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I don't look at him, but I can feel him watching me. He's trying to dissect me in the same way I want to dissect him. Only, I think he might see into me a little easier. Like I'm an easier book to read. My heartbreak is written on my face, scored into the glass of my eyes.
His is in the craters of his scars. I'll have to dig deeper to expose his hurts. Maybe deeper than he’ll ever allow.
“What about you?” I turn his question on him. I figure it's fair. He asked, why should I?
“I have Mom and Dad. Lucy and George.”
Tipping my head to the side, I angle my body to face him. We’re not close, but we’re certainly not far. A few feet of space stands between us, and it’s charged. “You know,” I lean my hip into the counter. “I thought she lost him. George, I mean. She talked about him in present tense, though. So, I thought it was recent. I thought her loss was so recent, and she couldn't bear to spend this holiday alone, that she sought out another lonely soul for herself.” I look down at my feet even though I can feel his gaze sharp on me as I admit. “That's why I answered. Because I understand what it feels like to be lonely.”
He doesn’t reply right away. In fact, I think he isn’t going to when finally, he moves a little closer, his voice pitched impossibly low. “Why are you lonely, Sadie?”
Oh my God—the way he says my name. I nearly sigh. Ifeelit inside.
I shouldn’t feel it anywhere.
Suddenly, I’m on guard. I don’t want him to know. I don’t want to give him this power over me.
Because if he knows, he will have power. And he already has too much. He already makes me feel so much—too much.
Keep your heart in check, Sadie. You’re seduced by the holiday. It’s the blizzard. The wood burning stove, the charming mountain house. It is not the man.
But what if it is? What if he’s the one I’ve been holding out for all these years?
What if I could have with him what Mom and Dad had?
Or what if I let hope seep through the cracks in my barely held-together heart, and he shatters it?
ChapterFive
Nick
She doesn’t answer right away, and I’m shaken by the play of emotion that burns through her burnished whiskey eyes as, finally, tipping her little chin up at me, defiance settled in her eyes, she demands, “Are you lonely?”
I’m familiar enough with deflection to spot it anywhere. “I’m not an easy man to spend time with.”
She raises her brows, clearly surprised by my reply. “You seem fine to me.”
My laugh is dry. “Stick around a while.”
“Is that an invitation?”
My heart kicks. Do I want her to stay? Maybe. Fuck.
I shrug.
Her eyes widen. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means. I’m not easy to spend time with.”
“I don't understand,” she huffs.But I can see she’s trying to.
What I want to know, is why? Women don’t bother with me—haven’t bothered with me since the accident. After Patricia, I stopped trying.
I feel my hands curl into tight fists. “I've been alone for three years.”
“So?”
“I don't know how to spend time with people anymore.”
