Chapter Six
Despite my grandma’s plan, I didn’t really have anything else to say. I stood in the kitchen staring at Colton, wondering how in the world I was going to make it through Christmas Eve.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I realized I was hugging myself and quickly let go.
“Just a hunch.”
“It’s just weird” —I waved my hands between us— “seeing you after all these years. I guess I’d painted you to look different.”
“I thought you hadn’t given me much thought at all?” He took a step toward me and that’s when my hand knocked the potato peeler onto the floor.
We both bent down to pick it up, our hands tangling in a fight to pick it up first before we both looked at each other, still bent over.
“Umm. I got it.” I grabbed the peeler away from him.
Our faces were so close I smelled the faint hint of his aftershave from the morning, and my belly warmed with the scent, spicy and sweet.
When he opened his mouth to reply, my gaze dropped to his beautiful lips and another wave of heat ran through me.
I snapped out of it, straightened up, and slid the peeler on the counter.
“So, have you thought about me at all?” he asked, narrowing the gap.
“There have been moments where you popped into my head, but usually, my thoughts were a little hostile.” I cleared my throat and ran my hands over my ponytail that was falling out.
He let out a low chuckle and the sound did all kinds of crazy things to me.
“Cookie?” I asked, taking a couple of steps away from him.
Being so close to Colton was messing with me. I was noticing things like how he smelled, how his lips curled, how his eyes held so much more than I remembered.
“I’ve thought about you a lot over the years,” he said.
“I know. You mentioned you’d wanted to apologize.” I smiled, holding up another gingerbread man. “Apology accepted.”
I spun around and made my way to the front door. I needed to get some air. I didn’t care that it was twenty degrees outside. I was burning up, and I had a feeling it had nothing to do with being inside and everything to do with being with Colton McAlister.
I made my way out the door and felt the icy air prick my exposed cheeks as I closed the door behind me. Letting out a deep sigh, I watched the snow fall gently as I listened to the muffled silence I loved so much.
I held myself and lolled myself into calmness as I watched the flakes slowly meld into the ones below, making a beautiful field of white. I could handle being with Colton for a few hours. Soon, we’d have dinner, and I’d go to bed, and before I woke up, he’d be long gone.
Or that was the hope.
The door opened behind me, and I turned around to see Colton. He’d taken off his apron and looked extremely sexy as he walked onto the porch.
“As I was saying, I’ve thought a lot about you, Gina.” He leaned against the doorjamb, and I noticed how long, lean, and hard his muscular frame was, even covered in jeans and a sweater. Again, things that shouldn’t interest me in the slightest.
“I find that hard to believe.” I straightened up and shoved my hands into the apron pockets. “No offense, but we weren’t even in the same grade. You graduated two years ahead of me. Why I ever thought we’d go to homecoming together was ridiculous.”
“I was surprised you wanted to go with me.” His confession twisted my world.
“Yeah, right. You had to have known what a crush I had on you.” I smiled and looked down at the icy porch, kicking some stray snow away from the door. “The one family who is off-limits and . . .” I shook my head, not wanting to finish my thought.
“You certainly had a good way of hiding it.” The look in his eyes melted my heart. This was the Colton I saw glimpses of in high school. “Like when you had a bunch of your friends on the football team let all the air out of my tires.”
“Who said that was me?” Guilt pummeled through me.
“I saw you standing by the gym watching me go up to my car. Most criminals like to come back to the scene of the crime, and you were the only one on campus.”
My cheeks flamed red again and I groaned. “I’m not a criminal.”
“Well . . .” He shrugged, grinning, and my chest tightened a little more. “Let’s just say that was one of the many hints I’d gotten that maybe you weren’t a fan.”
“Please. I showed up at all of your band events. What teenage girl goes to band events when she’s not in band?”
A smile spread across his lips. “Your best friend, Jenny, was in band.”
“I can assure you I wasn’t showing up to hear her play the flute.” I shook my head. “And what about debate club? Jenny wasn’t there, and yet I came.”
“I remember.” His voice dropped down. “I remember all the places you showed up. I remember more about you than you’ll ever know.”
“Likely story.” I shifted my weight and he moved closer.
“It’s true, Gina. You call it a crush?” He shook his head. “I’d fallen for you way harder than that.”
“But you barely knew me.”
“We had chemistry and algebra together.” He pressed his lips together. “I didn’t need to take that algebra. I tested into geometry years before.”
“Then, why did you?” I narrowed my eyes.
“To be with you. I’d heard you tell Jenny what algebra class you had and I went and changed. I told my counselor I needed a refresher even though I was on my way to calculus.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.” He grabbed my hands and held them in his. “You probably don’t even remember the experiment we had in chemistry where we were partners.”
“The candy cane experiment?” I laughed. “I remember it like yesterday.”
And I did. It was the first time I’d realized how much I liked Colton McAlister. He was funny, charming, and kind. We’d mixed together all these mystery ingredients our teacher had provided, and by the end of it, we’d made two giant candy canes. Mine fell on the floor and Colton gave me his.
“Well, that’s when I first fell for you.”
A charge of excitement pulsed through me at his confession. I’d always imagined I was nothing more than a nuisance to Colton.
Still holding my hands, he took another step forward and my legs turned to overcooked noodles.
“When I came home that weekend before homecoming, I never expected to run into you. I was only home to do laundry and help my dad out with a few things around the house.”
I let out a slow breath and dropped my gaze to the porch.
“When I saw you out with all of your friends at the pizza place, I didn’t want to go back to campus. You had this light about you. I couldn’t stay away. You seemed so happy and I seemed to be surrounded by miserable people. It didn’t matter if it was at my dorm, or in class, or the cafeteria. People did nothing but complain. It was like I was stuck around all these pseudo-intellectuals.”
I laughed. “Sounds about right.”
“You were so carefree.” He let go of my hand and tipped my chin up. “And happy.”
“So that’s why you started hanging around us and went to the game after? You wanted to be around someone happy?” My brow arched.
“I wanted to be around you.”
I bit my lip, thinking back to the memory I’d tried so hard to forget. All of my friends had gone home and so had Colton’s brothers. We were at the park down the street from my house, and that was when Colton kissed me.
A real kiss. One that opened up my heart and made me realize what I’d been missing. After that was when he asked me if I had a date for homecoming the next weekend.
“So, what happened? Why did you stand me up?”
He let out a low, angry groan. “It’s nothing I’m proud of.”
“It wasn’t my finest hour either.”
The humiliation from all those years ago still stung like it was yesterday. I’d never had any plans for going to homecoming, but when Colton asked me out, my mom and sister and I went shopping for the dress. The moment I tried the red satin dress on, I knew I had to have it.
My mom even had someone come over to the house to do my makeup, so when the doorbell never rang, it was easily the worst night of my high school life, especially when the limo pulled up with the rest of my friends. I wanted to stay home, but my father made me go.
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
“So what happened?”
“It’s so lame. I was nineteen and should have stood up to my father, but I didn’t.” He ran his hands through his hair. “My brothers told him I was coming back the next weekend, and when he found out why, he forbade me. Told me I couldn’t work with him in the summer if I showed up.”
“Why?”
“I honestly don’t know. I was so angry, but I was madder at myself than at him. I should have just gone with you. When my brothers told me you still went to homecoming and how beautiful you were even with tears in your eyes . . .” He shook his head. “That’s when my dad and I had a falling out and I didn’t come home for over a year.”
“Wow. I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking away.
He touched my cheek. “Oh, Gina. You have nothing to be sorry for. I was the jerk.”
My eyes flashed to his and I smiled. “Yes, you were.”
His smile widened. “I didn’t stand you up because I didn’t want to be there or because it was a typical McAlister joke on someone. I really did want to be there.”
“I honestly thought you’d only asked me out to stand me up.” I looked into his eyes and saw a mixture of deep regret and something more—promise, maybe?
“I would never do that, but you had no way of knowing.”
Even though being stood up at homecoming had happened more years ago than I’d like to admit, hearing Colton apologize made me feel lighter and less exposed somehow. Maybe my grandma was right. Maybe I really had let something like that screw me up.
“So, what was your grandma saying about you picking men who didn’t treat you right?” His eyes softened as he waited for my response.
“She didn’t say it quite like that.”
“Close enough.” He slowly slid his arm around my waist and a quiver of desire rolled through me. “So you’re not attached and—”
“And I don’t plan on being attached anytime soon. I got out of a really long, crappy relationship.” I swallowed my pride and decided to be honest. “I pick horrible men, so knowing that makes me leery of almost anyone I meet.”
His sexy grin only widened. “Where does that put me since we didn’t just meet?”
“I’m not sure.” I twisted my lips into a speculative scowl. “But with your background, I’m not sure you’re exactly winning any races, regardless.”
He let out a laugh and pulled me a little closer. The warmth from his body wrapped around me, making me feel secure and comforted.
Sensations I hadn’t felt from a man in years.
Alone and depressed?
Yes, but not comforted.
It was funny how a person could be in a relationship for years and yet feel so alone and isolated from not only their friends and family but from themselves. Relationships should be more than just being with someone because they’re a living, breathing body. I’d done that for far too many years and it wrecked me. I accepted less than I deserved because I grew to think I didn’t deserve much. I wanted to change that.
“My friends even set me up with a blind date.” I looked through my lashes and our eyes met.
“And how did that go?” His eyes sparkled with curiosity.
“He was a wonderful guy, super sexy, a little edgy . . .” I smiled.
“Oh?” His brow arched.
“But he wasn’t for me. There was no connection, you know? Nothing that made me want more . . .” My voice trailed off as his hands cupped my face. “No spark. Not like this.”
“You feel a spark?” A coy smile spread across his face as he pressed himself against me, sliding his hand back down to my waist.
“I might,” I whispered, dropping my eyes to his mouth. “Or it’s the first sign of hypothermia. But really, we need more reason to do this than old memories and past—”
Colton pressed his finger to my lips and looked over my head and smiled. I followed his gaze and saw a bunch of mistletoe tied with a red bow hanging above the door.
“I missed out once with you and mistletoe. I’m not missing out again.”
Before I had a chance to protest, his lips crashed to mine and every single cell in my body heated up with an intensity I hadn’t experienced since the first time he’d kissed me.