If It Makes You Happy(107)

“Are you two coming?” Emily asks.

She stands across the street, squinting and hunched with her gloves tucked in her denim jacket, as if she can scare off the flakes by appearing disgruntled enough.

Josh, on the other hand, rolls up a snowball on the ground, beaming up at her. “Hey, Em! Look! A snowman!”

Brittany and Rocket—reunited after Thanksgiving with a giggle and a bark, respectively—dart through Luke’s yard, leaving prints in the fresh snowfall. He runs after them.

“Let’s snowball fight!” Luke yells, already balling up snow in his mittens, aimed toward Brittany.

Cliff and I exchange glances.

“Nah, let’s go inside,” he says. “I’ve got peppermint brownies to make.”

“Yes!” Emily yells, pumping the air with her fist and tugging on Josh’s coat to coax him to his feet. “I haven’t had those in forever!”

“All right, all right,” Cliff says, crunching across the street. He pulls her in for a side hug that she squirms against. “Stop yelling. Somebody’ll think I don’t feed you or something.”

“You do?” Emily asks.

Cliff rolls his eyes and smiles. “Hardy har.”

I walk through the snow behind him. The snowplow hasn’t come through yet, so the streets are piled high with fluff. I’m not used to seeing this type of snowfall. In Seattle, the plows are practically on the roads before the meteorologist even says there will be snow. But here, there’s some time for it to settle—for it to really feel like winter.

Rocket runs past, leaping snout-first into a snow pile, sending Brittany into a fit of giggles. His head pops up in an explosion of flakes.

Shelly, this is the best.

“Dinner?” Emily asks impatiently, already halfway down the street, hand in hand with Josh.

“Coming!” I call.

“Not yet,” Cliff says, murmuring the innuendo under his breath.

I whirl to find one side of his mouth crooked up and his wicked eyebrows raised.

Friendship with Cliff Burke was fun. Friendship with benefits is even better.

Allen liked the lights off and silence. Cliff likes talking. He likes praising. He likes roaming his eyes all over me in the dim lamplight, sliding his palms over every inch of my body. He likes flirting.

We trail down the street, parting ways with the girls in Bird & Breakfast’s driveway. Emily, Brittany, and Rocket dart between the bushes to their house as Cliff walks me to the inn’s back door. Once the girls finish knocking snow off their boots and disappear inside, he immediately walks me backward until I’m caged against the inn walls by his palms. He leans down for a slow kiss.

I’m so accustomed to his lips now, to the gentle way they trail over mine, to the way his hand threads through my hair. I thought Cliff liked touch before, but now it’s like he can’t get enough of me. Like he was a man starved and he can finally feast.

We haven’t told the girls about us yet. We agreed that it would be too difficult to explain, simply because we don’t understand the situation ourselves.

I’m here until after Christmas, and then … well …

My natural inclination is to have a plan, but Cliff says we’ll make one when we cross that bridge. Normally, I’d fight him on it, but the alternative is to face the inevitable. The lonely plane ride out of Vermont. So, for now, I enjoy the brush of his winter gloves running over my hips and try to ignore my thoughts.

“Save me some brownies,” I say against his lips. “Or some pie if you have some.”

He hums against me, kissing me again and murmuring, “I’ll bake anything you want.”

I laugh, placing a final kiss and pulling apart. “What happened to the weird baker thing? Watching me while I eat.”

“Oh, I figured that out.”

“Did you? So, you don’t want to watch me eat anymore?”

He chuckles, leaning down to bite my earlobe, pressing a gloved hand against my pelvis. “I’d rather you watch me eat.”

I can’t help but stammer out through bubbling laughter, “Cliff …”

“Is that a yes?”

I lightly push him away, pointing an accusatory finger. “Down, boy. I’ll be over in ten. I wanna finish some paperwork real fast.”

His glove winds up my waist to finally stroke over my cheek.

“All right,” he concedes. “Go do your job before I do unspeakable things to you in the snow.”

My heart zips at the thought, but I force myself to turn and leave. When I do, he grabs the crook of my arm and pulls me back into his chest for another kiss. I sink into it for a moment, then push him back.

“What happened to me doing my job?” I tease.

He shrugs. “You look too good in those jeans. I’m a simple man.”

I shake my head through laughter—laughter that feels so natural now—and finally open the back door. His boots crunch away in the snow, and before the door shuts, I look behind me. He looks over his shoulder at the same time, and my body thrums with excitement.

I bite back a smile and close the back door.

Strolling to the front desk, I sift through recent reservations. We’ve been busy lately. In fact, we have a wait list for bookings, which, according to Dad, has never happened. He told me over the phone that, while Mom had the hospitality part down, they could never quite figure out advertising. They depended on word of mouth. I changed that for Bird & Breakfast.