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“And I’m definitely not forgetting that kiss.” He winked at me, but all I could do was groan.
“Me either.”
“You don’t need to sound so sad about that. Let me find some peroxide and maybe a bandage, and I’ll be all for a repeat.” He twisted around, trying to see his own side.
“Fuck. I was supposed to be patching you up. Come this way.” I steered him into the hall bathroom and had him sit while I dug for the first aid kit.
“Nice tiles.” Gideon ran a hand down the backsplash, a complicated arrangement of hexagons that had taken far more hours than I’d allocated. And damn, if I didn’t want to trade places with the tile, let him run those hands all over me.
“Hold still.” Trying to focus, I knelt in front of Gideon’s knee, which was probably the worst of his various scrapes and bruises. Luckily, his pants had torn in such a way that I could doctor his cut without him removing them. Gideon in his underwear might be more than my weak willpower could stand.
“You don’t have to do it for me.”
“Yes, I do.” Even with me being as cautious as I could, I still winced right along with him as I cleaned the cut. “Sorry.”
“Quit apologizing. You’re the gentlest medic I’ve ever had. It’s not your fault that it stings. And it’s not your fault that I kissed you.”
“Thought we weren’t talking about that,” I grumbled.
“No, we’re not flipping out over it,” he corrected as I positioned a bandage over the wound. “Oh, and by the way, I’m tested. In case you were worried about that.”
“I…thank you.” Said something about where my head was at that it hadn’t even occurred to me to worry about getting Gideon’s blood on my hands. “Me too.”
I moved to cleaning his side, each long scrape making my stomach clench all over again. Such a close fucking call.
“Excellent. So, we’re two single, consenting guys who happened to kiss. And we could schedule that repeat. Or we could move on. But what we are not going to do is make some huge deal over it, abandon all our plans.”
“You don’t quit with the bossy, do you?” I had to laugh because that was the most rational response to an oops kiss I’d ever heard. And how very Gideon that he was more worried about me not wanting to decorate than about the kiss itself.
“Nope. And you like it.”
“You did work awfully hard on those plans. Color coding and all.” I sidestepped his observation, even if he was right on the money about me liking him taking over. And maybe he had a point. Maybe this didn’t have to be some huge deal. After securing a gauze pad over the worst of the scrapes, I patted his shirt back into place. “There. All fixed up.”
“Thank you.” His grin was so tender that I braced for another kiss, which didn’t come. Instead, he gave me a hand up as he cheerily announced, “Now we can finish the reindeer.”
“You really think I’m going to let you back on the roof?” I stared him down.
“Let?” There were undoubtedly European princes with less indignant tones.
“I don’t want you falling,” I admitted because clearly trying to order him around wasn’t going to work. “Once was enough.”
“It’s sweet that you care so much.” His expression softened again, another moment when I thought he might reach for me, but instead, he headed back to the guest room. “Honestly, I want to get back out there so I don’t let myself develop a fear about it.”
“I can respect that,” I grudgingly agreed. I didn’t like it, but I did understand where he was coming from. And it was another totally Gideon thing to press ahead even when someone else might have shied away from repeat danger.
“But I’m going to be extra careful.” Touching my arm, he met my gaze. I had no clue what he saw there, but then he nodded like we were having some unspoken conversation. “Maybe I can kneel near the window and hand you pieces.”
In the end, we did exactly that, and I lined up all eight reindeer surprisingly fast, bolting them in place. As we finished the last of the outdoor decorations, the wind shifted, gray sky darkening further, twilight and incoming weather combining to bring night on in a hurry. But, of course, snow flurries didn’t deter Gideon from dragging me out to my front lawn while he fiddled with the lighting app on his phone.
“Now for the big moment,” he announced dramatically. I was pretty sure nothing was going to compete with that earlier kiss as far as big moments, but I nodded. He was so damn cute concentrating hard on his app.
“Let’s light it up.” I clapped him on the back, hand lingering as he finished telling the lights to turn on. I pulled him tighter against me, arm around his shoulder, something for me to hold on to as the house transformed. His nearness felt less like a turn-on and more like a necessity as if I physically needed him to keep myself upright and grounded. And he fit so naturally against my side as if we were two metal fastenings clicking into place, made to stand like this. “Wow.”
I had to swallow. I’d seen holiday lights every season, but they hadn’t been mine in so very long that I’d forgotten about the magic, the fluttery feeling as something so familiar became something so precious and beautiful. The house looked…hopeful. I’d put hours and hours into this place, but in all that work, I’d never had an ounce of sentiment, never tried to assign it a personality.
But now here it was, stretching skyward, each white bulb a tiny lighthouse waiting to chase away the darkness and welcome someone home. Home. A word I tried never to dwell on. And this fucking hurt, the reminder of what I’d been missing.
“Damn.” I tried for a whistle, but it came out all broken.
