Page 31 of Tommy

“It came off,” he said. “It’s an old one.”

Something took over me. I brushed a hand right through his hair, and then pulled the hood up over his head. “It suits you, but please, be careful.”

“I promise,” he said softly. “Do you want to come inside my fort with me?”

It was impossible to saynoto him now. “Let me get out of these jeans first,” I told him. “You want another hot cocoa? There’s still a whole lot in the pan.”

He licked his lips wet. “Please,” he said. “Or pretty please.”

“I told you already, it doesn’t have to be pretty.”

“It’s not, but I am,” he giggled.

Fuck. This was not how I’d intended to spend winter, but now it was impossible to think of spending it alone. Tommy had done something to me, and I was suddenly not against all the ideas he had.

13. TOMMY

It had been so long since I’d been flirted with that I wasn’t even sure if this was flirting. I didn’t know what his love language was, or what mine had become that’s how long it had been. I could safely assume from his want to do things it was acts of service, but if I was reading this all wrong, we could end up in the middle of a storm together in awkward silence.

Hardin came to the fort in a pair of sweatpants and a flannel shirt. He had a little tray with two mugs and a bowl filled with marshmallows on. “I figured I’d bring the rest of your marshmallows over,” he said. “How are you finding thismuchbetter fort?”

“It’s nice,” I said, looking around. It would’ve been nicer with fairy lights, but I wasn’t going to start demanding the world from him. “Where did you learn to do all of this?”

Gently, he pushed the tray inside on the duvet-blanket flooring, it slipped across with ease. “I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that already,” he said, kneeling in the makeshift doorway. “I do have another question for you first, if you don’t mind answering.”

“Go for it.”

“Mick,” he said. “Did he send you because he thinks I’m lonely out here?”

I scoffed into a snort. “Mick told me this was going to be a vacation,” I said. “I had hoped I was going somewhere with a beach, cocktails, and plenty of sunshine.”

He smirked. “Ok. It’s just I had it in my head that Mick knew about my life and how he was trying to set me up with you. It’s a ridiculous thought now that I’m saying it aloud, you know, because who’d travel all this way just to—”

Touching his hand, he paused to take a breath. “I don’t discuss this part of my life with him,” I said. “He’s just my agent, but if you read my books, you could probably understand why he sent me here, if you are what I think you’re going to say you are.”

Hardin tilted his head slightly. “Who I am. Well, I can’t be certain on what you think I might be. I’m actually a lot of things. Great with my hands, amazing in the kitchen, and—”

“A total cowboy.”

“Oh, see, I thought you were going to sayDaddy.”

I gulped, the sound of it so sharp in the space between us. “A Daddy.”

“In a past life, like many lives before this one, I had been called it,” he said.

Scooching the tray further inside the fort, I gave him more room to come inside. I didn’t want a Daddy to be stuck out int he cold. “How long ago?”

“Over ten years,” he said, slouching inside. He laid on his said, resting on an elbow. It was the first time he didn’t look so stoic and solid. “I’m out of touch with the scene, not like I was ever part of one, but I know what a little needs.”

Copying his body pose, I laid parallel with the stick through the middle of the fort and the tray of drinks separating us. “Go on,” I said. “What does a little need?”

“Space to play,” he said. “A well-made blanket fort.” He gestured to the one we were inside. “Access to crayons and coloring pages. You can’t forget the fun drinks with whipped cream and marshmallows. Of course.”

“Of course.”

“What else? Well, those one piece outfits,” he said. “And teddies, but I—”

“I didn’t want to bring them out,” I said. “You said the dogs would get them.”

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