Page 85 of Snowed In with Benefits

“What, you expect me to wait in my car? It’s freezing out here!” Preston huffs, crossing his arms.

Beau looks at me, then at Preston, then at Hunter and Emmett. There’s some silent communication happening over my head, I just know it.

“You can wait in the building out back,” I suggest.

Beau tenses beside me, clearly hating that idea.

“What’s this building?” Preston asks suspiciously, like he thinks we’re going to chop him up and eat him or something.

“It isn’t much,” I tell him with a shrug. “But it’s got a roof and it’s kind of warm. You head out there and wait for me and I’ll come when I’m ready.”

Hunter is searching my face. I don’t know what it’s telling him, but clearly it tells him enough. He gives Beau a look, then he nods.

“Whatever you want works for us,” he tells me.

“That’s what I want.” I don’t know how true that is, but this is the best way I can see to keep this situation contained. Preston isn’t going anywhere until he talks to me in private. I know how stubborn he can be, and I don’t want the guys having to deal with him hanging around forever. I don’t want to imagine how that would end.

“I’ll take you,” Hunter tells Preston. He barely looks at the other man, uncharacteristically stiff and cold. He doesn’t say another word as Preston follows him around the side of the house.

Back inside, I release a breath I’ve been holding, slumping like a noodle against the wall. The tension was unbearable. It felt like wrangling four tigers at once, and my heart is pounding like I barely made it out alive. I open my eyes to find Beau looking at me.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks.

Emmett reiterates the question with his eyes. I rub my face hard and breathe through my hands, forcing my heart to slow down. I nod, then let my hands fall to my sides.

“Yes,” I tell them. “I need to face him. It’s time.”

“And… what are you going to say?” Beau looks like he doesn’t even want to ask, but something is compelling him to.

“I’m going to just put it all out there. Tell him everything. Move on with a clean slate.” I look up at Beau, who looks like he’d rather hear me say that I was cooking nails for breakfast. “I can’t keep avoiding it.”

Beau and Emmett exchange a look that I can’t read. Emmett nods and Beau sighs.

“What do you need?” Emmett asks quietly.

I shake my head. I don’t know what I need. I need time, but I’ve already stolen more time than I deserved to take for the way I left. I need words, but these two aren’t exactly walking dictionaries.

“Whiskey,” I say finally. “Just a little.”

Emmett doesn’t hesitate to walk into the kitchen. I follow him slowly, with Beau walking beside me.

“Anything else?” he asks.

“Boots, I guess. If I’m going to be walking across the yard.” Beau nods. He strides ahead of me into the kitchen, where Emmett is waiting for me with a shot of whiskey. He’s poured one for himself and another for Beau as well. We take a moment, just looking at each other. Emmett with his steely, knowing eyes. Beau with his worried expression and his heartbeat making the ink on his chest flutter. Me, looking like something I stopped recognizing about a week ago. We clink our shot glasses together and down the whiskey.

Emmett holds up the bottle, offering me another. I shake my head. “I need my head on straight for this,” I tell him. “That first one was for my guts.”

He nods his understanding and returns the bottle to its place on the shelf. Beau grabs boots from the mudroom and hands them to me. I put them on slowly, watching my fingers tremble. I feel disconnected from them, like my body is reacting to Preston while my mind is reacting to the presence of the guys. I wish I wasn’t reacting at all. I wish I was just acting, in my own best interests, without unconsciously reacting to the vibes of everybody around me.

I feel like I was close to that this week. I feel like I was closer to myself than I’ve ever been before. The woman who picked out a Christmas tree and made three grown men haul it inside and decorate it with tin cans and fishing lures. The woman who held Emmett’s face in her hands and kissed him until the ghosts left his eyes. The woman who woke up tangled in warm limbs and felt safe instead of ashamed. That woman knew what she wanted. That woman didn’t apologize for taking up space. I need her right now, and I’m terrified that the sound of Preston’s voice has already started to shrink her back down.

I take a deep breath, stand up in the too-big boots and give each of the guys a long look.

“I’ll be okay,” I tell them. “And if I’m not, you’re right here.”

They still hate this, I can tell. Before I have the chance to let that influence me, I head out the back door. Hunter must have gone back around the front of the house because I don’t see him as I crunch across the back yard. The snow squeaks under the too-big boots and I have to concentrate on not tripping, which is almost a mercy because it gives my brain something to do besides scream. Each step takes me further from the cabin. I can feel the warmth of it fading behind me, the woodsmoke, the coffee smell, the low hum of three men who would tear this door off its hinges if I asked them to. Ahead of me, the barn sits squat and gray against the tree line. It looks smaller than it did yesterday. It looks enormous right now.

My breath comes fast and heavy as I get closer, closer to the final conversation between me and Preston. I stop a few feet from the door. My hand is shaking. I curl it into a fist, press it against my thigh, and wait until it stops. It doesn’t stop. I open the door anyway.