His hand went to the back of his neck, fingers digging in like he needed the anchor. “I’m just saying ... if anyone’s a bad idea here, it’s me.”
Something in my chest pinched.
“Don’t,” I said automatically. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, looking suddenly, unbearably tired. “Tell the truth?”
He flicked a glance toward the window, where the hill was just visible through the glass—our carved tracks already filling back in with white.
He exhaled through his nose, a white cloud dissipating. “Besides,” he added, tone shifting into something drier, something with an edge. “You just dragged a half-functional contractor down a hill. That is not anyone’s dream rebound.”
The wordreboundhit like a tiny hammer—knocking into Greg’s ghost and that ugly, lingering belief that maybe that was all I’d ever be good for. The girl who looked good on someone’s arm until she didn’t. The girl who didn’t see the cracks of her misjudgment until she was standing in the rubble.
I snorted, because humor was easier than bleeding. “Wow. Okay. Rude to both of us.”
His mouth twitched, like he hadn’t expected that answer. A tiny flash of apology crossed his face. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant,” I said, sighing. “I just ... for the record, I’m not looking for a rebound.”
His jaw worked, like there were words he wanted to say and didn’t trust. “Good,” he said finally. “You shouldn’t be.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. When he dropped it, his expression had settled back into something wry and self-directed.
“I’m still figuring out how to walk down a hill without doing the splits,” he said quietly. “I don’t have any business figuring outyou.”
The honesty in it hit me harder than the self-deprecation.
It wasn’t just that he thought he was a bad bet. He believed it. Deep down at the marrow level.
I wanted to argue and tell him he’d handled that hill just fine. To tell him I’d seen him laugh and felt something in me unclench like it had been waiting months for that exact sound.
I didn’t trust my voice not to crack open with too much.
So I nodded slowly instead, chewing the inside of my cheek.
“Okay,” I said finally. The word felt like walking barefoot over gravel. “So. We blame adrenaline. Snow. A temporary ... brain malfunction.”
His mouth curved, just barely, like the phrase amused him in spite of everything. “Sure,” he said. “One-time post-sledding brain malfunction.”
“We’re adults,” I added, hearing the faint hysterical edge under my own voice and hating it. “We can be ... roommates. Normal. Friends.”
Friendstasted complicated on my tongue. Too small for what my body wanted. Too big for what my fear would allow.
Wes’s throat bobbed. His gaze flicked to my mouth for a fraction of a second before he caught himself. “Yeah,” he said, voice low. “Friends.”
The word landed between us like a stone in fresh snow. Soft on the surface. Heavy underneath.
Silence stretched, thick and humming.
I needed to cut it before it swallowed me whole.
“New rule,” I said, dredging up a smile and pointing it at the counter like I was issuing a decree to the kitchen instead of the man who’d just kissed me senseless. “No making out in the snow.”
One corner of his mouth tugged higher. The House Rules list on the fridge flashed in my mind—his handwriting under mine. A weird, paper-thin truce.
“Probably for the best,” he said. “Snow’s cold as hell anyway.”
Heat flashed over my skin at the memory of his mouth. The way nothing about that kiss had felt cold.