Chapter 17 Clara #2
By then I had already started a new life in the city and was barely back in Star Harbor.
I wished I could have known her, but it felt too risky admitting that aloud to Wes.
Instead, I sneaked a glance at him, catching the way his eyes softened as he watched me attempt another row.
His expression was less guarded. Less hollow.
We were just two people in a living room. Knitting. Reading. Trading barbs over fantasy porn. Sharing tiny shards of our souls and pretending like it was no big deal.
We were also two people who’d almost kissed in a kitchen, who’d both leaned in, who both knew exactly what they were doing when they didn’t mention it now.
My body knew which version of the story it believed.
My heartbeat ticked up. I focused on the yarn, on the small satisfaction of a stitch that actually looked right, and told myself I was just sitting here because the lighting was good.
Not because I liked the way Wes Vaughn looked in his slutty little glasses, sprawled across his couch, book in hand, eyes occasionally flicking up to check on me like I was something worth watching.
Over the back of the armchair, the world outside was blinding and soft.
Overnight, more snow had fallen, smoothing out yesterday’s footprints, filling in every dip and rut until the backyard looked spotless.
The gentle slope behind the house rolled down toward the line of pines, the kind of hill kids would take one look at and immediately weaponize with plastic sleds and no sense of self-preservation.
The sky was a bright, hard blue. Sunlight shattered off the drifts, making the whole yard look like it had been hit with a glitter bomb.
A weird little fizz of energy went through me. Fresh snow always felt like a do-over. No tracks. No evidence. Just possibility.
“We should go sledding.” The words left my mouth before my brain had a chance to dress them up as a suggestion and not a declaration.
Wes’s head snapped up. “What?”
I nodded toward the window, feigning nonchalance as I poked the needle through another stitch. “Sledding. You know, sit on something questionably safe, hurl yourself down a hill, pray you don’t die. It’s very therapeutic.”
His brows climbed like they were trying to escape his forehead. “You’re not serious.”
“Dead serious.”
He shifted in his seat. “That’s kid shit, Clara.”
“Kids have the right idea,” I said. “They fling themselves at fun with zero dignity. We should all be so brave.”
He stared at me like I’d suggested we go run a marathon barefoot on broken glass. “Absolutely not.”
“No sled?” I asked lightly. “Because I bet there’s one in the garage. If there isn’t, we improvise. Trash can lid, cardboard, plastic storage bin. I am nothing if not versatile.”
“It’s icy.” His voice went flatter, edged with something that wasn’t just annoyance. “I’m not breaking my neck so you can relive your childhood.”
My chest squeezed. There it was, under the gruff—the pulse of fear he would never admit out loud.
“We’ll pick a small hill,” I said, keeping my tone calm, practical. “Nothing wild. You set the pace. We stop when you say stop.”
His jaw flexed. “That’s not the point.”
“Sure it is.” I slid another stitch off the needle, my hands steady even though my heart had kicked up a notch. “You need some fresh air. I need an excuse to justify the number of cinnamon rolls I just ate. It’s a win-win.”
He huffed out a humorless sound. “You say that like it’s already happening.”
I let my gaze flick over him—broad shoulders, strong arms, a body that could absolutely handle a half–baby hill in the backyard no matter what his brain told him—and then met his eyes again.
“I’m simply suggesting it.” I held his gaze and shrugged. “You’re the one deciding whether we chicken out.”
His eyes narrowed, heat and something sharper sparking there. “I’m not afraid of a damn hill.”
Wes had walked right into my challenge and couldn’t back down. “I know. That’s why we should go.”
The quiet around us hummed and Wes considered my offer. Outside, the sunlight caught the slope behind the house and made it glow. Inside, Wes Vaughn glared at me like he wanted to say no on principle . . . and some traitorous part of him was already picturing the snow.
We stood at the top of the little hill behind Wes’s house, breath puffing white, bundled within an inch of our lives.
The yard dipped in a slow, steady slope toward the pines, the trees standing in a dark, watchful line.
Beyond them, the narrow path cut toward the dunes and the water—a pale suggestion of the lake through the branches, gray blue and endless.
Getting out here had taken longer than I’d expected.
Wes moved carefully on the snow, testing each step like the ground might give way.
His boot would go down, then there’d be a subtle shift of his weight, his jaw working as he recalibrated.
It was cautious, measured. Not timid. Just a man familiar with what happened when your footing betrayed you.
We’d found two sleds hanging in the garage rafters—one red, one blue, both a little scuffed but still solid. The blue one sat on the packed snow now, pointed downhill. Wes stood beside it like it had personally offended him.
“This is stupid,” he muttered.
I flipped my scarf back over my shoulder. “You’ve said that three times.”
“Because it’s stupid three times.”
His shoulders were tight beneath his coat, muscles bunched around his neck like his body was braced for impact before he’d even sat down. His gloved hand flexed on the rope at the front of the sled, testing it, then dropping it, then picking it up again.
“If I eat shit,” he added, “I’m suing you.”
His mouth twitched, like he wanted to be annoyed but the corner of it hadn’t gotten the memo. He swallowed it down, eyes tracking the hill instead. My boots crunched as I stepped around him, checking the way the sled rested on the snow.
Up close, I could see the nerves he thought he was hiding. The way his thigh tightened when he shifted his weight. The faint hitch in his breath when he looked down the slope and then away.
I crouched beside the sled and straightened it out, nudging the runners into a cleaner line. “Sit,” I said.
He shot me a look. “Don’t talk to me like I’m the dog.”
“Then stop acting like one,” I said lightly. “Come on. It’s a baby hill. If I rolled you down it in a sleeping bag, you’d just look cozy.”
He huffed, but after a second he accepted my arm as he lowered himself down, movements stiff and careful. His hands went to either side of the sled, fingers pressing into the edges like he was anchoring himself.
I moved in front of him, boots on either side of the sled’s nose, blocking his view of the drop so he had to look at me.
wHis eyes lifted, hood shadowing the top of his face. The wind had put color in his cheeks, making him look more alive than I’d seen him in weeks.
“This is a terrible idea,” he said.
“It’s a tiny hill and fresh powder.”
“Things go wrong on tiny hills too.”
“True,” I said. “But I am very dedicated to not having to explain to my mother that I killed her favorite contractor in a low-impact sledding incident.”
“Real comforting, Duchess.”
“You’re the one who’s acting like a princess. Ready?”
He opened his mouth, about to start another argument or give an excuse to cover the fear I could feel coming off him in waves. “I still think this is a terrible idea.”
“That’s small-dick behavior, Vaughn.” My eyebrows bounced as I lowered my gaze to meet his. “And I’ve seen it, so . . .”
The words hung there, suspended between us in the cold, white air.
His eyes went wide.
He just stared at me like I’d hauled off and slapped him across the face. Shock hit first, cracking through his expression so fast I almost bit my tongue to keep from laughing. Then it shifted—slow, dark, molten—into something else entirely.
Heat.
His gaze dropped, rapid and automatic, a flicker down my face, my coat, like he was replaying the memory whether he wanted to or not.
“Jesus, Clara.” His voice came out rough. He stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “You can’t just—”
“Name the thing we’re both thinking about?” I lifted a shoulder. “Too late.”
Something flickered in his eyes—half outrage, half arousal, full of things we had no business opening up out here in the snow.
“That is absolutely a violation of the roommate code,” he said, trying for unaffected but landing somewhere closer to wrecked. “Weaponizing . . . that.”
“Relax.” I stood to my full height. “It was a compliment.”
I had definitely crossed a line, but there was no taking it back. He knew I’d liked what I saw. I knew he knew. The truth of it sat there, hot and dangerous, right next to the fear he kept trying to dress up as irritation.
He opened his mouth, maybe to regain control again, maybe to throw another excuse on the fire.
I didn’t let him.
“You’re not afraid of this hill.” I planted my hands on my hips. “You’re scared of what happens if you trust your body and it lets you down again.”
His jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle jump. I thought he might actually tell me to go to hell and haul himself back up the slope.
The wind tugged at the ends of my scarf. Snow glittered around us, bright and indifferent.
“News flash, Vaughn,” I said softly. “You already lived through the worst thing. This?” I motioned down the hill. “This is just gravity and bad decisions. It’s choosing fun.”
His gaze searched my face, something raw and aching in it.
I smiled, sharp and bright, letting the wicked edge slide back in. “Besides,” I added, “if you bail now, I’m telling everyone in town you backed out after I complimented your dick.”
He huffed out a startled sound that was almost a laugh, eyes squeezing shut for half a second like he couldn’t believe me.
When they opened again, that hot, dark spark was still there.
“You’re insane,” he muttered.
“Yup,” I said. “Ready?”
“No.”
“Good enough.”
Before he could protest, I planted both hands on the back of the sled and shoved.
It jerked forward, then launched, plastic scraping over packed snow before catching and flying. Wes’s shout punched the air—half curse, half wild, startled sound that ricocheted off the trees and slid down my spine like a live current.
He shot down the hill in a spray of powder, shoulders hunched, hands gripping, the blue sled cutting a clean path through untouched white.
For one suspended heartbeat, he looked less like a man braced for disaster and more like someone who’d been yanked headfirst into something terrifying and maybe, just maybe, a little bit fun.
A laugh ripped out of me, bright and breathless.
I watched him hurtle toward the pines, my pulse racing to keep up, and knew with bone-deep certainty that whatever waited at the bottom of that hill, for both of us, there was no shoving this back uphill.