Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Wear something warm or you’ll freeze to death,” Travis tells me the morning of the New Year’s Eve party.
I should’ve listened.
It’s not that I’m wearing a tiny dress and showing my bare skin, but I underestimated how cold it was going to be. My puffer jacket, wool hat, and thick scarf are barely keeping me warm as I try my hardest not to chatter my teeth.
“It’s cold as balls, isn’t it?” Charlie comments before taking a sip of his mulled wine. He points at the makeshift tent whoever organized the party put over this area in case it rained. “It’s not doing shit.”
“It’s really not,” Lola agrees, puffing hot air into her gloved hands. I curse myself for forgetting my own gloves at home.
“Just one more hour until midnight.” Charlie finishes his drink. “You’d be warmer if you drank something hot. Want me to get you something, Allie Cat? Maybe some mulled wine?”
I’m tempted, but I tell him, “No, thanks. I’ll be fine.”
If I got drunk and Travis had to drag me to his house, I would never recover. And I’ve already embarrassed myself in front of that man enough to last several lifetimes, thank you very much.
Speaking of my boss, I have no idea where he is. We left his farmhouse together, and I saw Uncle Neil and Barbara when we got here, but after Charlie and Lola spotted me and brought me into their friend group, I lost sight of Travis.
“Hey, guys.” One of Charlie’s friends—Tom—returns with a beer in hand and a mildly drunk smile on his face. I met him an hour ago, and he seems harmless enough despite the wink he throws my way. “Are you having a good time?”
He’s a little older than us, said he works in the entertainment industry, and is visiting his family for Christmas. I tell myself there’s no harm in talking to this guy even if he’s a little flirty. Didn’t I want to become more social? It could be my New Year’s resolution.
“I can’t feel my hands or my nose, but yeah. How about you?”
He smiles. “More than great.”
“Leave my Allie Cat alone,” Charlie says, but there’s no heat in his voice. I think he’s too drunk for that.
A slight breeze hits my face, and I give up on my fight to stop my teeth from chattering. I should’ve brought a freaking quilt. Or better yet, I should’ve stayed under the very warm roof of Travis’s house.
“I’m just playing around,” Tom says, sliding an arm around Charlie’s shoulders as he chugs down his beer, his eyes on me. “You know that, right?”
I try my hardest not to wince. “Totally.”
Tom opens his mouth to say something else, but he doesn’t get the chance.
Something heavy and warm settles over my shoulders then, its weight so sudden that my heart leaps with panic. But Charlie is glancing over my shoulder and isn’t exactly hiding his smile, so it must not be a serial killer.
“I told you to wear warm clothes.”
I don’t need to look behind me to know who that deep voice belongs to.
“I’m wearing warm clothes,” I argue, a white cloud coming out of my lips.
My cheeks heat up—and not from the sudden warmth—when I notice my body has disappeared under a gigantic snow jacket that can only belong to one man.
“You’ve been shivering for the past hour,” my boss says, all while keeping both of his hands on my shoulders. He must notice we’re not alone because he adds, “Charlie.”
“Hey, boss.” My friend and co-worker glances between us with a playful glint in his eyes I could kill him for. “Did you come to take Allie Cat away?”
His fingers splay across my shoulders, so long that they reach the base of my neck. His touch isn’t rough or demanding, but a steady presence that reminds me he’s here. That he’s got my back.
Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
“Unless you want to stay,” he tells me, his breath grazing my ear.
His thumbs start applying pressure in the back of my neck, massaging it. Oh God.
“Allie Cat?” Charlie eyes me with a knowing look, which makes me think he probably said something I didn’t hear because my head is full of not-so-appropriate thoughts about the man at my back.
“I’ll go with Travis for a bit,” I manage to say, my heart beating so fast, I’m afraid the whole party can hear it.
It’s Lola who gives me a knowing smile and says, “You guys have fun.”
I don’t imagine the hands that leave my shoulders to travel down my arms, only for one to settle on my back. Wordlessly, I wave goodbye at them and follow Travis into the throng awaiting the New Year.
We don’t stop until we reach an area surrounded by food trucks and picnic tables. Sitting at one of them are Uncle Neil, Barbara, and a few of Travis’s friends I recognize from that birthday party at the bar.
“Allie-girl.” Uncle Neil throws his wrinkly hands in the air when he sees me, a huge smile on his lips. He gets up with more ease than I would’ve expected from a seventy-something-year-old and pulls me into a hug, away from his nephew’s touch. “What the hell are you wearing? I’m not up-to-date with the latest fashion trends.”
I smile and hug him back. “I’m afraid I’m not either. This is Travis’s jacket.”
He gives me a friendly pat on my cheek, reminding me of the grandfather I never met. “Is my boy good to you?”
“He’s the best.” I have no clue if Uncle Neil knows about my new living situation, so I don’t bring it up. I lean in conspiratorially. “But he’s a big grump.”
The old man throws his head back in laughter. “Won’t argue with you on that. You two sit with us. I’ll get drinks.”
Travis doesn’t sit with me, instead choosing to stand behind my seat, his hands bracing on my backrest. The gesture feels intimate for some reason.
Barbara leans over the table and gives me a smile. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight, Allie. Are you having fun?”
Snuggled in Travis’s snow jacket, I spend the next hour talking to everyone from Uncle Neil to Barbara to some of Travis’s friends and other people I don’t know the names of. Everyone treats me like I’ve been part of their inner circle for years. They all want to know what Travis is like as a boss, which I find funny because I know they expected some dirt, but I have nothing but good things to say about him.
Except that some days it feels like something crawled up his ass and died there, which gets me a bunch of laughs and a shoulder squeeze from the man behind me.
“The fireworks are gonna start any minute now,” Uncle Neil says after a while, promptly standing from his seat and holding out a hand in Barbara’s direction. “Let’s move closer to the shore before it gets too crowded.”
Something between worry and warning passes in his eyes when he looks at his nephew next, and I get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. But I brush it off, concluding that maybe it has something to do with Uncle Neil’s health, and I don’t have a right to ask about that.
Barbara clings to Uncle Neil’s arm, both heading for the lake, and I can’t help but go up to my boss and ask him the one thing I can’t stop thinking about.
“Travis,” I half whisper once I’m close enough. He falls into step beside me. “Are Barbara and your uncle… you know, a thing?”
He raises an eyebrow. “A thing?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” he says, but when I glance up at him, the corner of his lips is twitching upward. Cute .
I nudge his hard arm. “Come on. Give me a free pass to be nosey.”
My eyes might be playing tricks on me, but I’m pretty sure that’s a smirk on his face. “I didn’t peg you for a busybody.”
“I have my moments.”
“You do, huh?” The weight of his hand moves up to my shoulder, the one furthest from him. And I don’t overthink it too much as those long, thick fingers span around it, holding me against him as we walk. “She’s his special friend.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means they’re partners. My uncle says he’s too old for girlfriends, and he doesn’t want to get married.” He drops his hand when our group stops moving just a few feet away from the water. “Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
“Kinda.” And because I want to take advantage of one of his very rare playful moods, I gather the courage I didn’t know I had and ask him, “What about you?”
His eyes remain on the lake, his head towering above everybody else’s. “What about me?”
He’s playing coy. Too bad my boldness is bigger than my fear of rejection tonight.
“Do you have a special friend?”
I’m not imagining the way his body leans into mine. “Why do you want to know?”
I’ve never been more grateful for the darkness as I feel my cheeks heating up. “I’m a busybody, remember?”
I tune out the loud crowd around us, too aware of the man beside me. A small eternity seems to go by before I get an answer.
“No special friends for me. Haven’t had one in a while.”
“Oh.” I hate myself a little for being so relieved about this before I realize it wouldn’t matter. Travis is my boss and landlord, and nothing is going to happen between us. Ever.
“I don’t have any special friends either,” I say because I want him to know this for some reason.
He takes me aback by asking, “What about Charlie?”
“Charlie?” That gets him a frown. “You think I’m dating Charlie?”
He slides me an unreadable look. “Maybe not dating, but something else.”
He thinks I’m sleeping with him?
I fight the urge to gag. Charlie is like a younger brother to me. Just the thought of him like that makes my stomach turn. But on the outside, my stare is nothing but calm. “Why? Because I hugged him once?”
When Travis looks away again, I don’t miss the tick in his jaw. “You seem close.”
Why does he sound so serious all of a sudden?
“Am I not allowed to be friends with my co-workers?” I ask him genuinely. If I’m doing something wrong that could cost me my job, I would like to know. Although, knowing Travis, if my friendship with Charlie were a real issue, he would’ve already warned me about it.
“Of course you are,” he says. “Forget about it.”
I don’t understand why he’s being so weird about this, but I don’t have time to ask because the first explosion of red and blue goes off over our heads, and everyone around us starts cheering.
Parents put their children on their shoulders, and couples start snuggling against each other. Travis’s arm is still touching the side of my body, and even though he might not hear me over the fireworks, I still say, “Charlie is just my friend. We don’t have feelings for each other. Trust me on that.”
I feel his scorching stare on my face, but my eyes stay on the sky.
Travis says nothing else as the fireworks show goes on. I’m enthralled by the beauty of it and the sense of being part of a community, of being surrounded by so many people for the first time in so long. I don’t remember the last time I welcomed the New Year like this, and now that I’ve had a taste, I’m not sure I’ll want to spend another December 31 alone.
I watch the fireworks until I notice something.
Every time a firework goes off, Travis flinches. It’s a small twitch of his hands, almost imperceptible, but I see it.
Knowing Travis, he’ll probably brush me off if I mention it. But when he flinches again, I decide his grunt of rejection will be worth it.
“Are you okay?”
That hard gaze slides down to me, and he gives me one single nod.
A nod that means nothing three seconds later when another explosion brightens the night sky and his hand twitches again.
Without thinking about the implications or consequences, I grab Travis’s hand and give it a squeeze. At first, I think he’s going to pull away. That would be the most Travis thing to do in this situation.
Instead, he starts tracing soft circles on my skin with his thumb every time a firework goes off.
The cold in my body melts away at the tenderness of his touch, at the fact that he’s seeking my comfort.
And for the first time, I wonder if there’s a chance—a very tiny one—that Travis feels the same for me.