Page 135 of Snowed In

Patting his back gently, I wriggle to the side to slide out from under him. “So… your brothers seemed nice,” I venture, cringing at my small talk efforts.

His exasperated sigh makes me tense at what’s likely to come, but as he shifts, he doesn’t go far, nestling on his side right next to me. His palm rests on my chest and softly strokes over my heart. “Yeah… I’m sorry about that. When you never answered my dinner invitation, I assumed I wouldn’t hear from you, and they invited themselves over to watch the game.”

Ouch. Another reminder of my idiocy, although I’m surprised he’s the one apologizing.

Chuckling, I pat his hand awkwardly, trying to ignore how we’re still sex sticky. Even as I think it, he snags his sweatpants and starts wiping us up. Ronny the cleaner—mystifying.

“Well, I guess it wasn’t an important dinner, though, if you were able to cancel,” I venture, trying to ease my guilt and ignore that I’ll probably be booted out in a few minutes.Fuck. Work is going to be so awkward from now on.

Frowning, he tosses his pants to the floor and leans over me. I swallow back a lump in my throat when one of his fingers wraps around a curl at the top of my forehead. “It was to me,” he murmurs. “I wanted to try and impress you, sweep you off your feet with my cooking, not give you leftover pizza and let you be harassed by my brothers.”

“Wait… Your request was so you could make me dinner? Like… a dinner date? Just the two of us?”

Smiling sadly, he bends down. His lips dust softly over mine, making my toes tingle.

“Yeah. So much for giving you a happy new year, huh?” he scoffs, reaching down for the comforter and pulling it over us before drawing me against him. “Can I make it up to you tomorrow?”

Tomorrow?

I think Ronny just tucked us in. As in, I’m not being kicked out. And I’m going to be doted on tomorrow night.

“You’re scaring me,” he says, tensing against me. “Did I screw this up already?”

I think I’m done worrying. Worrying and self-doubt are exhausting.

He said he likes everything about me but that, and I want nothing more than to give him something in return for our complete one-eighty. Leaning over, I kiss him with all I have left in me.

“No. You can make me dinner as often as you want.”

The smile he gives me is brighter than any New Year’s Eve fireworks; setting something inside of me free I hadn’t realized was holding me prisoner. It wasn’t Sal, my mother, or a snowplow that rescued me from that cabin. It was Ronny, rescuing my heart.

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