned low and the temperature dropped. Knowing him, he probably decided freezing to death near the hearth was a bad idea and opted to crash here, but onlyon top of everything, as far away from me as possible.
My chest softens, betraying me completely. Nate has always been like this. Quietly considerate. Gentle in ways that people don’t expect from someone who looks like he could model Calvin Klein boxer shorts but also wrestles bears recreationally.
I reach for my water bottle, take a sip, and then - because clearly I hate myself - I glance at him again. His unfairly long lashes rest against his cheeks. His stubble is longer than I remember, so I guess he’s eschewed shaving while he’s playing the reclusive mountain man. His mouth,woops, don’t look at his mouth,is relaxed, parted slightly as he breathes.
Something warm curls low in my stomach, unwelcome and familiar.
I tear my gaze away and swing my legs out of bed. The floor is cold. The air is colder. And the presence of Nate behind me is a heat on my spine I cannot ignore.
I creep toward the door, planning to make it to the living room before he wakes up…
