Stiff arming the exit door open, a New York surprise was waiting for us. Airy flakes of snow swirled from the sky, landing on our faces. Jude looked up, taking his lips with him. The sky was clouded, a grayish blue hue tinting them.

“Looks like a storm’s heading our way,” he said, carrying me the rest of the way to his truck. “Good thing I’m prepared.” Kicking his new snow tires, he opened the door and dropped me inside.

I glanced over at my Mazda, parked in its spot, its windows already covered by a thin layer of snow. Snow tires were a foreign concept to me, and I was unequipped for the winter that was already here, it appeared.

“Don’t worry, Luce,” Jude said, hopping in next to me. “I’ll get you taken care of. I’ll drive your car up to the shop sometime this weekend and get a pair of snow tires put on.”

I didn’t like that solution for a couple of reasons. “You’re not going anywhere this weekend unless you count moving from the head of my bed to the foot of it,” I began, peering over at him as he pulled out of the parking lot. He was smiling. “And I’m more than capable of taking care of my own snow tires. I don’t need you to do everything for me.”

His face twisted. “Why not?”

“Because,” I answered.

“Because why?”

Because for a bunch of reasons, but I didn’t feel like listing them off the entire drive. So instead I scooted next to him and rested my head on his shoulder. “Just because.”

The drive to SoHo lasted all of twenty minutes, but my head tucked into Jude’s neck with his arm hanging over me made the drive go by even faster.

“This the place?” Jude asked, inspecting the restaurant that seemed to be built with windows as we rolled by.

“This is it,” I answered, looking for my parents. They’d flown in earlier this morning and said they’d be getting situated into their hotel before meeting us for lunch. Jude was visibly uncomfortable, continuing to stare at the place like he didn’t belong.

“Hey,” I said, resting my hand on his leg, “you all right with this?”

Of course I wanted him to share Thanksgiving with my family, but not if it meant he was uncomfortable the whole time.

Maneuvering his truck into a tight spot on the street, he glanced over at me. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He grabbed my hand and kissed it before turning off the car. “You’re my family. I go where you go, Luce.”

That warm feeling that seemed ever present when Jude was around melted through me. His words were as skilled as his hands. I knew then the plight of riding the roller coaster was worth being able to call the man beside me mine.

Coming around my side, Jude swung the door open for me and, instead of lending me a hand, he scooped me back up into his arms. Pressing a warm kiss into my forehead, he carried me across the snow white street and didn’t set me down until we were standing in the foyer of the restaurant.

We were both laughing, consumed by each other, so the patrons and restaurant staff staring at us like the circus had just come to town didn’t register with either of us right away. A line of guests waiting for their tables were appraising us with sour faces, and the hostesses standing behind their podium were bouncing from Jude with wide eyes to me with narrowed.

“Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat.

Jude’s hand weaved between my arm, gripping into my waist‌—‌his other one repeated on the other side.

“I’m not,” he said loudly, the words echoing through the high ceilinged foyer.

And then he was dipping me low to the ground, his eyes smiling down on me before his lips made slow work of unfreezing mine. As soon as they melted into submission, he leaned back. Smiling down on me, he whispered, “I’m not,” before lifting me back into a vertical alignment.

The room was spinning and now onlookers’ narrowed eyes had been exchanged for small smiles. A few of the men even tipped their martini glasses at the two of us.

“Name under your reservation,” the petite, red-haired hostess said, still looking at me with narrowed eyes. That was fine. I’d be giving her the stink eye if a man like Jude had just dipped her to the floor, not giving a care if the whole world saw how crazy he was for her. Being Jude’s girlfriend was worthy of stink eyes near and far.

“Larson,” I answered, giving her a sweet smile while I wrapped both hands around Jude’s arm.

Checking her book, her eyes darted back to where my hands were affixed to Jude. “Table twenty-two,” she barked to the hostess beside her.

“Right this way,” the other one said, leading us into the dining room.

“Thank you,” I said with another smile as we walked past the red head whose eyes I could feel watching every rolling step Jude’s ass made. Stare all you want, honey, because the man is mine.

My parents stood up from the table as soon as they saw us crossing the expansive dining room. They were both smiling, both getting closer to resembling the parents of my youth. The parents they’d been before tragedy had changed us all into people we didn’t recognize.

Jude held my hand tight in his, kneading it like it was a worry rock. I understood why. Even for me, pre financial family crisis, this place would have been a bit out of the Larson family league, reserved for once a year special dinners maybe. But for Jude, someone who’d come from not exactly a destitute family, but a poor one, before spending five of his teen years in a boys’ home where hot dogs and canned vegetables were an every night occurrence, this place probably seemed like a foreign land.