Page 25 of Snowed In with Benefits

Shit. I grimace internally.

I intended to move before she woke up. I did, I swear. But I’m exhausted after last night and I ended up dozing off just before sunrise. Josie freezes as she emerges from the room, her eyes widening as she catches sight of me. That nudges me fully awake, and I uncurl from my seat on the floor, pushing off against the wall I’ve been leaning against for half the night.

My body cracks and silently screams at me. I twist my neck and loosen my shoulders, circulating blood to the cold, stiff areas of my muscles.

Josie’s mouth opens and closes once before she finally seems to find her voice. “Have you been waiting out here? I’m so sorry! Did you need something from your room? I’ll get out of your way.”

She clearly feels bad. Damn it. That’s exactly what I was hoping to avoid.

I shake my head and clear my throat. “Um, no. I heard you. Last night, I heard you. I just… I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Brilliant verbiage, as always. You’d think all the books I read would eventually filter into my head and give me a better way with words, but no.

“Oh.” She blinks, her brow furrowing. She looks like she doesn’t quite know what to do with that information.

This, again, is exactly what I wanted to avoid. I was one hundred percent intending on being back downstairs before she woke up this morning. Of course that couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t get that lucky. I rub a hand on the back of my neck, partially to smooth the knots there, partially just to have something to do with my damn hands.

I didn’t think I’d have to explain myself. I’m not sure I could if I wanted to. All I know is, I heard her crying and I came up here just in case. Just in case what? I have no idea. I just wanted to be close by. She sounded so hurt, it made me want to protect her. I just don’t know what I’m protecting her from, and I doubt she even wants my protection.

My eyes wander, searching for something less awkward to focus on. I notice the soft t-shirt she’s wearing, how it hangs off her breasts and tightens around her hips before falling to her thighs. I swallow and clear my throat.

“That’s not Hunter’s.” It looks like it’d be a little tight on him, and he doesn’t do tight. Besides, he’s got all his warm weather gear stored for the season. He wouldn’t go digging around in that just to find her some pjs, not when she has a whole room to herself.

“Hm? Oh.” She looks down at herself like she forgot what she was wearing. “No, it’s Preston’s. I brought it with me so I’d have something comfy to wear to sleep in. I—I forgot I had it last night.” She blushes, probably thinking about when she ran into me in the hall.

I’d like to be thinking about that, too, but I’m not. I’m thinking about how much of a piece of shit Preston is, and how irritating it is that his clothes look so good on her. I don’t like seeing her wearing his things.

Am I jealous? No, that’s not it. I noticed her wearing Hunter’s clothes last night. That didn’t bother me a bit, and she looked just as good in those. No, it’s exactly because Preston is a piece of shit, and her wearing his clothes is almost like her wearing a collar with his name on it.

Maybe that’s too far, but that’s how it feels, looking at her.

“Hm.” That’s all I say to that before I turn and walk away down the hall. I don’t like that she was crying herself to sleep wearing her ex’s clothes. That doesn’t seem healthy, and it doesn’t seem right. She should be glad to be rid of the douche.

Not that she’s admitted that he’s a douche yet. She still seems to think he’s so “perfect.” But if your girl can’t even drink whiskey around your friends without you getting a stick up your ass about it, are you really that perfect? Hell no.

Somebody should tell her that. Not me, obviously. She wouldn’t hear it coming from me. I’m just a big, scary guy covered in body art, I’m no girlfriend or therapist. That’s what she needs, someone to talk to who will give it to her straight. She ran away from the wedding because her fiancé was a douche canoe. Next topic.

Back downstairs, I glare at the blankets as I fold them up, getting the couch ready for the day. It’s not the blankets’ fault I’m in this mood, but they won’t care about my face, either. I’m hung over, pissed off at a man I’ve never met, and exhausted from sitting up half the night listening to a woman cry.

As I’m shoving the blankets back in the cabinet, I hear Hunter coming down the stairs. I can always tell which one of them it is.

“Morning,” Hunter says with a yawn. “Snowed last night.”

“Mm.” I close the closet door and head for the kitchen as Emmett starts down the stairs. We all end up in the kitchen to kick off the day, and Hunter makes a beeline toward the coffee maker as usual. Nobody says anything else until the coffee is brewed, poured, and in hand.

I lean against the counter. I’m not much of a sitter. Emmett drinks his coffee looking out the window and Hunter sits down at the kitchen table like a proper person. He’s always had a little more decorum than the rest of us. It would be annoying, except he never makes either of us feel any particular way about it. He just does his own thing, the same way we do ours.

“Snowed,” Emmett says.

“Yup.” I agree and take a sip of my coffee.

“Barn’s gonna need clearing,” Hunter points out.

It’s true. While the house is peaked, the barn’s roof is flatter and older. It was the first structure on the property, and whoever built it wasn’t prepared for mountain winters. We keep saying that we’re going to rebuild the roof so the snow will slide off, but we haven’t gotten around to it.

“I’ll do it,” Emmett says, rolling his shoulders the way he does when his body needs something physical to do. Back when we first got here, I used to do the shoveling. It took a few days for him to tell me that he needed the activity. I’d been butthurt about it at first. Me, trying to do something nice to thank him for having us here, and him being, to my mind at the time, ungrateful for it.

We worked it out, though. Now I get it. He’s got more muscle than the rest of us. He’s also got more built-up fury than the rest of us, although he never lets it show. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s working out of his system when he’s shoveling. Every other emotion gets poured into his woodworking.

“I’ll help you,” Hunter says. “Need to clear my head.”