Tyler pointed out the mini garage that adjoined the ice mansion, but all I could look at was him. I felt warm holding him so close, even though I couldn’t possibly feel any body heat under our layers of clothes.
When Jon and Cooper walked by, I saw Jon’s eyes stray to us, so I leaned in and kissed Tyler on the cheek. Might as well make the fake relationship convincing, right?
But I didn’t like the little eyebrow-furrow that I saw Jon giving me after the kiss, before he glanced away.
From what Tyler had told me, Jon had been in a similar situation himself. He might be more likely to pick a fake than most people here.
“What was that for?” Tyler asked, surprised.
“That was a belated ‘Merry Christmas,’” I told him. He smiled and I wanted to kiss him again, but we had to keep moving.
The lake, when we got there, was large enough and frozen enough to hold everyone who wanted to go out, so after an official “first skate” from Cooper and Jon—or from Cooper, anyway, who had to spend most of his time making sure Jon was steady—anyone else who wanted a go strapped on a pair of skates and went for it.
The Kincaids had brought in a few workers and a whole lot of ice skates from the nearby town, so that there were skates available for anyone who wanted them. When we got out onto the ice, Tyler was impressively good. I hadn’t gone anywhere near an ice rink for years, but it came back to me fast enough so that, once Tyler had lapped me a few times, I grabbed him into a spin and said firmly, “Stay.”
He laughed, but it was hard to tell if his cheeks were getting any redder; they were already flushed from the exercise. “This is nice,” he said after a few moments of skating hand-in-hand. Jon’s young siblings and cousins were having a great time, although there had already been a few falls. They seemed to bounce, though, so no tears.
“Yeah,” I said. “It is nice.”
Because as much as I was looking forward to watching Blakely’s face when I pounded him later on, I was also enjoying just being with the guy. I liked the way he bantered with me. I liked the way he got all shy and flustered when I flirted with him. And I liked the easy way we chatted about movies and music that we liked, finding common tastes here and there.
Along with the skate rental, the staff had set up a buffet for warm food and drinks in the boathouse. “You feel like some coffee?” I asked wistfully, sniffing the air as we skated nearby. I hadn’t had enough caffeine that morning.
“I’ll take a hot chocolate,” Tyler said. “But I can come with you.”
“Nah. You should spend some time with your buddies,” I said, nodding across the lake to where Jon was chatting with—what were their names again? Tristan and Ezra. Yeah, that was right. I was bad with names, but I didn’t want to embarrass Ty, so I’d gone over and over them in my head when they were first introduced. “I’ll get the drinks and bring them over.”
The smile I got from Tyler was all the thanks I needed.
While I was standing in line, wondering if I could squeeze in some nachos as well before lunch, I overheard a whispering next to me.
“I’m serious, sir, we should totally do it.”
“No, Brandon.”
“But a stripper is, like, mandatory at these things.”
I couldn’t help snickering. Brandon, standing there with his Dom, Heath, gave me an offended glare. “It’s rude to eavesdrop.”
“Oh, my God, Brandon. It’s not Shane’s fault that your whisper is a fucking holler,” Heath said tiredly. “Stop being so rude.”
“I’m sorry for being rude,” Brandon said insincerely, and then his eyes widened. “But hey—back me up, here. No one has ordered a stripper for the stag party tonight. That’s, like, un-American, right?”
“Uhhh,” I said, stalling for time. “I don’t know if the Kincaids seem like the kind of family who’d be down with a stripper?”
“Omigod, obviously it would just be for us guys tonight.”
Heath rolled his eyes. “Where are you planning to find a stripper who’ll come out here at the last second, and be cool with taking his clothes off in the middle of a snowy forest?”
Brandon whipped out his phone. “I bet there are a hundred hot guys not thirty minutes from here.” Heath and I exchanged a glance, and I moved up the line to ask for a coffee and a hot chocolate.
A few moments later, I heard disappointment in Brandon’s voice. “Okay, maybe it’ll be a little tougher than I thought,” he admitted to Heath, who had just ordered for both of them. “Maybe I could persuade some guy from one of the dating apps.”
“Why the hell do you have dating apps on your phone?” Heath demanded. He and I gathered up our round of hot drinks and we all moved away together in a group.
“I don’t,” Brandon said, still flicking through his phone. “I mean, I did, but all my profiles are deactivated, of course, sir.” He fluttered his eyelashes up at Heath, who seemed mollified. “But I was just thinking, if I turned on the location function, I could—oh.” I glanced over at Brandon, wondering why he sounded so strangled. He was still staring at his phone, and then, as we all skimmed slowly across the ice, his eyes flicked to me.
“Oh,” I echoed. “That’s...not what it looks like.”
