Page 36 of Rebel Without a Claus
How do I articulate the complexity of wanting someone from a distance, of constructing elaborate fantasies around the most innocuous interactions? How do I explain that I had mapped this moment in my mind a hundred different ways, yet never in a million years thought his brooding scowl meant he felt the same way?
“Luke,” I breathe. My voice quivers, but it isn’t fear. It’s adrenaline, wonder, relief. “I’ve wanted this for so long I don’t remember what wanting without you feels like.” My confession slips out unbidden. The words, dangerous and liberating at once, like stepping off a cliff only to discover I can fly.
His throat works as he swallows. “Eve—” The single syllable is raw. “You have no idea.”
I tug him down until his knees hit the mattress and he’s hovering over me. “Tell me.”
He exhales. “Senior year, show-choir tryouts—you wore that ridiculous candy-cane hair ribbon. I thought you were the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, and I hated that I thought it, because you were sunshine and I was… well, even back then… I wasthis.” He gestures vaguely at himself—flannel, stubble, guarded eyes.
“This?”
“The grumpy farmboy. The dirty son of the reindeer breeder. The kid who came to school smelling slightly of manure.”
I lift my brows. “That’s how you saw yourself in high school?”
He drops his cheek to his shoulder. “That’s how everyone saw me. I had cooler friends, sure. But they were my friends despite all those things.” His assessment of himself has my heart aching in my chest. But before I can counter any of his points, he continues. “So… I teased you. It was easier than admitting I was half in love with a girl who glittered.”
The confession lands in my chest and blooms like a lamp turning on. “Luke Dawson,” I whisper, stunned and giddy.“Haven’t you ever seen The Princess Bride? Every girl was in love with the broody farmboy.”
He snorts his opinion of that, but I cup his jaw, forcing his eyes back to mine. “I’m not joking. Every girl in school drooled over you.”
He smiles—small, crooked, devastating. “Every girl except the one who glittered… The only one that mattered.”
“Especially her.” I sit up, closing the inch between us and shake my head. “I skipped that duet because Gemma told me I’d ruin it with my terrible voice. All I wanted was to sing with you but I didn’t want to cost everyone the trophy… so I stayed home. You always teased me so much, I assumed you hated me. And I figured you wanted to win more than you wanted me there. Plus, I didn’t want the whole school to see how bad we would sound together.”
His eyes flash with regret. “I didn’t hate you. I was terrified of you. You made me feel things I wasn’t ready to feel. Still do… if I’m being honest.”
My fingertips brush his cheek. “You can’t drop that on me and expect me to function.”
His mouth curves into a lopsided, heart-stopping grin. “Oh, I think we’ll find a way.” The words are barely air before his mouth finds mine.
The first kiss in the barn was sweet and tentative; this one detonates between us like live electricity—hot, sure, head-spinning, the kind of kiss that steals my breath and hands it back tasting like wildfire. His hands cup my face, thumbs stroking my cheeks like he’s memorizing the shape of every smile I’ve ever shown him. I clutch the open sides of his flannel, pulling him closer until every inhale is shared.
He tugs the quilt back and we sink onto the mattress, side by side, exchanging slow kisses that build into something hungrier—years of tension melting into the press of mouths, the slide ofhands. I push the flannel from his shoulders, revealing the broad expanse of his chest and leaving him in only pajama bottoms.
When his fingers trace beneath the flannel shirt I’m wearing, scooping up to the curve of my waist I gasp, arching into his touch. He stills, searching my face. “Too fast?”
“Too slow,” I whisper, and the grin that breaks across his face feels like a sunrise.
Heat spirals between us—skin to skin, breath to breath. Each kiss is like a confession, a secret shared between our bodies. I surrender to the sensations, my eyes fluttering closed as electricity courses through my body, seeking ground. We talk in fragments between kisses:
— “Remember junior prom? I almost asked you to dance.”
— “I waited by the punch bowl for an hour.”
— “You deserved better than teenage me.”
— “Teenage you is still my favorite what-if.”
Every confession knots us tighter until there’s no space left for fear. When we finally slip beneath the quilt—tangled limbs, gasping laughs, the storm raving outside—we write a new memory overtop of every unrequited one we’ve shared. Still, my heart is tender when I think of every lonely Christmas he’s survived since his parents passed away.
But the sadness dissolves fast as his lips find my collarbone, tracing its curve with a reverence that makes my skin prickle. His beard scrapes gently against my skin, a rough counterpoint to the softness of his mouth as he moves to my shoulder, then back again, mapping me with unhurried precision.
Outside, the world continues its indifferent rotation, the blizzard’s wind howling past the cabin's sturdy walls. Inside, time stretches and pools around us like honey, sweet and thick in the amber glow of firelight that spilled through the bedroom door. A log shifts in the fireplace, sending a cascade of sparks up the chimney. The clock on the bedside table marks each secondwith a soft tick that falls into rhythm with my heartbeat—steady, then quickening as Luke's fingers find the first button of his flannel shirt I’m wearing.
He unfastens each button deliberately, as if unwrapping something precious and fragile. The shirt—his shirt—parts beneath his fingers, falling open. I watch his face, captivated by the concentration in his eyes, the slight furrow of his brow. His hands, calloused from years of farm work, move with surprising delicacy. When the last button surrendered, he pauses, looking down at me with an expression that makes my throat tighten.
"You're beautiful," he says simply. Then, pushing the flannel open, my breasts spill out and it’s his turn for his breath to catch.
