He stopped just short of touching me.
“May I?” he asked.
The simple courtesy shouldn’t have done what it did to me.
My chest tightened. “Yeah,” I said, and my voice came out lower than I meant it to. “Show me.”
His fingers brushed mine as he adjusted the yarn, guiding it more loosely through my grip, knuckles grazing the inside of my wrist. The contact was brief, impersonal if anyone else had been looking. No one else was.
My breath stuck.
His scent cut through the faint clean smell of the house—soap, skin, that woodsy note from earlier. The memory of him leaning in last night flooded my body with heat, pooling low and insistent. My nipples tightened under my sweater, traitorous and very aware of the fact that there was a man within touching distance who knew exactly what to do with a woman’s body and had almost done it to mine.
“There,” he murmured, concentrating on the yarn. “Less death grip, more ... guiding.”
“You’re awfully confident for someone reading about horny queens,” I managed.
His lips twitched. His thumb brushed the side of my finger as he pulled back, slow and unhurried, like he had no idea what he was doing to me.
“Someone’s got to maintain standards around here,” he said. “Can’t have you starting a fight with a sweater.”
The warmth that rolled through me at the teasing was bigger than it had any right to be. Comfortable. Dangerous.
“How the hell do you know how to knit?” I asked, adjusting my grip and trying again.
Wes leaned back against the couch, his book open. “My grandmother taught us—Mary and me—when we were kids.”
Mary was his little sister—Cal’s wife, before the car accident that took her life. He’d never mentioned her before, and a tiny spark ignited inside of me. There was something trusting and reverent about Wes opening up ... even if it was to casually mention his sister.
“I remember her—your sister. She was older than me, and I remember how pretty she was. She had great hair.” I tried not to look too hard at Wes as I brought up his sister.
His lips pressed together as if he could picture her too.
“You guys were close?” I asked.
Wes nodded, his voice thick. “Yeah. For sure when we were kids. More so when I got back from overseas and she and Cal got together. We did a lot as a unit.”
By then I had already started a new life in the city and was barely back in Star Harbor. I wished I could have known her, but it felt too risky admitting that aloud to Wes. Instead, I sneaked a glance at him, catching the way his eyes softened as he watched me attempt another row. His expression was less guarded. Less hollow.
We were just two people in a living room. Knitting. Reading. Trading barbs over fantasy porn. Sharing tiny shards of our souls and pretending like it was no big deal.
We were also two people who’d almost kissed in a kitchen, who’d both leaned in, who both knew exactly what they were doing when they didn’t mention it now.
My body knew which version of the story it believed.
My heartbeat ticked up. I focused on the yarn, on the small satisfaction of a stitch that actually looked right, and told myself I was just sitting here because the lighting was good.
Not because I liked the way Wes Vaughn looked in his slutty little glasses, sprawled across his couch, book in hand, eyes occasionally flicking up to check on me like I was something worth watching.
Over the back of the armchair, the world outside was blinding and soft. Overnight, more snow had fallen, smoothing out yesterday’s footprints, filling in every dip and rut until the backyard looked spotless. The gentle slope behind the house rolled down toward the line of pines, the kind of hill kids would take one look at and immediately weaponize with plastic sleds and no sense of self-preservation.
The sky was a bright, hard blue. Sunlight shattered off the drifts, making the whole yard look like it had been hit with a glitter bomb.
A weird little fizz of energy went through me. Fresh snow always felt like a do-over. No tracks. No evidence. Just possibility.
“We should go sledding.” The words left my mouth before my brain had a chance to dress them up as a suggestion and not a declaration.
Wes’s head snapped up. “What?”