Page 107 of Holiday Friend Zones
My scream catches in my throat as I wait for the icy sting, but instead of pancaking into the snow, something much softer buffers my fall.
“Oomph,” comes from beneath me.
I blink open one eye as snow puffs around us like confetti.Piercing blue eyes stare back, far too close for my brain to function properly.
“Are you okay?”His voice is low, husky.
“Yeah,” I croak.“I think so.Are you?”
“Yeah.Except your elbow is trying to amputate my bicep.”He groans.
“Oh!Sorry.”My hand slides to his chest.His.Very.Hard.Chest.
“Are you okay?”he asks again.
I nod quickly, because words are dangerous right now.“Yeah.Thanks to you.Stupid ladder.”
“Ladders and ice don’t mix,” he says dryly.“Were you trying to kill yourself?”
“No, the banner’s crooked.”
His eyebrow arches.“Crooked crooked, or Lauren’s-definition-of-crooked crooked?”
“Crooked crooked.The left side is a smidge lower.”
He laughs, and it rumbles through his chest under my palm like distant thunder.“And only you would consider a smidge to be crooked.”
“No matter how you look at it, crooked is always crooked,” I mutter.“It’s been mocking me all morning.Whispering, ‘I’m crooked.What are you going to do about it?’”
“So you decided to teach it a lesson?”
“Yes.Exactly.But clearly that didn’t pan out as expected.”
A moment of silence stretches between us, our breath puffing white in the cold air.My palm still rests against the solid plane of his chest, and his fingers curve at my waist, barely there yet the only thing keeping me tethered to the planet.A shiver darts down my spine, and not just from the snow.
“Are you two going to lie there all day?Should we just walk around you?”Mr.Jensen looms over us, profoundly unimpressed as he hauls a five-foot snowman under one arm like it’s a sack of firewood.
Heat detonates across my cheeks.Oh, right.I’m sprawled on top of Eli in the middle of the festival grounds.His hands are on my waist.My hands are on his chest.This is fine.Totally normal best-friend behavior.Nothing to see here.
“I should, um, get back to work,” I mumble, peeling myself off him like a human sticker.“But thanks for saving me.”
“I’ll always save you.”His words are barely above a whisper, like a secret meant just for me.
Butterflies explode in my belly.Best friend or not, that didn’t sound platonic.That sounded like… something else.Something dangerous.Something I’ve triedveryhard not to want.
I scramble upright, brushing snow off my coat with frantic little slaps, and stick out my hand.He slides his much larger one into mine, but he doesn’t use me as leverage.Instead, with zero effort, he rises to his feet.He brushes the snow off his uniform pants and twists around.
My eyes betray me instantly.Don’t do it, Lauren.Don’t—“You’ve got some on your back,” I blurt, “and, uh… your butt.”
He glances over his shoulder with a smirk that should be illegal.“You don’t want to help me with that?”
My laugh bursts out as an unholy snort-choke hybrid.“I’ll let you handle that one.”
Even though my brain was very much already handling it.In vivid detail.
He chuckles, brushing snow off his backside while my dignity melts into a puddle at my boots.
“Before all this,” he gestures at the snow angels we accidentally made, “I was going to mention, I brought pamphlets for you.They include a map of the sleigh trail and pictures of the forest’s wildlife.”He bends, scoops up a box, and hands it over.
