He didn’t say anything for so long that I glanced over to see why.
Were his shoulders hunched up? It seemed like they were. He had a thoughtful expression on his face as he met my eyes.
“What?” I asked him.
“I’ve spent my whole life moving like a human.”
What was that supposed to mean?
And did he suddenly look kind of excited?
Was he… interested? Really?
“Did you want to…？” I gestured toward the small collection of snowballs beside me, trying not to look like I was on the verge of being over the moon. I was probably failing big-time though.
That incredible gaze lingered on mine, and his hands slipped into his pockets. “I’ll count to ten before I come after you.”
Would it be worth it? Eating some snow if I could peg him a couple of times?
Yes, yes it fucking would. When the hell would be the next time I’d get a chance like this? I had no idea where I would be a month from now. Fuck it.
I yelled before jumping up to my too-big feet and crouching in front of my small mound of snowballs. Then I attacked. The first one I threw far to the right, the second and third landed closer.
He barely moved to the side to avoid the fourth, letting his guard down with a smirk aimed at me like he’d thought he’d gotten away with it, when I threw two back-to-back, fast as I could.
He batted the first away, and bless his soul, he purposely let the next one hit him in the forehead when I knew in my heart he could have dodged that too.
What I did know for sure was that I was way too excited and threw two more at him before he said slowly and breathily, “Time.”
Yeah, I knew I was in for it.
I tried to run, I really did, but my main problem was the shoes. My foot slipped out of one of the boots on the second step I took trying to get away, and it was over pretty much instantly. His hand caught me by the back of my pants, and he was suddenly holding me up by them, by my pants, leaving my body parallel with the snow and the ground.
Alex lowered me back down, and I was on my hands and knees, about to try and crawl away, the cold sneaking in through the thin material of my pants, when I felt the waistband get tugged again. My ass went freezing.
“Alex!” I screeched, shoving my hand inside them to dig out the snow he’d shoved into my underwear.
The son of a bitch was laughing. Laughing his ass off. There was a sock covering his hand! When the hell had he managed to put that on? Where had it even come from?
I pulled his leg out from under him and pushed his stomach as hard as I could so he landed on his ass. It wouldn’t hit me until later, way, way later, that he’d let me do it.
He stopped laughing, but then I started cracking up, tossing a little bit of loose snow at him even as I shivered. I grinned. Alex took the sock off and shoved it in his pocket.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked, wiping the melted snowflakes off his face and hair with his bare hands.
“Because my ass might be suffering from hypothermia soon but that was fun.” I blinked. “You didn’t have fun? You were laughing.”
I’d swear there was a twinkle in his eye as he admitted in that gruff voice, “I had fun.”
See? I tossed a little more snow in his direction. “Picking me up like I’m a little kid or shoving snow between my butt cheeks?”
“Both.”
Figures.
He leaned back, planting both hands behind him, propping himself up. “What else have you wanted to do in the snow?”
“I’d like to try skiing one day. I’ve always wanted to go sledding,” I told him. “Did you grow up here?” It was hard to picture him small in the first place, but when I did, I imagined him as an emo kid in all black. Maybe one day I could get away with asking him.
He tipped that handsome head back toward the sky, and I watched as a few snowflakes landed on his cheeks. “We moved here when I was four. We lived in California until Kilis broke that kid’s arm; then our parents moved us out here. I’ve never tried sledding. What do you need?”
He’d never…
I kept my lips pressed together to not make a face of disbelief that he’d never gone sledding before, or that he’d given me another sliver of knowledge about himself. “I don’t know,” I told him. “A trash can lid maybe? Cardboard?”
He thought about it. “I’ve got cardboard boxes in the garage.”
I brightened as he got up, dusted off his pants, and reached for the boot that had fallen off my foot. Without missing a beat, he bent over, lifted my leg up by the heel, tugged it on, tied the shoelace, and held his hand out to me, pulling me straight up to standing.
It took everything in me to just smile at him a little—almost shyly—and he gave me a weird look before turning. I followed him around the house toward the massive garage I’d only walked by, set off to the side of the house. It took me longer to follow because it was hard to walk in his boots without them getting stuck and falling off.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he opened the side door to the building and waited.
“Yeah, I’m tired and a little icky, but so much better thanks to you and your healing vibes,” I confirmed, going through the doorway, trying not to huff and puff so much. “I’m not exhausted enough to skip out on having fun.”
Inside, he stopped by the right wall where there were indeed a few flattened boxes leaning against it. There were two cars covered in tan canvas material, and enough room for at least another car or two. He always left his out.
He picked a box up, set it aside, and grabbed a bigger one behind it. Alex held it, then looked at it in a different angle, then held it by me before leaning it against his hip. Then he started picking through the rest of them. He was quiet for a while, so I wasn’t expecting him to casually ask, his attention still on the cardboard, “Why haven’t you told me what my grandmother showed you?”
I reached over to take the box he’d set aside and held it up, fake inspecting it. It was stiff and sturdy. Keep it cool. Keep it cool, Gracie.
Could I get away with ignoring him? Feign being hard of hearing? Maybe I could…
I started wandering off to the side, pretending to see something in the corner of the garage.
“Gracie,” he called out in his too-calm voice. “What did she show you?”
Shit.
I didn’t want to tell him, that was a fact. Part of me wanted to talk to Agatha about it first, even though we’d only met once. I wanted… I wanted to make sure I hadn’t imagined what I’d seen.
Even though I was certain I hadn’t. It had been too vivid. Too real.
It was fucking troubling.
And it explained way too much.
“She’s shown me two things,” Alex added almost softly, at least for him.
“What?” I broke my silence to ask, even though I knew damn well his comment was bait.
He didn’t hesitate. “Your house,” he actually replied.
I moved to the side and looked at him. “Really?”
He was still facing away, picking up another box and inspecting it. “The cat clock on your wall. The print of your couch. I told you about the cat.”
He had? When? My throat went dry. The skin on the back of my neck prickled. It took me two tries to talk again. “You were so mad…”