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“I’ll change your mind one day, Finn.”

There’s nothing left for me to check. Everyone knows what they’re doing and can take care of themselves, but I don’t know how to switch off, so I keep walking around and checking all the vendors.

I round the corner past the fire pit and run directly into Fox.

His hands come up to my shoulders to steady me. They stay there for a second longer than necessary, but then he releases me and takes a couple of steps back, looking around before his eyes settle back on me.

He tilts his head. “When are you going home?”

“When I finish walking the vendors.”

“When will that be?”

“An hour ago.”

“Finn.”

“I don’t know, Fox. It’s opening night. I can’t just leave.”

“Are you the one holding up the stalls?”

I roll my eyes. “That’s Taylen’s line.”

He smiles, but it’s the burning in his eyes that melts me to my core.

“Come home.”

I stare at him. My head is at war with my heart, and right now, it’s hard to tell who’s winning. I open my mouth to say I can’t, and instead, what comes out is, “Give me thirty minutes.”

His face opens into the Fox smile that makes my knees weak.

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay.”

He turns and walks away, and I stand there wanting to grab my phone and tell him not to come to my place. I should call it off, go home, take a shower, and sleep for eleven hours.

I don’t.

By the time I reach my front door, Fox is leaning against it.

“You came,” he says.

“I sort of live here.”

He gives me room to open the door. After being outside in the cold all day, the apartment feels too warm. Or maybe that’s just what happens when Fox is pushing me inside, closing the door with his foot, and putting his hand on my jaw like I belong to him. I give up pretending when he kisses my cheek and jaw before making his way to my hungry lips.

I promised myself on the drive home that I wouldn’t ask him about New York or the band’s plans.

There will be no talk about the future because it’s not my business. We agreed from the beginning, ten years ago, that this was casual because it wouldn’t be fair for either of us to pursue something when Fox was gone most of the time.

We have a few days until Christmas, and then he’ll be going back to California. I’m going to make the best of the time we have left and take the only thing I’ve ever been allowed to: his body.

I return his kiss as he walks me backward through the apartment. By the time we hit the bathroom, I’m in my briefs and he’s in his boxers. Fox pulls my underwear down and then keeps kissing the back of my neck when I move around him to turn the shower on. Then he removes his.

As soon as steam starts building, he pulls me into the water.

He kisses me under the spray, his hands mapping every inch of the skin he can reach. My back is against the tiles and his mouth is on my throat, my collarbone, and then my chest. He drops to his knees and, without warning, sucks me to the back of his throat.