Warm. Cozy. Family.
A wholesome movie-style Christmas, not a ballgown or caviar canapé in sight.
I wrap my fingers around the arches of my feet and press my breasts down into my legs, my sit bones into the floor.
When my phone buzzes across the room, I ignore it. It buzzed while I was dancing, cutting off the music in my earbuds, but I didn’t feel like stopping. Whoever it is doesn’t give up this time. It just starts up again. With a sigh, I decide I’m done enough with my workout that I can abandon it. I sit back up, walk to the table in the corner with the big stereo system, and pick the phone up.
Royal Alberta Ballet Co. flashes across the screen. They’re probably wondering if the prima ballerina they’ve dumped years of development and money into is done fucking around. I haven’t gotten back to them about spring season. I saw the email and I just . . . didn’t feel like responding.
I slide the green phone symbol across the bottom of the screen and take the call.
Everyone was jealous of the hockey game Jasper and I recounted when we returned from Ruby Creek so I spent the afternoon helping Rhett clear off a shallow and very frozen section of the creek near Beau’s still empty house for a few Christmas games of shinny.
From what I gather, Beau won’t be back until the new year. He told us “minor burns” but since Harvey’s return, it’s become clear that minor might be an understatement.
All I know is that he’s going to be okay and he’s coming home. Jasper is itching to see him. I’m just not sure the man he’ll see now will be the same as before he deployed.
Rhett dropped me off at the main house ten minutes ago. It’s snowy out, but the bench beside the wishing well is cleared off. The sky is so full of stars that I stake a seat in all my snow gear, tip my head back, and stare up at the chips of bright light as I wait for Jasper to arrive.
Constellations. Planets. Satellites.
Everything is clearer out in Chestnut Springs. Not just the stars.
I remember Jasper sitting in this exact spot on a rainy summer night. It was the night he told me everything. It was the night I danced him because I didn’t know what to say. It was the night we became irrevocably tied to one another.
I hear the brittle crunching of tires against the packed snow on the main gravel road followed by the soft rolling sound of them hitting the asphalt driveway up to the main house. When bright white lights turn toward the house, my heart pitches in my chest.
Eighteen years I’ve known Jasper Gervais and I still get excited when I’m about to see him. Still look forward to him coming home every day. Still smile when a text comes in.
I’ll never tire of him. Of that I’m sure.
His SUV rolls right up in front of me, and he grins at me through the window.
He looks happy.
Happier than I’ve ever seen him. And I can’t help but hope I’m playing a part in his happiness.
That we make him happy. Because we make me so fucking happy.
He jumps out, dressed all classy in a camel-brown peacoat over a charcoal suit. Brown dress shoes on his feet. He is pure sex.
“I came straight from the airport,” he says as he rounds the front of his vehicle, eyes raking over me like I’m his first meal in days.
I shiver under the intensity of his stare. His irises are a perfect match for the navy winter sky lying like a blanket over us. His long legs eat up the ground, dress shoes crunching on the packed snow.
“I can see that. You look all shmancy, Gervais.” I smirk and twirl a finger. “Do a spin. Let me see that ass.”
He chuckles, a low rumble that I swear vibrates the air between us before he scoops me up and switches places with me. “I’d rather be grabbing yours,” he breathes, pressing a chaste kiss to my lips as he easily flips me onto his lap.
My legs straddle his, and his broad palms firmly grab each ass cheek as he gazes up into my face and whispers, “I missed you, Sunny.”
I roll my eyes. “It was only two days.”
“Too long,” he grumbles, giving me his signature broody look.
“All you did was fly out, play hockey, and then fly back.”
“Yeah, but I like it when you’re at my games.”
“You have played better since you and I …” I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively, and his fingers pulse on my ass.
“You trying to take credit for our wins?”
“It’s science, Gervais. You can’t argue with it. You were sucking and now you’re not. Your winning streak is going to break records at this rate. My pussy is good luck. The kingmaker. No . . .” I hold a hand up. “The Stanley Cup Maker.”
Jasper gives me a flat expression. “I’m not calling your pussy The Stanley Cup Maker, Sunny.”
I giggle, feeling all girlish and giddy sitting in my childhood crush’s lap, in the snow, under a starlit sky, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. And then I drop my head down to kiss him, the cold tips of our noses brushing together. The stubble on his cheeks pokes through the thin knit of my gloves, scratching against my palms as I hold his handsome face.
When I practiced my choreography out here as a child, I dreamed of kissing him, his hands on me, his warm, sure body under mine.
I thought I loved him then, but I’m not so sure I did. I was infatuated with him. This? Now?
It’s different. We’re different.
“I missed you too, Jas,” I whisper against his lips as I pull away to run my hands over his hair, trying to remember the last time he’s worn a cap. Maybe when he works out? Or when we work on the house together. His cap functions more as a way to keep his hair out of his face now than to hide behind.
It seems like maybe he’s done hiding.
Maybe we both are.
“I got a call today,” I continue, taking in his heavy brows and the fine lines across his forehead.
“Yeah?” His hands rub firm circles over the globes of my butt cheeks, warming me better than my thermal leggings.
Light snow falls, and I watch a crystalline flake land on his dark lashes, suspended there for a moment until he blinks.
“Yeah. The backup dancer for the Sugarplum Fairy in The Nutcracker is out with the flu and the principal dancer for the role has Achilles tendinitis that needs a rest. They asked me to step in tomorrow for the final show before Christmas since I danced the part last year.”
“And? Are you happy about that?”
The person you’re with asking how you feel about something shouldn’t seem like a big deal. But it strikes me here and now that no one has ever really asked me this.
This is new for me. He doesn’t jump to tell me whether I should or shouldn’t be happy about something. He just asks me how I feel. Like what’s going on inside my head—inside my heart—is worthy of his notice and respect.
And I think I love him even more for that.
“Yeah,” I whisper, going all mushy as I stare at him. “I think I am.”
A soft smile touches Jasper’s lips, still glistening with my lip gloss from the sloppy, happy welcome-home kisses I planted on him. His dimples peek out from behind his stubble, and I almost swoon on the spot.
The way he’s looking at me right now makes my cheeks heat despite the chilly air. Unable to withstand the saccharine sweetness of the moment, I drop my face into his chest. I suck in his signature scent and nuzzle against him as he wraps his arms around me.