I shake my head with a laugh. “You’re crazy. Why would Dad put a camera in here to watch you sitting in front of the TV with your Tesco ready meal, drinking beer?”
He shrugs. “Fair point.” His hands clap and he rubs them together. “Get your coat on. I have a surprise for you.” He walks into the utility room, but turns back to me. “You might want wellies too.”
“Are we working on my dressing table?”
“We’ll do that later. First, I have something else in mind.”
I follow him into the utility and find my wellies on the shoe rack. I bend and pull on the rainbow-striped boots over my jeans, then grab my fleece coat from the hook. “Where are we going?”
Sawyer shrugs a pre-packed rucksack onto his back and then lifts another bag, which he carries in his hand. “You’ll see.”
Trudgingthrough the snow is exhausting. I’ve only walked from the cabin down the lane at the side of the woods and I’m already out of breath. Snow settles on the fur of my hood and I stick outmy tongue to feel the crisp flakes there, hoping it will cool my rising body heat from the extra layers Sawyer made me wear, and the exertion.
Sawyer looks over his shoulder. A red hue creeps up his cheeks from under his beard. “You all right back there?”
“Great. If I’d known we were walking down the lane, I’d have got the old sledge and had you pull me.”
He huffs. “Remember when I used to carry you on my shoulders?”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t be able to do that now, though.” Snow creaks and compacts with every tread of my wellies, reaching my calf where the plastic of my boot is practically cutting off my circulation, telling me my legs a lot bigger than it was the last time I wore these.
“Because of your dad?” he says with a pinched brow.
I stop walking. “What’s my dad got to do with it?” My gloved fingers find the zip on my coat and pull it down, needing to cool a little from the exercise. “I meant because of my weight.”
He silently chuckles. A smile plastered on his nodding head as he continues to walk. “You think I can’t lift you because you’re carrying a little holiday weight? That’s cute.”
“Holiday weight?” I giggle. “Maybe it is holiday weight…accumulated from the last ten years. And I’d like to see you try.” I fiddle with the tassels on my scarf, hoping he accepts the challenge.
He lifts the bag in his hand, which is bursting with what looks like a blanket and camping equipment. “What am I, a packhorse?” Rolling his eyes, he hands the bag to me. “Here.”
I take the bag, then before I can say anything, I’m lifted into the air and thrown over his shoulder.
He turns into the woods and tracks between the trees. “Satisfied?”
I giggle as my head hangs over his shoulder, the bag in my hand weighing me down. “I’m getting dizzy.” The world has spun on its axis and I’m getting a different perspective from this angle. Mainly that Sawyer wants to show me how strong and masculine he is.
“I don’t care how many years it’s taken to achieve this body of yours, but it’s bloody perfect, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
He thinks I’m perfect. I feel light as a feather in his arms, even if Sawyer is out of breath a little.
“I like you with some holiday weight, too,” I say.
He chuckles. “It’s hard work keeping this body, you know. I can’t tell you how many take-outs and poor decisions I have to endure to keep in shape.”
I laugh along with him. “Same.”
After a few more steps, his hands glide up my coat as he lowers me to the snow-covered ground like a pillow beneath my feet. His cold bare hands under my layers, make me shiver in a delightful way.
I spin around, faced with the treehouse. My smile pushes my cheeks up as he tugs at the ladder, checking it’s safe.
“After you.” He holds the bottom of the ladder as I climb up, the wood creaking with every step.
Opening the hatch, the musty, damp scent of moss and pine fill my senses. My arse cheeks clench as Sawyer places his hand there, as if giving me a nudge or trying to push me through the hatch. I can’t be sure which, but I crawl ungracefully into the gap and continue on my hands and knees along the cold wooden floor.
Everything is as I remember, only now it’s covered in cobwebs. Mum’s old blanket box sits below the window, melted candles moulded to the sill. The wind blows outside and the treehouse creaks and groans as if it’s waking up to our presence.
“Not as bad as I thought it would be,” Sawyer says, placing the rucksack and other bag onto the floor before squeezing his large frame through the small hatch.
