Faking Christmas(80)
“So annoying. Right?!” I said in solidarity, turning to grin at Miles who frowned playfully. His hand moved to my side in an attempt to tickle me, but I grabbed it with my right hand, which was now crossed over my stomach, and held it there.
Lainey eyed our hands. “Well, it looks like you figured out how to live with each other.”
I gave Miles a warning look before slowly releasing his hand. I really wanted to finish my prime rib and mashed potatoes. He didn’t tickle me. Instead, he removed his arm from around my chair and dropped it onto my leg.
“Speaking of living, I heard you’re staying in his cabin,” Lainey said as I took a bite of mashed potatoes. “I hope he cleaned it for you.”
My body froze at her words. After a moment, I remembered to swallow the potatoes stuck like glue in my mouth. I turned to Miles to see him issue a warning look at his sister. He met my eyes somewhat guiltily.
“Your cabin?” I asked.
“Lainey,” Miles whined.
“She didn’t know?” his unrepentant sister countered. “Why wouldn’t she know that?”
I cocked my head to the side as I stared up at him. “Why am I staying in your cabin?”
He sighed. “It’s technically still my parents’ old cabin. They haven’t updated it at all, and they don’t have any plans to rent it out just yet. I just stay there most of the time when I come for visits. If I need a change of pace or different scenery, I come here and get some writing done.”
“It’s also close enough that he can freeload meals off of our parents,” Lainey said with a smirk, taking a bite of her roll drenched in maple butter.
Jack and Sandy tapped on the microphone from their spot on the stage a moment later. Lainey and Jett’s attention turned toward the stage, as did everybody else’s in the room.
I turned to Miles, whispering, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He leaned over, his mouth brushing against my ear, sending chills up my spine. “I needed a bargaining chip, and you’d have never stayed there if you knew it was mine.”
“You’re right,” I said. “So all that stuff downstairs? That’s yours? You just, what? Chucked everything down there the minute I agreed to stay?”
He grinned sheepishly. “I threw most of my personal stuff in the second bedroom and just locked it. The stuff in the basement is stuff my parents left when they moved.”
All this time, I had been sleeping in the bed Miles slept in when he visited. I don’t know why that felt so different to me, but it did. Very much so. I had been imagining this place as a cabin people rented. Comfortable and cozy, but not belonging to anyone. It felt much more personal knowing it was the cabin Miles used. It was a mixture of mortification and gooey sweetness, and I wasn’t sure which would win out.
“That was…so freaking sweet of you,” I choked out.
Again, his lips brushed my ear as his voice whispered, “Well, I’m definitely not a saint. I got you where I wanted you.”
My eyes narrowed. “In your old house?”
He gave me a roguish grin. “In my bed.”
I smacked his arm, which only made him laugh and pull me closer, planting a kiss on my head. Eventually, we focused on the stage where Jack regaled the crowd with funny anecdotes and old Christmas stories before relinquishing the stage to a band for some Christmas music. When Miles’s hand dropped back down onto my knee so casually, squeezing gently every so often, a warm glow made an appearance like it always did. But this time, anxiety began to bubble up where it had laid dormant for a while—the chew-on-my-fingernails-and-stare-off-into-the-distance kind of anxiety.
This was our last night.
Tomorrow, we’d pack up and head back to New York. We’d drive back to our respective houses alone. The bubble would officially burst. It frightened me how quickly I had done a complete one-eighty in my affection for my coworker. It happened both slowly and quickly, as we were literally here for only six days. Our time together under the covered bridge, whispering secrets and sharing kisses. Our night cuddled on the couch, watching Home Alone. The teasing and flirting. Jumping into the pond together. The sincerity in his eyes when he looked at me. All those kisses. My heart wanted to lean into all of it. Believe all of it. But it was too good to be true–the kind of stuff that just doesn’t happen to me. Not in real life, anyway. And as I looked around at the cozy lodge covered in mistletoe and garland, sitting next to Miles Taylor as his hand on my knee drummed to the beat of the local band performing “Little Drummer Boy,” it didn’t feel like we were in real life.
“Why do you look like you’re on the verge of a freak-out?” Miles's voice rumbled softly in my ear.
When I could only stare at him helplessly, his brow furrowed. Wordlessly, he scooted his chair back and stood up, motioning me to follow. We were toward the back of the lodge, and only those seated at our own table took note of Miles taking my hand and leading me toward the doorway. Once we passed through the threshold, he kept walking, leading me down the hallway and into an empty room.
Miles flipped on the lights, lighting up a large room with shelves lining the perimeter and a bundle of shelves in the middle. It was a storage room of some sort, probably for all the tables and chairs and decorations it would take to pull off events for a large crowd. Empty storage tubs sat open, the lids flung off as if someone had just rushed in to grab something really quickly.The air had the briskness of a room with a closed heating vent. I rubbed my arms to ward off the chill. Miles closed the door, and the space grew smaller. He filled every inch of the room. I leaned on one side, against the wall between the door and a shelf full of bins, bracing myself for this conversation. He watched me with cautious amusement, mirroring my stance against the wall, both of us facing each other but not touching.