Page 25 of Snowbound

It’s Gabe’s chest.

I sit up with a start. My sudden movement wakes him up, and a hot flush races down my face, making me beetroot red.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble.

“What…?” He groans, blinking sleep out of his eyes. As he realizes what’s happening, his back straightens and his own cheeks flush.

He gets up briskly, looks down at me and says, “I’m going to the kitchen,” before I can say anything else. Then he marches briskly off, leaving me gaping on the sofa.

It’s almost cute seeing him flustered like this. It’s certainly worlds away from the unlovable, grumpy Gabe that I first met when I got here.

It’s like he didn’t know what to do with himself, like he didn’t know where to put his hands or direct his gaze. I don’t know him well at all, but I feel like I know him enough by now to know that running away was a coping mechanism for him.

In honesty, if he hadn’t been the first to run, I wouldn’t have been far behind.

I don’t remember falling asleep last night. I barely remember what we did at all. What I do know is that falling asleep on the sofa was not the plan.

The worst part is that I can’t say I hated it.

It’s been a long time since I woke up in someone’s arms, and even longer since I could begin to say it was with someone I was attracted to.

Not that I am attracted to Gabe, of course. He does have a certain rugged handsomeness about him, and I’m sure that if he smiled, he’d be the kind of person that you couldn’t look away from. But he has the personality of someone who gave up on people a long time ago and wants you to know exactly how much he hates you.

At least that was what I thought until he invited me to his home.

I run it all through my mind again, the conflict of personality that he’s been showing me. It’s so easy to sit here and say that he doesn’t care, that he’s horrible, that he’s unkind, but honestly, even if he wanted me to believe that, I’d struggle.

And what’s more, it’s not like I can blame him for his ill manner. I’ve done nothing but cause him trouble since I got here. Maybe that means it really is time to leave.

I get up and stretch, tilting my head from side to side, wincing at the way my neck cracks. Turns out that your body really doesn’t like it when you fall asleep on the sofa after you turn thirty.

When I was younger, it would have been hard to imagine ever getting to an age where my body betrayed me like this. I thought it was something that only happened to old people. I guess this is a sign that I should work out more.

I wander over to a window and look out. Somehow, snow is still falling from the sky. I don’t think it stopped at all since last night. My face falls at the sight.

Nice as Gabe’s hospitality is, I had been hoping to get out of here today to salvage whatever was left of my career. If I’m really lucky, I’ll still have clients booking me and this will be a blip.

If not, though…

But that’s something I don’t want to think about right now. The cowardly action would be to run upstairs and ignore Gabe for the rest of the day, to avoid him as much as possible, and if I did see him act like nothing had happened at all.

Part of me kind of wants to go to him and apologize, but in the end, I decide on the middle ground of not ignoring him but also not acknowledging what happened. I can’t even start to process the idea of waking up in his arms, let alone the consequences of it.

After taking a breath and plastering a client-pleasing smile on my face, I pad slowly towards the kitchen. Gabe is at the stove cracking eggs into a pan.

“Morning,” he grunts. “Do you like scrambled eggs?”

“Um, yeah,” I say, “that’s my favorite kind.”

“Good. Breakfast will be ready in ten.”

“Oh, thank you. I didn’t realize this was an all-inclusive stay.” It’s a weak joke, and it doesn’t get a laugh. I wasn’t expecting it to. He’s clearly acting as nonchalantly as me, pretending that nothing happened, which makes me feel better about wanting to as well.

But part of me needs to know if it made him feel anything inside like it did me… or if it’s all just an act of my stressed and overactive imagination.

“Last night—” I start.

“Don’t,” he cuts me off. I clamp my mouth shut in surprise. He shakes his head and adds, “I mean, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

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