Page 46 of Snowed in with the Single Dad

“Great joke,” she said with yet another eye roll.

“I’m sorry, Skye. I would love to spend New Year’s Eve with you, and I know the girls will be thrilled.”

“Good,” she said, the smile back on her face.

“Do you, um, I mean—uh…”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to stay for a while?”

“Stay…here?”

“Yeah. I mean, unless you don’t want to.”

“Of course I want to. But aren’t your kids still awake?”

“Well, maybe we just sit and talk. Or we can put on a movie or something.”

“I’d like that.”

I took her by the hand and led her to the living room where I pulled up the menu of movies for us to watch. She scanned through the list for a few minutes before settling onSleepless in Seattle.

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen this movie,” she said with a sigh as the opening credits began.

“I know it’s your favorite.”

“There’s no way you could possibly know that.”

“Skye, you forget that I was, like, super in love with you in high school. While you were out on dates and hanging out with your friends, I was sitting at home wondering if you would ever love me back.”

“I—um—I didn’t know your feelings were that intense.”

“Well, they were. I had no idea how to deal with it, so that’s why I avoided you like crazy.”

“You avoided me?”

“You didn’t realize that we kind of lost touch in high school?”

“No, I did. I just thought it was because we were both doing our own things.”

“We were doing our own things. You were making friends and having fun. I was…thinking about you.”

She reached over and grabbed my hand, and I knew it was out of pity, but I held it anyway.

“Owen, you should have told me.”

“You would have laughed in my face.”

“That’s not true!”

“Skye.”

“Okay, well maybe I didn’t have the same feelings for you then that you did. But now…”

She trailed off, though I was dying to hear what she would say next. I was desperate to hear more about how she felt about me.

“Now?” I asked.

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