Page 51 of Falling Like Snow

“Yeah, but only one compelled you to climb through my window in the middle of the night,” he whispers.

“What compelled me to climb through your window was that it’s freezing outside, and I needed my space heater.”

“Of course,” he says, his lips relaxing into a soft smile. He lets go of my pinkie and brushes his thumb over the inside of my wrist, covering my skin with goose bumps and slowly turning me into mush.

Growing heavier with each tender stroke, my eyelids close.

“This is nice. I might fall asleep,” I mumble.

He continues but says nothing, and when I open my eyes, his are trained on me, piquing my curiosity. While I wait for him to tell me what he’s thinking, I study him in the glow of the muted TV. The curl of his long eyelashes he got from his mom. The perfect slope of his nose he got from his dad. The curves of his Cupid’s bow, the square jawline, and the full cheeks that are wholly his.

He really is a very beautiful boy.

His throat bobs, his eyes darting between mine, and my breaths grow shallow. Am I imagining the weird swell of tension between us?

“What are you thinking?” I whisper.

We’ve lain next to each other a thousand times over the years, but for some reason, this moment feels different. Maybe it’s because it’s the middle of the night and he’s shirtless and smells good and I’m cozy beneath the blankets… or maybe it’s just that my nerves are still firing from my near kiss with Micah. Either way, I can’t ignore the way my heart is racing.

“I’m thinking you should probably go,” he rasps, his words dousing me in ice water.

“Oh.”

“I don’t think your mom would be thrilled with you staying here,” he says.

“But I’m so comfy. And it’s just you,” I say, shaking off the bizarre feelings from moments ago. He is right, though—my mom has never let us sleep over, despite us being only friends since kindergarten.

My eyes dip to his mouth as he bites his bottom lip. “I know.” He lets go of my hand and pushes into a sitting position. “And I also know she doesn’t care that it’s just me.”

“Well, it’s crap,” I say, carefully maneuvering out from beneath the blanket without uncovering him. “But fine.”

I stand, Micah’s hoodie falling halfway down my thighs, and I put my coat on.

“Why can’t you set up at the reindeer farm with me tomorrow?” I ask, stepping into my boot.

“If I told you, I’d have to lie to you again.”

My head jerks in his direction, and I freeze, staring at him.

“So I’m just going to leave it at ‘I’m busy,’ ” he says.

I slowly put on my other boot, unsure if I’m more annoyed that he’s started lying to me or that he’s now keeping secrets in order to not lie.

“K,” I say.

“Don’t be like that,” Asher says.

“I’m not being like anything,” I tell him. I open his window. “I’ll see you whenever, I guess.”

I crawl outside, and as I walk across the lawn, the window closes behind me.

I’m in bed twenty minutes later when Asher texts, Don’t be mad.

Chapter Fourteen

Mom and I arrive at Rudolph Ranch the next morning at eleven. The icy snow crunches beneath our feet as we each carry a plastic crate full of tangled Christmas lights across the barren landscape we’ll soon transform into a whimsical winter fairyland.

To our right, the wooden reindeer enclosure is empty due to the biting cold that hasn’t let up. The large red barn that houses them sits to our far left, a wooden sleigh parked next to it. Bare oaks and frosted pines surround the breezy pasture in front of us.