Chapter 9 #2
“I don’t actually know. But their Christmas lights display has gotten bigger and bigger each year.”
Garrett turns at the only traffic lights in town, heading north away from Main Street.
Older residential blocks lead to the park surrounding a community centre and the community school, and on the other side of that is a newer development.
When Jake built his house as a young contractor, it was the only one on this road.
Now there’s a whole neighbourhood here, and it’s walking distance into town.
“It’s pretty cool to see how much the town has grown since we lived here,” I murmur.
“It’s so big Pine Harbour has rush hour now,” Garrett jokes.
There are a lot of cars ahead of us, even though it’s well after the end of regular work hours. And then we pass a homemade, oversized street sign. Polar Expressway, it reads. And then below that, drive slowly and watch for elves.
“So this is why your dad thought we should make the delivery together.” Garrett sighs. “It’s a thing, like the horse drawn wagons tomorrow.”
I smother a smile. “Thank you for suffering through the overwrought festive fun with me.”
He laughs under his breath. “Don’t pretend you don’t love it. You always loved this stuff. Remember the first winter we had this truck for deliveries and you decorated it with battery powered Christmas lights?”
We both fall silent.
Because he’d growled about it being over the top, but after we finished deliveries, he used the strand of lights to hold my wrists together. My little prisoner, he whispered. Kinky, I whispered back before he kissed me.
And then we had a weirdly wonderful conversation about kink and sex and wanting to learn more about that together.
My throat gets tight.
How disappointed those eighteen-year-olds would be now, to see us at thirty, broken apart and angry.
“We have a lot of memories in this truck,” Garrett finally says.
His voice is rough, and his words catch on my own memories. After a long day being together in the enclosed space of his truck cab, this one shouldn’t feel different. But it is.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “If this bench seat could talk, right?”
He eases the truck forward another few feet, then comes to a stop again. Which is just enough time for my pulse to rocket out of control, because why did I say that?
But when he looks at me, and his gaze is hot and sharp and complicated, I know why I said it.
Because it’s really fucking hard to actually let Garrett go.
Damn it all to hell.
The roughness smooths out of his voice as he holds my gaze. “Sure was easier to do stuff in here than in my new truck.”
I swallow hard. “Why did they do away with bench seats? Consoles just get in the way of….” Jeez, I’m getting lightheaded. “You know.”
He nods. “I know.” Then he smiles, and whoa…. “Good thing that you’re not ovulating anymore. This old truck’s safe tonight.”
“What?” My pulse is pounding in my ears.
The cars ahead of us move again.
He doesn’t answer.
I shift closer to him. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Come on, Roar. We’ve hooked up exactly once a month since August, except for two months where you managed to resist the urge.”
“Well, I mean, like once a month was when the craving was the strongest, so to speak. It’s not that I don’t…
It’s not that you aren’t… Are you fishing for compliments?
Because I’ve already told you that you’re very good looking.
Extra good looking now, in fact. I don’t know what you did with my boyfriend, but you’ve replaced him with like—”
I run out of words.
Garrett just stares at me.
“This is like when a comedian gets tapped to be like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and then they get jacked.” Now I’m rambling. “You did that.”
“I’m not that different.”
“No, you were always hot.” I laugh and grab for my hot chocolate, hiding behind the paper cup. “We shouldn’t be talking about this.”
His eyebrows curve up. “Why not? It’s nicer than fighting. Come on, tell me more about how I was hot when I was a skinny high school kid.”
He was skinny back in the day. A veritable beanpole, but he’d always been strong. Wiry. I take a sip of my drink and think about the advantages of him being whip-lean. “It made it very easy to straddle you on this bench seat, that’s for sure.”
He laughs out loud. “Oh, my God, don’t get me thinking about that.”
Now I’m giggling, too. “We’re stuck in traffic. We don’t have anything else to think about.”
He moves the truck forward another six feet, then grabs his drink and adjusts himself on the driver’s seat. It might be my imagination, but he flexes his thighs like he needs to create more room for his cock, which is…whew. I like that too much.
He clears his throat. “We could literally think about anything else. How about your aunt and your…nephews?”
“Cousins?” I dissolve into uncontrolled laughter. “You forgot the word cousins.”
“I’m distracted. But yeah, let’s, uh, talk about those rapscallions. How old are they now?”
“Three.”
“Three. Great, they’re going to be up early on Christmas morning.” He glances sideways. “Are you ready to wake up early, since you agreed that we could sleep on the couches tomorrow night?”
“It seemed like a reasonable ask,” I mutter, slightly annoyed that he’s changed the subject away from flirting. Not that I want to flirt with him, exactly, but it was fun. “But is this really what you want to think about right now?”
Silence.
Then a groan, and that beautiful sound is the permission I need to say something truly reckless.
“Or would you rather think about how you taught me to grind on your thigh in this tru—”
“Come on.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” But I’m not. I’m turned on and aching.
“Two can play at that game.” He gives me a hooded glare.
“I mean, if we’re going to think about memories that we made in this truck, we should get it right.
I didn’t teach you anything. We taught each other, maybe.
Like when you wanted to jerk me off, but we didn’t know what to do with the mess, so you just brought me to the edge over and over again, and then we stopped, and I went home and looked up if that was a thing because it was hot and then it turned out it was called edging, and you thought that was the funniest thing ever. ”
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “I’d forgotten about that. That was…”
I trail off, a pang of longing shooting through my core. Because I can’t say what I’m thinking.
That was amazing. And so out of reach for us now.
He takes a big gulp of hot chocolate and exhales. “Yeah.”
“We had a lot of good times in this truck.” I fan myself as the traffic in front of us suddenly eases. The moment is broken, and Garrett has to focus on driving again, because people are walking into the road all over the place.
I focus on the lit-up houses on my side of the road.
My sister’s home is just ahead, and it’s the only one not lit up like something right out of a Christmas movie. The pang in my chest twists into concern, and I file that away for later.
Jake and Dani’s house is set further back from the road, down a long lane decorated with candy canes. Solar lights dot a separate pathway “to Santa’s workshop”, and people stream up and down it, but the lane itself is clear for our truck to pull up in front of the open garage.
Jake crosses to greet us with a big grin, a handshake for Garrett, and a warm hug for me. “Did you guys get roped into delivery duty right after arriving, or what?”
“We got fed dinner first, it’s all good.” Garrett gestures to the back of the truck. “You having a Christmas tree emergency?”
Jake laughs. But then his face turns serious, and he makes careful eye contact with me. “Full disclosure, I think Dani was hoping Cassie would deliver them.”
My heart thumps against my ribs. “Is Nate here?”
He shakes his head. “No. No. She wouldn’t do that. She just wanted to see Cassie, but with all of this, she couldn’t get away to come over to the farm. Nate’s, uh, taken off for the holidays.”
“What?”
He raises his hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger. He left after they fought. So if Cassie wants to come home…”
“And be alone?” I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t think so. She’s staying at the farm.”
“Okay, okay.”
His wife comes flying out of the house, a baby in a fleece bunting suit on her hip. “I’m so sorry I was inside. Hi Garrett,” she adds breathlessly before enveloping me in a tight hug. “So good to see you, Rory. How was the drive?”
“Fine, but a shock to arrive to a crying sister. What do you know?”
“Not much.” Dani passes her child to Jake. “Come on, I’ll help with the trees and we can talk.”
She takes one of the trees from the truck bed. I put one on my shoulder, and Garrett grabs the last two. We circle away from the light and noise at the front of the house, to her back deck. She has four tree stands waiting.
“So this wasn’t a complete ruse to get my sister to come back?” I ask.
Dani winces. “No, of course not. This is a secret, but I’m pregnant again. This is how we’re going to tell our families tomorrow.”
“Oh my Gosh, Dani!” I jump up and down, so excited for her. “That’s amazing news. How far along are you?”
“Twelve weeks. It’s a little unexpected.” Her cheeks turn pink. “We spaced the first three kids out much better than this.”
“It’ll be all right,” I promise her. “I’m so happy to be in on the secret!”
“You can tell your parents,” she says. “How are they?”
“They’re good. Busy with the farm, you know. How are yours?”
“Enjoying retirement.” She rolls her eyes. “I wish we could make them talk.”
I groan. “I know.”
Then a child comes running, looking for his mom.
“I thought we could talk more,” she says apologetically. “Are we doing diner lunch on the 26th?”
When I started my residency, and the Christmas break got squished down to a few days, we started carving out a dedicated Cousin Lunch where most of the Minelli cousins and the Kincaid cousins all descend on Mac’s Diner—sans parents who don’t speak to each other.
And also without kids. “Of course we are. I’ll make sure Cassie is there, too. See you in a couple days!”
Garrett says his congratulations to Dani as she’s dragged away, then we’re alone in her backyard.
“Wow, four kids,” he says under his breath. Then he rubs his jaw and gestures. “Let’s get back, I guess.”
Regret slices through me. Followed by deep, frustrated jealousy that at some point, Garrett’s going to meet a girl who wants to pop out baby after baby for him.
It’s not that I don’t want kids. I do. Theoretically, in the future.
I’ve always wanted them…later. And now I’m thirty years old and my cousin who is only five years older than me has her fourth on the way and I’m eight months out of a breakup with the only guy I could imagine spawning the next generation of neurotic Minelli girls with.
Or Minelli-Kincaid girls. Or just Kincaid girls, because they don’t have enough girls on that side of the family, and my mom’s side is nothing but girls all the way back, so I’d probably—
“Hang on.” Garrett catches me by the arm, spinning me around just before I reach the front of the house and all the lit up displays and the busybody neighbours checking it out.
All the breath whooshes out of me as I collide with his hard chest.
He wraps one of his arms around my back, bending me into the glow of the Christmas lights as he gently plucks at my hair with his free hand. “You’ve got some pine needles...here.”
I stare up at him.
Even through our winter coats, I can feel the steel of his muscles banding around me, holding me tight.
He’s letting his usually close-cropped beard thicken, like he always has over the holidays, and his blue-green eyes are glittering with intense focus as he de-Christmases my hair.
I’m sorry, I want to say, but the words don’t come out. This isn’t the time or the place.
“There you go,” he murmurs.
Then his gaze flicks to meet mine. Heat flares low in my belly.
A different kind of awareness than our dirty talk in the truck.
This is way more dangerous. His eyes darken, his brows furrowing into a frown, but the moment doesn’t break, it only intensifies.
And there’s a flare of something that makes me lightheaded.
Slowly, his attention slides from my eyes to my mouth.
His hand slides out of my hair and along my jaw.
His thumb brushes at the corner of my mouth, then drops to catch me under the chin, holding my face up, as if he’s afraid I’ll look away and break this connection.
I should.
But I don’t want to.
I really, really don’t want to.
“Garrett,” I whisper.
He leans in, curving into the embrace. But just as I think he’s going to drop his mouth down onto mine, as I’m pressing up onto my toes inside my winter boots, there’s laughter very close by.
“Oh, sorry,” someone says, laughing as they bump into Garrett, a small crowd spilling around the corner of the house, intruding on our stolen private moment.
He turns us so I’m protected from the press of people, but he lets go of me at the same time.
By the time we make our way around them and wave goodbye to Jake and Dani in the garage-turned-Santa’s workshop, Garrett’s not looking at me and the almost kiss feels almost-imagined.