Pawliday Love

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

“ I ’ve missed this,” his voice is gruff.

I nod, tilting my head back to look up at him. The boy I was inseparable from for the first seventeen years of my life has matured. The lines of his face are sharper, chin concealed by a neatly trimmed dark beard. But his eyes are the same bright blue.

“Then why did you disappear?” I make sure to lock my eyes with his. If I’m going to ask him the tough question, I need to keep him honest.

“I just couldn’t...” He reaches up to rub at that beard, and shuts his eyes to avoid meeting mine.

I reach up to cup his cheek, and his eyes fly open. “You couldn’t what? We’ve known each other long enough. You can be honest with me. I deserve that much.”

He presses his lips together and dips his head closer to mine. “I couldn’t see you with him. It hurt too much.”

Shock shoots through me. “Brent?” Does that mean?

He nods. “Yup. I cared about you too much. Hell. I didn’t just care about you. I loved you, Everly. And I was an idiot for not telling you. I was afraid you’d reject me and it would ruin our friendship. But I lost you anyway. You looked happy with him, finally smiling again. I didn’t want to mess things up, but it caused me physical pain to see you touch him. I wanted to break his arm when I saw him touch you. So I stayed away.”

“You loved me.” Now I’m the one turning away from him.

He definitely said loved. As in past tense. Would things have been different if he’d told me? Before Brent? After? I’m not sure. I love Sawyer. I always have. Even when he pushed me away, but did I love him in that way? Maybe a part of me did. Maybe I still do, but I never even considered the possibility of pursuing it. Our lives are so tangled up it’s hard to separate and analyze all the different threads of feelings. And that’s what I need. Facts. Feelings are so nebulous. Like clouds, they look so solid until you try to close your fingers around them and there’s nothing there. I hate that uncertainty.

“Yes, Everly.”

His hands release my arms as if he can’t handle touching me right now, but I’m sitting so close to him I can feel another part of him hardening. Oh.

“You should have told me.”

“I know. But were you ready to hear it? What would you have done if I’d told you back then? After you lost your dad, you were so fragile. It didn’t feel right to upset your world like that. And then by the time you seemed okay again, you were already with him.”

He’s right. I wasn’t ready five years ago, and I probably still wasn’t ready for a relationship when I started dating Brent, but I still think he should have told me. Not run away and avoided me. That hurt way more than any other rejection could have. It hurt more than my actual breakup with Brent. That’s something to think about.

“I don’t know what I would have done then.” I twist around again, taking stock of my body. Butterflies have started a riot in my stomach, my chest feels tight, and my face is flushed and hot. I don’t think it’s the fire. A flutter of need pulses low in my belly, and I reach up to cup his cheek. “But I know what I want now.”

I stretch up toward him. We’re inches apart when he pulls back, and I curl in on myself at the rejection.

“We shouldn’t, Ev.” His words are like sandpaper on my sensitive skin, chafing.

“Okay.” It’s barely a whisper.

He reaches up to brush a strand of my honey blonde hair behind my ear. “Not because I don’t want to. But you just went through a lot. You’re vulnerable, and I can’t take advantage of you. Not to mention, you’re still recovering from the cold. It would look pretty bad if I had to tell the doctor you lost your toes because I was too busy fucking you.”

His words tear a laugh out of me, but a shiver runs down my back at the image he planted in my brain. That’s never going away. The thought of him naked above me is enough to send my hormones into overdrive. I know how fit he is. This man has earned his muscles with years of hard labor on his family’s ranch. Even the reminder of my thawing toes is no deterrent. They’re hot and achy still, a little pink and itchy, but they’re on the mend. I’m pretty sure there’s not going to be any lasting damage.

“At least it would be a good distraction.” My tongue darts out to moisten my lips and his eyes track the movement.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure how long I can play the gentleman. You know that’s not me. I’m just a cowboy. The remaining threads of self control I was clinging to frayed to a single fragile strand years ago.”

“Well then, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to snap them, should it? My lips curve into a teasing smile, and I reach out, dancing my fingers down his chest to his ridged stomach.

He traps my hands with his own, stilling the motion. “How are your feet doing?”

“They’re fine.” I try not to wince as I wiggle my toes in front of the fire.

He reaches down to feel them, and I gasp.

“Did that hurt?”

“A little, but that’s not why I gasped.” I squirm a little, and it’s his turn to inhale.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. So, what are you going to do to help me out with that?”

“Everly. I know we’re trapped here for the moment, but we are going to have to go back to the real world as soon as this clears up. What then?”

“I don’t know, Sawyer. I don’t have all the answers. What I do know is you just confessed something big to me. And now I want to find out what could have been. I want you. That’s a fact. And I’d bet my meager life savings that you want me to. Why don’t we warm each other up?”

His cheeks puff out as he blows out a breath, emotions flickering across his face as he wars with himself. A bright ball of glee bursts inside. His decision is clear before he says the words.