Page 23 of Jingle Bell Flock
My heart kicked against my ribs. I wanted to ask. Wanted to push. Wanted to know if what I was feeling—this terrifying, fragile hope—was mutual.
But the words stuck in my throat. Too soon. Too much. Too easy to break.
“I wish you’d told me,” I said instead. “Back then.”
“Me too.” He kissed me again, soft and sweet and achingly tender. “Me too.”
I pulled him closer, my hands sliding into his hair. He shifted above me, his weight pressing me into the mattress as I hitched one leg over his hip. Our tongues tangled, the kiss deepening from tender to demanding.
When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
“Show me.” My voice came out rough, needy. “Show me what it could have been like. If we’d been brave enough back then to tell each other how we felt.”
Harrison’s eyes darkened, understanding precisely what I meant. “Yeah?"
“Yeah.”
He kissed me again, pressing me back into the mattress, and this time when his hands moved over my body, it felt like a promise. Maybe not forever—we weren’t there yet. But for now, it was enough.
seven
. . .
JEREMY
Harrison sat across from me,cradling his coffee mug, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he watched the snow through the window. Morning light caught the gold in his hair, the strong line of his jaw, the curve of his lips.
Everything had shifted between us.
In less than twenty-four hours, the anger, hurt, and confusion I’d carried for nearly two decades had burned away, leaving behind something raw and new and terrifying in its potential.
“What?” Harrison asked, catching me staring with a lift of his eyebrow.
“Nothing.” I set down my coffee. “Just … you look different.”
For six months, I’d told myself that Harrison didn’t give a shit. That maybe he didn’t even remember what we used to be to one another—or worse, that it hadn't mattered to him the way it had to me. Every careful word between us, every guardedlook, every time he’d taken my anger without fighting back had convinced me he was made of ice.
Turns out I’d been wrong about that, too.
He’d been keeping himself locked down tight so he wouldn’t rock the boat. So he wouldn’t make things even worse between us.
“Different how?” He set his own mug down, his head tilting to the side.
“Happy,” I answered, wonder creeping into my voice. “You look happy.”
Christ, he’d always been good-looking. That wasn’t news. But this wasn’t about his pretty face or his perfect body or those blue eyes that had always made my stomach flip. This was different. Something from the inside out. Like he was lit up from within, finally letting himself feel something other than guilt and regret.
“That’s because I am,” he said simply.
Fuck. So was I.
With just one look, something passed between us. Recognition, maybe. An understanding.
And just like that, the air between us shifted.
Not like last night when everything had gone to hell and I’d grabbed him because the alternative was putting my fist through his goddamn wall. Not like after either, when I’d convinced myself that letting him fuck me would somehow fix seventeen years of wanting.
This was different.
