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“Luca?” he asked, sounding uncertain.
“Yeah. Uh, thanks. I’m coming.” The minute I tossed my blanket into the back seat, I realized how freaking uncomfortably cold I was.
He pointed over into my passenger seat. “Do you want to bring your groceries?”
“I suppose I should.” Grabbing my couple of bags, I stepped out into the cold, and a shiver ran down my spine.
Harrison planted his palm on the small of my back, directing and pushing me along, but his other hand hovered near my side. The urge to be a snarky dick and tell him I knew how to walk sat on the tip of my tongue, then died a quick death as I slipped, and he caught me before I fell on my ass.
As he righted me, his feet went out from under him, but he caught himself on the side of his car. Surprisingly enough, he laughed. Leaning around me, he opened the passenger side door and held my arm as I began to lower down, down, down into the car. “Watch your head.”
Again, I wanted to be bratty and tell him I was more worried about my butt scraping the ground as he drove since his car sat so low, but he didn’t deserve that. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to keep him in the same category as my douchey ex or that I didn’t particularly care for men who called themselves Daddy when they weren’t willing to commit and were only in it for the sexual benefits, but…he’d been good to me, and I could go back to hating him for principal’s sake once I wasn’t an icicle.
Harrison fastened his seatbelt once he was in on the other side and grinned over at me. “Isn’t this great?”
“That my car won’t start in the middle of a freak snowstorm in the beginning of December? Yes, fabulous,” I responded sarcastically.
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, that sucks, but you can warm up now.” He reached over and turned a knob, and the heat blew out harder from the vents. “We’ll take care of your car tomorrow, but it’s snowing.” He laughed like a little kid who’d just found out that school had closed for a snow day, and he was going to spend the whole day sledding down a steep hill in the park with his friends.
I didn’t know what took me aback more. The fact that he’d insinuated that he’d be helping with my car issues or that he genuinely seemed to enjoy this weather. “Um. Yeah, it’s great, I guess.”
He shook his head and backed up slowly. As he circled the parking lot and pulled out onto the main road, I appreciated that he took it easy. It was hard to see anything on the road in front of us beyond the occasional glare of the headlights of another car coming toward us. I directed him to take the next right and yelped as the car spun sideways as he took the turn. On reflex, my feet pushed into the ground in front of me, and I pushed at the dashboard with my hands.
Harrison straightened us back out. “Sorry about that,” he said, not sounding nearly as jovial as minutes before.
I gulped. “It’s okay.” It wasn’t his fault. The driving conditions were less than favorable, and we were in a sports car. Thankfully, there hadn’t been another car coming up on the corner. My biggest concern was that we were still farther from my apartment than I’d like, and then he’d still have to drive home. What if he got in an accident? I’d feel terrible, but what was the alternative? Ask him to pull over and call me a rideshare? I might have my issues with Harrison, but I knew him enough to trust him to get me home as safely as possible. The thought of getting into a car with someone I didn’t know in this snow made me nauseous.
As he took the next turn, the car slid again. He got it under control seconds before hitting a mailbox. Harrison blew out a breath and pulled the car parallel to the curb, staring out into the swirling mass of whiteness. “I hate to ask you this, Luca, but would you be willing to go to my house? I live right down the street, and it might be safer than trying our luck driving you all the way home.”
Safer for who?Shit. He wasn’t wrong, and the way he kept skidding made me nervous. He was obviously a good driver, which meant the streets were just that bad right now. Did I want to be trapped alone with him in his home? Not particularly, but he’d been nice enough to pick me up. “If you think that’s best, sure.”
He turned his head toward me. “I really do. I’m sorry about this. If I’d thought it would be this bad, I’d have asked Christian to borrow his SUV.”
Acting braver than I felt, I waved him off. “It’s fine. We’re both adults.”
He peered at me, making me want to squirm, but instead, I looked back out the window. With a deep sigh, he flicked on his blinker then moved us back onto the road. With visibility so low, I didn’t get a good view of Harrison’s house as he pulled into a driveway and drove straight into a two-car garage. He turned off the engine. “Well, we’re here.”
I nodded. “I guess so.”
Harrison cleared his throat. “Let’s get you inside.”
“Sure.” I got out and noticed that he had neatly labeled boxes stacked three high lining the perimeter of the garage, and in the other spot that would fit a vehicle, there was nothing. Why would he leave the spot open if he only had one car? Surely it would’ve been easier to spread the boxes out farther. Wow. I really did have my mind set to automatically judge everything he did. It wasn’t any of my business how he stored things, and it was a neat, clean space.
Following him in, we stepped straight into a laundry room. “We can take our shoes off…” His eyes widened as his gaze moved to my feet. “Luca, you’re soaked.”
I looked down and frowned. Now that I saw my wet pants legs and how my shoes looked like they were right out of the washing machine, I noticed how soggy my socks felt on my toes.Ugh. I hoped I didn’t get sick. I didn’t have time for that. “Yeah, the parking lot was already slushy and gross when I went into the store,” I said, trying to sound dismissive instead of uncomfortable.
Harrison wasn’t fooled. “Come on. Take off your shoes, and I’ll get some clothes you can change into, and you can go in and take a hot shower. I don’t want you getting sick right before finals.”
Any other time, I would have argued, but I was worried about the same thing. I toed off my shoes and switched my groceries from one hand to the other as I pulled off my socks. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but Harrison flipped open the door for the dryer and held out his hand. “Give me those. I’ll dry everything once you’ve changed.” I avoided his hand and threw my socks in myself, then he plucked my hat off the top of my head and tossed it in, too. “So stubborn.”
We walked into a large, modern kitchen with steel appliances and not a thing sitting out. “You can leave your bags on the counter, and I’ll stick everything in the fridge or freezer or whatever.”
I almost wished I’d left them in my car. Why was it mortifying that I had a four-pack of toilet paper in one of them? It was normal and natural to need it, but the idea of Harrison handling my TP was so embarrassing.Okay, Luca. Act normal.I set them down, and he waved at me to keep following him.
As we exited the kitchen, I stopped in my tracks, completely startled. The living room was modern and sleek, which I expected. What I never would’ve imagined was the green Christmas tree with white frosted branch tips that had to be at least seven-foot-tall with an abundance of colored lights. Which also lined the ceiling. Red and white garland wound its way around the whole tree, but also hung in loops off the mantle of the fireplace. On top was a whole Christmas village, with a huge wreath hanging above it with more colored lights.
Unable to stop myself, I wandered closer to the tree. Harrison passed me and bent over, fiddling with something to the side of it. As he stood back up, a whistle blew, and a train began circling the track under the tree. He grinned, and it was so boyishly happy that I automatically smiled back. How was that even hotter than his normally sexy smirk?
