Page 20 of The Christmas Accomplice

What a dick.

Reece sighed and looked down at something he held in his palm. Welton wondered whether or not he should bother him, but then his mouth seemed to take over. “Having a problem with something?”

Reece looked up, his frown shifting to a smile when he recognized him. “Good morning. Don’t tell me you’re using our appetizer coupon without me?”

Welton’s fingertips and scalp prickled as heat flooded his face. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve got that coupon tucked safely inside my wallet.”

Reece approached and placed a hand on the half wall between a couple of ferns. Fine, dark hairs along the back led to a thicker covering over the small portion of forearm Welton could see beneath the cuff of his shirt. More prickling kicked off, starting in the bottoms of his feet and sliding up his legs.

Like Reece’s fingers tracing a path up my skin and right to my—

“We’ll have to figure out a time to use it,” Reece said, interrupting Welton’s oversexed thoughts.

“That would be good. I’ve been craving some spinach dip.”

“I’m telling you, the cheese sticks are the way to go.”

“We’ll see,” Welton said, being intentionally noncommittal. Good God, was he flirting with Reece? And was Reece flirting with him in return? To keep himself from becoming distracted by overanalyzing the situation, Welton asked, “Are you having a problem setting up one of the activities?”

“Oh, you heard that?”

“I didn’t mean to. I happened to be in the perfect spot to overhear.”

“Yeah, you are. I’m leading an activity tomorrow and wanted to do a test of the sound system in one of the ballrooms, but I can’t get it to work with my old music player.”

“Would your boss know how to do it? He’s the one who led the snowman contest yesterday, isn’t he?”

“That’s Edward, and yes, he’s my boss, but he’s out sick today. And unfortunately my schedule is pretty packed the rest of the day, so I really wanted to be able to get it working soon.”

“I could take a look at it,” Welton heard himself say, “not that I’m an expert or anything, but I’ve set up music systems for friends before.”

It was true. His friend Josiah who ran the D&D group Welton was part of moonlighted as a wedding deejay on weekends. Welton had tagged along every now and then to act as a gopher. While Josiah was a whiz with data analytics and numbers and running a D&D campaign, he wasn’t quite as knowledgeable when it came to technology. Welton had connected the sound system at hotel ballrooms more times than he could count, and he was sure the set up at Snowcapped wouldn’t be much different.

Reece smiled, and Welton’s brain seemed to short out a moment. The way Reece’s face relaxed and lit up made Welton momentarily forget how to form words.

“That would be really great,” Reece said. “You don’t mind?”

Welton shook his head and managed to kick his speech module back online. “I don’t mind at all. I had no other plans today.”

“Not going to take a ski lesson or do some snowshoeing?”

“No, and, uh, definitely not.”

“Sounds like a snowshoe story in there somewhere.”

“Yes, well… Anyway, I don’t think I’d do very well as a skier.”

Reece leaned in a bit over the ferns and looked him over. “Hard to tell under the layers of clothes, but you look like you’re pretty toned. I think you’d do well on the slopes.”

“Oh, um, thank you.” Welton had to look away and catch his breath. “My stamina is probably much higher than my ability to balance.”

“Perhaps you just haven’t had the right teacher.”

A gulp from his water helped Welton clear the sudden frog in his throat. “You might have a point.”

The one time Dean had taken Welton skiing, things hadn’t gone well. Dean had tried giving him lessons, but the patient tone he started out with soon degraded to testy. Welton had finally pretended to twist his ankle and spent the rest of the day sitting by the fire drinking spiked hot chocolate while Dean went skiing and, according to his excited recount, had “torn up the slopes.” Every time since then, if Welton even considered attempting to ski, a spike of anxiety flooded his system with adrenaline, and his heart pounded at an alarming rate.

He’d agreed to this vacation getaway on the condition that Dean didn’t attempt to get him out on the slopes. That had been a stipulation Dean had readily agreed to.