Page 37 of Offside for Christmas
Cole had changed too—sweatpants and a t-shirt that did absolutely nothing to hide his shoulders or his arms or the way his muscles moved when he bent down to plug in his phone.
"I can take the left side," he said, not looking at her. "Unless you have a preference?"
"Left is fine. I mean, right. I'll take the right side."
"Okay."
"Okay."
They stood there for another moment, neither of them moving toward the bed.
"This is fine," Ellie said.
"Totally fine," Cole agreed.
"We're making it weird, aren't we?"
"So weird."
Despite everything—the tension, the nerves, the absolute insanity of the situation—Ellie laughed. And once she started, she couldn't stop. Cole started laughing too, and suddenly they were both standing in this cabin bedroom, laughing like idiots while snow fell outside and Christmas music played faintly from the main room.
"Okay," Ellie said when she could breathe again. "Okay. We're adults. We can do this."
"We can absolutely do this."
They got into bed from opposite sides, maintaining a careful distance, both lying on their backs and staring at the ceiling like it held the secrets of the universe.
"Goodnight, Ellie," Cole said into the darkness.
"Goodnight, Cole."
Ellie closed her eyes and tried very hard not to think about how warm he was, how she could hear his breathing, how he smelled like pine and winter and something uniquely him.
This was going to be a very long night.
7
COLE
Cole lay in the dark, listening to Ellie breathe.
She was on the far left side of the bed, a solid six inches of mattress between them like a demilitarized zone. He was pressed so far to the right that he was half-expecting to fall off the edge. Both of them were flat on their backs, staring at the ceiling like it might offer some kind of divine intervention.
The room was cold—the kind of deep winter cold that seeped through the walls—but under the heavy quilt, Cole was warm. Too warm. Hyperaware of every sound, every movement, every breath.
"This isn't awkward at all," he said into the darkness.
"Nope." Ellie's voice was tight. "Totally normal. Just two coworkers sharing a bed platonically."
"In a cabin. During a blizzard."
"It's very Hallmark," she agreed.
"If Hallmark made R-rated movies."
He felt rather than saw her turn her head toward him. "Why R-rated?"
Cole turned to face her, and immediately regretted it. In the dim light filtering through the curtains from the porch lights outside, he could see her face clearly—those warm brown eyes, the freckles scattered across her nose, the way her hair fanned out across the pillow.
