The Relationship Clause

Chapter 20

“Okay, I’m ready,”Junie calls from the bedroom.

I jump from my seat on the couch where I’ve been sweating for the last fifteen minutes in my snow gear, waiting for her to get ready. Her clomping, boot-shod feet announce her entrance, and I turn to see something akin to the Pink Panther lumbering into the living room.

I can’t help it—I burst out laughing.

Junie’s smile lights up, and she looks down at herself proudly. “Do you like it?”

“Do I like it?” I circle her so I can take in every angle. “It’s hot pink.” And I do mean, hot. How can this woman make even a baggy snowsuit look attractive?

“I know!” She squeals and strikes a pose. “The guy at the rental place told me I was crazy. It probably clashes with my hair, but I don’t care. I love it.”

I shake my head firmly and, without thinking, tug gently on her ponytail. “It doesn’t clash. It’s perfect.”

A blush creeps up her cheeks along with a faint smile. “Thanks. Shall we, as they say, ‘hit the slopes?’”

“I’ll grab our gear.”

I was a little worried after she closed herself in her bedroom that I’d gone too far earlier. I was so forward and blunt. I didn’t set out to say and do all those things, but they felt right to say in the moment.

The whole, “establish clear rules about PDA” thing honestly started out as a way to gauge her comfort level with me and figure out what we would be able to get away with in front of my dad. But then, the closer I got to her and the more I read her reactions to me and saw her walls coming down, well, it was fuel to a fire.

I’m craving her touch more than ever now. No, more than that, I’m craving plain intimacy in any sense of the word. Whether she’ll let me hold her hand and touch her cheek or whether she’ll open up to me about what’s going on in that beautiful head of hers, I’ll take whatever I can get. Both would be preferable, but I’ve got to go slow. She seems like she could spook and run at any moment.

Except, now, walking through the lodge together, joking about fashion blunders we’ve made in the past, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like maybe something’s shifted. I don’t know what changed or how, but I’m here for it.

“That was the last time I ever wore orange,” Junie says as we leave the lodge. A gust of cold air blasts us as soon as we step outside, and Junie gasps, freezing on the spot.

I stop, turning back to her. “Everything okay?”

“Um, yeah, cool, cool. I was, um… Is it going to be like this the whole time we’re skiing?”

“Like what?”

“Like, you know, um, like death? Frigid and cold and like death?”

I smirk, thinking maybe she’s joking, but then she starts backing up toward the lodge again.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m super serious. Pneumonia serious. Find my body in a snowbank frozen stiff, serious.”

“Juniper—”

“Owen! Stop smiling at me like that!”

“Sorry, but come on, you knew we were coming here to ski. Did you think that meant balmy summer temperatures?”

Her eyes narrow, and her lip turns out into a small pout. I wish I could snap a picture. Actually, why not? I grab my phone from my pocket and start snapping away.

“What are you doing? Hey. Hey, stop taking pictures. Owen!” She charges me, making a swipe at my phone, but I’m a picture-taking ninja and hold it out of her reach, still clicking.

“Stop laughing,” she insists, even though there’s laughter in her voice too. “It’s not funny. I’m a good little southern girl, okay? I wasn’t made for this snow and cold.”

“Oh, yeah? What were you made for then?”

She jumps, and I let her knock my phone out of my hand. It goes sprawling onto a snowbank, but I don’t care. I have Junie right where I want her. I wrap my arms around her, pink snowsuit and all, holding her tight against me.

“What were you made for?” I prompt again.

She shrugs coyly. “Looking pretty while I gaze out at the snow-covered mountains from the safety of a fire-warmed room, of course. Never actually romping around in the snow.”

“Is that right?” I scratch my chin, pretending to seriously consider her words.

“Yes, that’s right. So, you go have fun. Hit those slopes, experience the fresh powder, make some snow angels for me. I’ll think of you while I’m inside, all nice and cozy.”

“You know what?” I say, slowly walking us back away from the lodge.

“What?”

“You’re cute. So cute, I almost want to let you win.”

“Oh? Just almost?”

“Yeah. But I’m not letting you off that easily. We came here to ski.”

She cocks her head. “I thought we came here to make your dad believe we were actually dating.”

“That too. But besides that, I came here to ski, and I was hoping to share that experience with you.” I put on my most convincing set of puppy-dog eyes, trying to channel Shane. He always pulls off puppy-dog eyes. “Please, Junie? Will you try skiing for me? One time. I promise I’ll make it up to you if you hate it.”

Junie bunches her lips together, which are looking more and more kissable by the second. “How will you make it up to me?”

“That is to be determined. I don’t want to give you any ideas. What if I promised something so amazing, you pretend to hate skiing even if you realize you love it?”

“Pssh, yeah, right. Like that’s something I would do,” she says, batting her eyelashes innocently.

After retrieving my phone from the snow, we make our way to the ski rental area. Junie’s grip on my arm tightens. I can feel her unease.

“Don’t worry, Junie,” I say, hugging her close to my side as best I can without making her fall. “It’s easy once you get the hang of it. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

After getting our gear and a short mechanics lesson, we head to the bunny slopes where I start showing her the basics. She wobbles and falls a few times. I can tell she’s a little embarrassed, but honestly, it’s cute as heck seeing her a little out of her element.

“I think I belong over there,” she jokes after falling for the fifth time. She points to a group of children on skis the size of toothpicks.

I can’t help laughing. “Come on, you’re already improving. Each time, you stay up a little longer.”

My words turn out to be true. Eventually, she does start getting the hang of it, and her confidence grows with each small success. The first time she skis down the bunny slope without falling, I catch the wide grin she’s sporting beneath her reflective goggles.

“I did it!” she squeals, doing a funny little hop that almost topples her again. “Did you see? I did it!”

“You were amazing!” Before I can think better of it, I grab her up in a bear hug. It’s the wrong move, because her skis tangle up in my legs, and then we’re both sideways on the ground, laughing and breathless. Her goggles have gone off-kilter, and her nose and cheeks are as red as cherry tomatoes from the cold.

Lying there, cold and warm at the same time with snow creeping into the waist of my pants, I’ve never been more attracted to her. I tear my goggles off and push hers the rest of the way off her face.

Her laughter dies, and all I can think about is the sparkle of the snow in her hair splayed out beneath her and how perfectly it matches the sparkle in her eyes. Her lips are raspberry-red and look twice as sweet.

Then, without warning, she kisses me. Compared to our first kiss, this one is nothing record-breaking. It’s brief. A brush, really, but it’s no less charged.

I blink, stunned, my lips close to hers. Her breath tickles my mouth, and I want so badly to get a better taste, drink her in, show her how I feel about her, but I won’t force it. She’s still not sure about this. Not sure about us. There’s no way I’m going to give her a reason to run. So I wait, a breath away, hovering over her mouth and reveling in the temptation itself instead.

There’s a war going on behind her eyes. I can practically feel it. What I wouldn’t give to get the tiniest peek inside her mind.

“I have a confession to make,” I whisper. My voice sounds husky and deep even to my ears. “I didn’t come to Pete’s every day for the coffee. The truth is, I hate coffee. Always have. What I came for every day was to see you.”

Why I choose this moment to reveal this to her, I have no idea. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between my brain and my body. But the truth is out there now. All I can do is wait to see what she does with it.

Her eyebrows lift slightly, and her gaze darts back and forth between my eyes, eventually coming to rest on my lips. Her chin tilts toward me. An invitation? A question? How should I answer?

Junie bites her lower lip, and then they part a fraction of an inch. “I think that maybe I’ve known that for a little while now.”

I trace the outline of her lips with my gaze, a question I’ve been wanting to ask again for a while burning in my chest. “What does Mr. TDC stand for?”

Her mouth quirks up at the corners, and for a second, I worry she might not answer. “Mr. Tall, Dark, and Caffeinated.”

I chuckle, liking the nickname even more now. “Does all of this make you want to run for the hills?”

She shakes her head. Snow crunches beneath her from the movement, and I move my arm so her head isn’t directly on the snow anymore. “I’m always wanting to run,” she says. “But…I’m trying to ignore that impulse because…”

“Because?”

“Because…” But instead of finishing her sentence, Junie yanks me by my coat, crushing her mouth against mine and pulling me under the devastating power of her kiss.

And I mean devastating. There’s no way I’ll recover from this. I want to savor every microsecond and stretch them out into eternity upon eternity. This is the hit I’ve been craving, the connection I’ve longed for. She’s unlocking parts of me I never thought could open. It should be scary and painful, but it’s the opposite. It’s effortless and exhilarating.

Her mouth moves against mine in an intricate dance. Her lips tease and tempt, playful and passionate. A lightning storm of responses fires off in my body. If we stay here on the snow long enough, we’ll probably melt everything we’re touching. They’ll have to close down the slopes and wait for another storm so people can ski again.

My breathing becomes ragged. I can’t get enough of her. Literally. We’re covered in snow gear, my hands included, so there are layers between us. It makes me want far more than I should, but at the same time, it’s like it heightens the kiss itself. There’s one thing to focus on, and I could spend an entire year right here and still not feel like I’ve had enough. There’s so much to study, so much to explore.

“Eww, Mommy, they’re kissing!”

The squeaky little voice brings us both back to reality. I break the seal on our mouths and lift my head to find a tiny human dressed in a bright-pink snowsuit similar to Junie’s. She’s pointing a gloved finger at us. The woman beside her frowns and turns her daughter away from us. Even though I can’t see the woman’s eyes, I know she’s glaring at us like we were about to do something X-rated.

“Come on, honey. Let’s go find daddy,” the woman says, ushering her child away.

As their footsteps crunch away, Junie and I look at each other, and then we burst out laughing. We lie there laughing so much, I get a stitch in my side, and we get a few more glares from parents.

Eventually, we pull ourselves up, untangling our legs and skis and finding our forgotten goggles. “Well,” I say with a glance at the sun’s position in the sky, “I think we’ve got time for a little more skiing before dinner. Unless, of course, you’d rather retire to our room for a little RR?”

Junie’s lips twitch into a smirk. “I think any RR with you would be dangerous.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?” I say, grinning.

“No, I certainly can’t. Come on. I’m ready to try something other than the bunny hill.”

“Oh? Does that mean you might actually like skiing? You’re admitting defeat?”

She pauses for a long moment, then nods slowly, her eyes conveying something more than the surface of her words. “Yes, Owen Ferguson. I’m admitting defeat.”