“Have you seen your newspaper photo?” Zara asks, raising a brow in my direction.
“No,” I reply, watching Pen’s dark curls trailing around her as she spins on the dance floor in the center of Bear Creek Bakery.
The tables have been cleared away, and the counter is filled with Christmas desserts. Gary, Joe, and Rosie have covered the ceiling in hanging snowflakes and white strands of lights, making the space feel like a wintry wonderland.
Zara sets her phone in my hand. “You should see it.”
The headline reads “Mr. and Mrs. Claus Visit Bear Creek Tree Farm,” and when I scroll down and see the photo, my lungs constrict.
They didn’t use the smiling one. They didn’t even use the cheek-kissing one.
No, in this photo, we’re looking at each other, his arm around my shoulders and me leaning toward him like I’m a flower growing toward sunlight. My hand is settled on his thigh a little too intimately, but it’s the expression on our faces that twists my stomach into knots.
My cheeks are pink as I smirk up at him playfully, and his returning grin is like a secret only I can hear. His eyes are focused on me like I’m the only person in the world, with that little swoop of his mocha waves over his forehead that I got to run my fingers through last night.
I lift my attention from the phone, searching the room, and when I spot him, my knees wobble. Even with his shoulders hunched while he talks to my mom, he’s taller than everyone else here.
I let my gaze rake over him shamelessly. His black sweater sits over his burgundy-and-green plaid dress shirt, just the pop of color on his collar making his eyes glow brighter. Fitted dark jeans mold perfectly over muscular thighs, ending at his ankles to meet his Chelsea boots.
His mouth is moving in conversation, but he’s unabashedly watching me. It’s like a tether is strung across the busy room, linking us together, and all I can see are those sparkly whiskey eyes tugging me in.
Blindly handing Zara her phone, I keep my focus on him as I cross the room. The small crowd seems to part for me, clearing a path to the man I want, and Gavin’s smile widens in slow motion as I approach.
Swallowing my nerves, I stop a few feet away from him, my mom’s voice pausing mid sentence. But I don’t have the capacity to apologize for interrupting or worry about how she might see what’s happening between us, because right now, there’s only one thing on my mind.
Gavin.
“Will you dance with me?” My voice comes out clear as I repeat what I asked him three years ago at this party.
A split second passes before Gavin clears his throat. “Of course.” He nods to Mama. “Excuse me.”
I distantly hear her say, “Go right ahead,” but I can’t concentrate on it as Gavin’s palm lands on my back, guiding me to the middle of the dance floor.
When we stop, he pulls me toward him and slides his other hand in mine. Silence lodges between us as we move to the slow beat of the music, so much more stiff and robotic than our dance by the Christmas tree.
He keeps his gaze over my head, his lips tight. Nothing like how he looked last night.
But I wantthatGavin back. I want undone, passionate, greedy Gavin, whose eyes were molten for me.
“What are we doing?” I breathe out as quietly as I can.
“Dancing. People move their feet to the music,” he mutters.
“No. I mean what are we doing after last night? You’ve barely spoken to me.”
“I spoke to you at breakfast.”
Frustration steels my spine. “To ask if I wanted orange juice,” I grit through my teeth, hiding the anger in my words behind a strained smile.
“And you said ‘no thank you.’ It was a perfectly reasonable conversation,” he says, biting back a grin.
The sudden urge to knee him in the balls bleeds through me, and I plant my feet. “Nevermind. I don’t want to dance with you.” I try to pull my hand away, but he holds it tight.
“Sorry. Fuck. I’m sorry.” He pulls me to move again, and my feet shuffle involuntarily. “I just have no idea what to say about last night.”
Flicking my gaze to the hollow of his throat, I ask, “Why did you shut down so quickly?”
His exasperated sigh sends a gust of breath by my ear. “Because it was a reminder of all the reasons we shouldn’t have been doing that. It was a shock to my system that brought me back to reality.”
