I turn in my seat, facing him again. “Why are you being nice to me?”
His gaze remains fastened on the road, which is covered in snow. After a long, tense pause, he says, “I’m going to answer your question with a question.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Too bad,” he says, before a deep inhale. Then he exhales, thin and slow. “Why do you think I’m being nice to you?”
“Because you have a strategy. Some new angle for taking me down at work.”
“And if I told you anything other than that, would you believe me?”
After a year of relentless mutual antagonism, the answer is out of my mouth before I consciously think it. “No, I wouldn’t.”
But for the first time since the day we met and chilly Jonathan Frost tipped my snow-globe world on its head, I wonder if maybe—just maybe—I’m wrong.
Chapter 8
Playlist: “Mille Cherubini in Coro,” Andrew Bird
Over holiday music and my stealthy lap piano playing, Jonathan and I bicker the remainder of our way back to the city, disagreeing on which is the most direct route to my apartment that also avoids the worst traffic, right up until Jonathan smoothly parallel parks in front of my building. Because that’s how life rolls for Jonathan Frost, even though I can count on my hand in the two years I’ve lived here how many times I’ve gotten a spot within even a block of my apartment.
I glare at him. “Seriously? Right in front of my place?”
He gives me a self-satisfied arch of one eyebrow, a wry almost-grin. “I have the world’s best luck with parking.”
“Of course you do,” I mutter darkly.
Wrenching the car into park, Jonathan turns off the ignition, then stares at me, his throat working in a rough swallow. “I read that romance novel I bought at Bailey’s.”
I peer up at him, surprised, and…intrigued. “Oh?”
He nods. “It was good. It’s not Austen, but—”
“Stop it.” I playfully punch his rock-hard thigh, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu. “Stop baiting me!”
His mouth tips, so close to a smile, before it dissolves, leaving only silence and a thick, heavy charge in the air. Jonathan’s jaw works. His eyes search mine. “They’re very different,” he says. “The love interests.”
I nod. “Opposites, basically.”
“But…” His gaze slips down to my mouth. “That ends up really working for them. It’s the heartbeat of their connection, being drawn to each other’s differences, stretching themselves to narrow that distance between each other without losing themselves. They…grow. Together. And more deeply into their true selves.”
My heart’s pounding, slamming against my ribs. Goddamn him for saying it so perfectly.
“Forced proximity also helps,” I say, quieter, almost a whisper. “Being stuck in a carriage for days in a row, an inn with only one room and—”
“Only one bed,” he says, his throat working with a fresh swallow. “I read about that. That’s a popular trope. I can see why.”
“Of course you read up on romance tropes.”
“I read up on the whole damn genre.” His fingers drum on the steering wheel. “I don’t do things half-assed, Gabriella.”
“No…” I search his face. “No, you don’t.”
Jonathan’s hand flexes around the steering wheel. His jaw ticks. And then, suddenly, he throws open his door.
I blink, snapped out of a daze. Then I realize what he’s about to do. Dammit. He’s going to open my door next and be chivalrous again. I can’t handle that, considering one hand clasp got me so worked up, I’ve been squirming in my seat the whole ride home.
I scramble for the handle, desperate to beat him to it, but he’s already there, opening my door, then once again offering me his hand. I glance down at the mound of snow at my feet that I need to hurdle. Begrudgingly I take his hand and try to ignore the electric heat that jolts through me, radiating from where our hands are clasped to the tips of my toes.
Hopping over the snowbank, I land in the powdery softness with a thud, then peer up at the sky and Mother Nature’s sugar dust drifting down on us. I hold out my tongue and smile.
Snow brings out the child in me. The wonder. I will never not love it.
A thick, cold flake lands on my tongue. I hum in pleasure, then slowly open my eyes. Jonathan’s staring at me intently.
“What is it?”