Page 36 of Snowed In with Benefits

“Beats the bullshit of living in town,” Emmett says into his bowl.

Hunter chuckles and leans toward me, lowering his voice as though it will keep the other two from hearing him, even though we’re all at the same table. “Emmett doesn’t like people. Any people.”

Emmett shrugs. “I like two people.”

Hunter rolls his eyes. “Okay, he doesn’t like most people.” He winks at me and I feel my cheeks flush. I can feel Emmett’s eyes on me, watching my every move and reaction.

I wish I knew what he was thinking.

15

EMMETT

It’s been two days since Beau and Josie came out of the bathroom dripping wet. It’s only stormed once, but the roads are still impassable.

I’m unsettled. I admit it. I’ve been unsettled since she got here, but the longer she’s here the more unsettled I get. It’s not that she’s invading my space, because she’s not. She’s not leaving her stuff all over the house, she hasn’t started redecorating or any stupid thing. She hasn’t so much as set foot in the workshop.

She’s just… here. And, somehow, I can’t seem to remember how it felt when she wasn’t here. The house supports four people just fine, except for the fact that Beau is still banished to the couch. Would I prefer that he wasn’t? No. The alternatives would be worse. Either the two of them sharing a room or her being out here, in a state of undress, every single morning.

No, that wouldn’t work for me.

Her scent seems to linger everywhere. It’s strangely addicting, the way warm honeysuckle on a summer’s day is addicting, the way apricot cobbler fresh out of the oven is addicting. It’s in every corner of the house, except the workshop, in the most surprising places.

It’s because she’s everywhere. She walks past me, completely focused on her camera, and all at once she has my full and undivided attention.

That keeps happening. I don’t know what to make of it. I wasn’t kidding the other day when I said I only like two people. Two living people, anyway. Frowning, I walk in the opposite direction, grabbing my coat and boots. Might as well shovel something.

She always seems to have that camera. I pound the shovel into the snow and scoop a pile aside, willing the activity to clear my head. I’ve watched her take pictures of all kinds of things, little mundane things. A branch. A bird. The blanket draped over the back of the couch.

It’s snowing on me. Shoveling isn’t going to do any good, it’ll just get covered again.

“So, I’ll shovel again,” I mutter at myself.

I’ve been doing more of that, lately too. Talking to myself like a damn lunatic. Never around anybody else, especially not her, but more and more when I’m alone. Maybe I am going crazy. Maybe she’s actually driving me crazy.

I look up at Beau’s window and find her behind the glass, pointing her camera at… something. From down here, I can’t even tell what she might be seeing. To be fair, I don’t even know what she sees in any of it, and that bothers me. Not the unknown, that doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is the fact that I want to know. I want to see her pictures, to understand the world through her eyes.

I’m curious about her. I don’t like that I’m curious about her. I’m happier pretending that she’s just some dumb, flaky runaway bride, but here she is, smelling like summer in the dead of winter and lighting up like sunshine while she takes pictures of things I walk past without a thought every single day.

Without a thought, without a second glance… I wish I could treat her the same way, but it always ends up like this. Her, minding her own business. Me, viscerally aware of her and her business whenever she’s around.

And she’s always around. It’s strangely comfortable, having her here, and that makes me mightily uncomfortable. It’s a paradox, and I don’t like paradoxes. I like those less than I like people, and I really don’t like people. We’ve been over this. Shit, focus.

I turn my attention back to the walkway as the snow shakes down from the tree branches, dusting everything I just cleared. A pointless activity. A necessary activity. Not for the result, but for the activity itself. This is how I burn off tension. It’s always how I burn off tension in the winter.

So why am I still tense?

I look back up at the window. It’s empty now. I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed, and I hate that.

I turn back to the snow. Shove, scoop, toss. Shove, scoop, toss. Shove… I wonder what she’d see in this. This scoop of snow on my shovel with the twig sticking out of the top seems like one of those things that would make her eyes light up and get her shutter snapping.

Toss.

Shove.

Scoop.

Toss.