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Midnight and Mistletoe

Page 50

by Ana Ashley

“I haven’t either.”

He blinks at me.

“What?”

“Same as you. There were a couple of people in the beginning. Then it started to feel wrong. So I stopped.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you?”

Neither of us answers, but I think I know why. The condom has always been a layer of separation. Something that stopped us from giving ourselves completely. It sounds ridiculous in my head right now because nothing could ever achieve that, and putting so much pressure on a layer of latex is really unfair.

“You drove all the way to Burlington and back?” he asks, changing the subject.

“Yeah.”

“You’re supposed to be at the farm.”

I look at the ceiling for a second. Then back at him.

“I was going to go. I got twenty minutes out. I couldn’t do it. Not tonight.”

“Why?”

I should tell him, but I’m a coward.

“I figured one more night won’t make a difference.”

Finn’s hand comes up and finds mine. He weaves his fingers through mine on the pillow between us.

“Okay.”

He doesn’t say anything else. Neither do I. He falls asleep first, our hands still tangled between us, and I lie there in the dark for a long time, listening to him breathe.

I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow.

But tonight, for one more night, I’m exactly where I want to be.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FINN

I wake up first.

The room is still dark. The clock on the nightstand says six thirty-eight a.m.

Fox is asleep beside me on his stomach, one arm bent under the pillow, the other stretched out across the mattress like he was reaching for me in the night. His face is turned away from mine, and his hair is a cute mess. The silver streaks in his dark hair catch what little light bleeds through the curtains. He looks unfairly beautiful for a man with a pillow crease down one cheek.

All I can think is that I could stay like this forever, which is a totally uninvited thought, but…I could stay like this forever. I could wake up next to Foster Crue every morning for the rest of my life, and I would still, every time, need a minute to just look at him.

Except that isn’t what we are. It isn’t what this is between Fox and me, despite what the last two weeks have tempted me to believe.

Fox could change this if he wanted.

He’s the one with the power in whatever we are. He’s the one who books flights. He decides when to arrive and when to leave. He sets the terms. If he wanted us to be more than what we are, he’d have said something by now.

Two weeks. Two whole weeks of playing house, of sharing a toothbrush holder, of falling asleep together, and he hasn’t said a single word about what happens after Thanksgiving.