“It’s snowing!” Margaret says again from the kitchen, and Clint makes the patented dad creaks and grunts as he pulls himself to his feet.
“You kids want to—” He glances our way, blanches, and immediately turns on his heel, muttering all the way out of the room. After he’s gone, Darby collapses into giggles, falling forward against my chest. I can’t resist wrapping my arms around her and holding her close, pressing her warm curves against me.
This is not helpful for my very alert dick.
“Think they’re regretting my choice of men yet?” she whispers.
“Doing my best,” I say as she pushes away from me. “Did you want to go look at the snow?”
She nods a little sheepishly. “I do. It’s the first one of the year.”
“And chicks dig that. I get it,babe.” I hit the last word hard, hoping it’ll make her laugh. It does, and warmth fills my chest, a different kind of warmth from the one I was feeling in my pants moments ago. The sensation is… nice. Unexpected, but nice.
Shit.
Feeling suddenly vulnerable, I reach for my shirt on the floor, but Darby puts her hand on my knee. “Wait a second.”
I freeze as her eyes roam over my wrist and up my arm.
“A tree. I wondered.”
She doesn’t touch the black lines that make up the roots, trunk, and branches of my tattoo, although I wish she would.
“It’s a birch.” I don’t know why I’m speaking so quietly. The design isn’t a secret, necessarily, but I haven’t actually explained it to anyone else and I want her to be the one. Want to share something with her that nobody else knows. “It was part of the first landscaping design I created on my own. And if you’re into that kind of thing, a birch symbolizes new beginnings. So it’s my past, but it’s also my future.”
Her smile dazzles me. When did I go from thinking she was cute to being dazzled by her?
“I love that,” she says, and after a long moment of eye contact, she slides her hand off my knee with a shaky little laugh. “Um, I’m going to…”
She points over her shoulder toward the kitchen, and I nod. “I’ll join you.”
This time she doesn’t stop me from sliding my shirt on, and it feels natural to reach for her hand as we join her parents at the sliding door overlooking the backyard, where the flakes are huge and falling fast.
“Hope you’re ready to shovel,” Margaret tells her husband.
“No. It won’t stick.”
Three heads turn to look at me, and I shrug. “I work outdoors, remember? It was a little too warm today, so I don’t think anybody needs to break out the shovels tonight. But if the temperature doesn’t get as high tomorrow, that might do it.”
Clint chuckles. “Darby, you brought home a meteorologist.”
She wraps her arm around my waist possessively. “That’s my man,” she coos, and hey, there’s that warm feeling again in my chest.
“Speaking of tomorrow.” She bats her eyes up at me. “I believe we were promised lasagna.”
I slide an arm around her shoulders, linking us together. “Sure, but you’re coming to the store with me.”
This perks Margaret right up. “Oh! I have a few last-minute things I need for Christmas dinner. Would you be willing to pick them up while you’re there?”
Bad boyfriend would say no. There’s-a-glow-in-his-chest boyfriend would say yes.
I say yes.
Later, as Darby and I head upstairs, I bite back a groan as I think about another night on the floor. But it’s not the floor that’s the problem; it’s lying in the dark knowing Darby’s nearby. Last night I was excruciatingly aware of the rustle of the sheets and the cadence of her breathing as I willed myself to fall asleep. Tonight’s bound to be even worse now that I’ve kissed her.
We take turns in the attached bathroom that she shares with the bedroom next door. It’s reserved for her brother, who’s apparently flying in tomorrow, and I’m considering suggesting I sleep in there tonight just so I can get some distance. But when the door opens to reveal Darby in an oversized shirt, her face scrubbed of makeup and her hair in a high ponytail, I change my mind. In here with her is better.
She frowns when she sees me settling into the nest of blankets that she scavenged for me last night.
