Niles glances up at me from his phone that he’s magically produced from, seemingly, out of thin air, and gives me a nod of acknowledgement. Feeling a sense of being out of place, I purse my lips, linger a second or two longer, and then I turn and leave.
Why do I suddenly feel like I’ve overstayed my welcome? The feeling just confirms that it’s time for me to leave, and I hurry through a cool shower and throw on my day-old clothes, stuffing my panties into the clutch I brought in place of a bulky purse to be washed later.
Once I leave the bathroom and have tidied the bedroom, eliminating nearly any evidence of my ever having been there, I head downstairs, feeling the warmth of the working furnace doing its job once again.
“You should definitely have that inspected,” I say as I step into the kitchen where Dean is flipping the final batch of pancakes. He clicks off the stovetop burners and looks up at me. “It’s just a rash from some cheap cologne I bought at a swap meet. It’ll go away in a day or two.”
I frown, unsure how to respond. “Uh…”
“Kidding!” He belts out a laugh that causes me to smile. “I assume you mean the furnace, and yes, mother, we’ll call someone.”
“If anyone will even come. I bet they’re swamped with calls,” Niles commiserates as he enters the room.
“Actually, no one will be coming today, so we’d better hope and pray it keeps working until tomorrow.” Shane enters, his expression serious as he meets Dean’s questioning gaze.
“What do you mean no one is coming?” Dean is scowling as he moves to pull plates down from a cupboard.
Niles’ hand grazes my hip and comes up behind and leans in to peck a kiss on my lips as he walks by and takes a pancake from the tall stack Dean made. He picks at it, tossing little chunks into his mouth as Shane speaks. “Just watched the news. We’re a level three. Roads are closed to all except emergency personnel.”
“Are you serious?” The last thing I want to do is get trapped here again. The guys are nice, of course. That isn’t the problem at all. But I do want to get home.
“Is that a problem?” Dean asks, picking up on the note of upset in my voice.
“Yes. I have a plane to catch tomorrow morning that I can’t miss.”
“Holiday travel is the worst. Going home to see your family?”
I meet Niles’ eyes and nod. “They’re expecting me. I never miss Christmas.”
“Well, you might be this year. The storm last night grounded all outgoing flights. You should probably make alternative plans, just in case.”
I moan, covering my face with my hands. “There hasn’t been snow on Christmas for as long as I can remember. Why now?”
“Global warming, toots.” Dean extends a plate to me, and on it are two perfectly round, golden pancakes with a perfectly square pat of butter on top and an artful drizzle of syrup spilling over the top and sides.
“I should call my mom,” I decide, ignoring the generous offering as I turn and pull my phone from my clutch. “She’s going to be so disappointed.”
“Tell Mom I said hi,” Dean calls after me, and I shake my head, unable to prevent the smile from spreading across my face. He just has a way about him that lightens every mood, and it’s refreshing.
11
“It’s cold and I have snow in my buttcrack.”
All three men turn to give me a wicked smile, but it’s Dean who, predictably, says what they’re all likely thinking. “I can help with that.”
After calling my mom and delivering the bad news, the guys witnessed the telltale mark of depression on my face and suggested that we all bundle up and go out back to play in the snow. A sort of if-you-can’t-beat-‘em,-join-‘em scenario with the snow being “them.”
Once again, they’d each lent me articles of their clothing, enough to make me feel like Ralphie from “A Christmas Story.” Then we came outside into the winter wonderland of mini slopes consisting of theirs and a few neighbors’ backyards that all converge in the middle, creating a small valley about twenty feet below. They have the perfect setting for sledding, which they also came prepared for with plastic, circular discs that cut through the snow like a hot knife through butter.
Reaching behind my back, I use my cold, bare fingers to scoop the clump of wet snow from the gap at the top of my pants. “Thanks, guys, but I got it. Maybe next time you can try to keep to your own lane—Ooof!”
The cold burst from the snowball hitting the back of my head is unexpected, and I don’t even have time to fully process what just happened or who threw the first one when I’m blasted by another. Screaming, I crouch low and start running toward the shelter of the house, but it’s a pointless endeavor because they’re all so much faster than me.
I’m pelted with a barrage of snowballs that are, thankfully, loosely packed and don’t pack a painful punch. I know if they’d really tried, they could demolish me with their strength alone. This, however, is just pure, childlike fun, and I can’t recall the last time I engaged in anything so carefree.
I’m laughing like I haven’t laughed in ages as I scramble for cover behind a snow-covered patio set and scurry to gather enough snow between my hands to make a quick ball. My fingers are frozen and my skin is colored red from the cold, but I press on, determined to enjoy every ounce of this moment because I may never get another one.
“You’re dead meat, Prescott!” I shout as I jump to my feet and lob the ball in the direction of movement, a dark blur that dashes by and takes cover behind a covered grill, and then I duck down again, narrowly avoiding another onslaught.
“Is this any way to treat a lady?” I call out, scooping more snow into my palms.
“Lady? I don’t see any ladies here,” Dean bellows, “unless you count Niles.”
“What?” Niles sounds playfully outraged. “I hope you like snow, Dunberry, because you’re about to eat it for dinner!”
The snowballs stop coming my way, and I chance a peek out at the wintery landscape to see Niles standing behind a topiary lobbing one snowball after another from a stash he apparently made toward the grill.
I grin, a plan of attack having formed in my mind’s eye, but before I can carry it out, a cold, wet glob smacks me right in the face.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry!” Shane is laughing through his halfhearted apology and his voice grows closer, accompanied by the sound of snow crunching under his shoes as he abandons his hiding place and rushes to my side. “I was aiming for your arm.”
“That wasn’t it.” I chuckle as he clears the bits of snow from my face with his cold fingers. When I can see again, I look up, squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun, and straight into his humor-filled blue eyes. The way the light illuminates his fair complexion and highlights strands of copper in his dark hair momentarily stuns me, and before I know what I’m saying, I tell him, “You’re so handsome.”
Shane pauses his efforts to clear away the last of the snow and transfers his touch to cup my face between his hands. There’s warmth in his expression that is filled with tenderness and reverence. “And you’re stunning.”
We stand there, staring into one another’s eyes, soaking in the moment and the impression of warmth transferring between us…and then we’re both slammed with a snowball—Shane in the back of his head and me in my right thigh.
“Get a room!”
A jeering command issued by the most unexpected person: Niles. Shane and I turn, laughing, and break away from one another as we dart away and start gathering more snow, now a united front—us against them. It’s a game we continue playing until the sun starts to set, setting the sky off in a colorful splash of fiery oranges, reds, and purples amidst the light-gray curtain of falling snow. Our hands are red, our bodies numb, our noses are running, and we’re all wet from head to toe when Niles suggests we head back inside to warm up.
Thankfully, the heat is still working, but it’s anything but welcome when our skin begins to burn as it tries to warm back up.
“We should ta
ke a hot shower,” Shane suggests, and I both hear and see the devilish look in his eyes, but Niles says what I’m thinking.
“Man, we’re tired, and hot water is only going to burn like Hell itself.”
“True, man.” Dean is stripping down to his birthday suit right in front of the sliding glass doors. “I vote we get naked and cuddle under a pile of blankets in front of a fire.”
My gaze strays to the large fireplace sitting cattycorner to the living room outfit and in direct line of sight of the kitchen where we stand. “That sounds perfect to me.” If I can’t be with family on Christmas morning, then spending Christmas Eve with three of the city’s sexiest bachelors in front of a roaring fire is a close second that I would be an idiot to pass up.
“I’ll heat up some milk for hot chocolate.” Dean’s eyes dance with a childlike playfulness that reaches into my chest and squeezes, leaving me breathless. He’s not only hot, but he’s sweet too. It’s a deadly combination for any red-blooded woman. “Do you like mini marshmallows?”
I look at him like he’s a crazy person. “Uh…yeah! Who doesn’t?”
“That was a test.” He winks at me.
“What if I’d said no?”
“Then he would have packed your bags and turned you out into the cold,” Shane teases.
But when I look back at Dean, who is busily working on making our drinks, and he doesn’t confirm or deny his friend’s words, I get the impression that maybe the idea isn’t so farfetched. Niles had said, after all, that they had been searching for the right woman for a long time, but there was always something one of them didn’t agree on.
Maybe this was one of them?
I give myself a mental pat on the back for passing the unspoken test.
“I’ll go get us some towels,” Niles says and points at Shane. “You get the blankets, and we’ll all meet in the living room.”
“Aye, aye, captain.” Shane is a character too, not to be outshined by Dean in the least. While they each have their own personality separate and distinct from each other, I love how they play off one another. Niles, Dean, and Shane are playful yet serious when the situation calls for it. Call me crazy, but that seems like the perfect combination.
Soaked practically to the bone and starting to shiver, I follow Dean’s example and start peeling off the layers of clothing until I am down to the last pair of pants and my bra. I hesitate because I’m not wearing any panties, and while they’ve already seen it all, I’m not entirely comfortable just walking around in the nude.
Thankfully, Shane and Niles reappear with their respective items and Niles hands me an oversize midnight-black towel, while Shane begins setting up the couch in the living room. I finish taking my clothes off, ignoring the lingering looks from the three of them, and wrap myself up in the warm, dry towel.
Dean is finishing up the drinks, placing the steaming mugs on a tray, as Niles, Shane, and I take seats on the couch. Somehow, I end up in the center again, framed by both men, and it’s nice. Especially when they pull up the impossibly soft throws—are they made of chenille?—and envelope us in a cocoon of warmth.
“Well,” Niles says as he picks up the television remote, turns it on, and clicks a few buttons to start up an app, “I know it’s not Stallone related, but who’s up for some Die Hard tonight?”
I nod. “I love those movies. And Bruce is a hottie.”
Shane looks at me in surprise. “Good to know I can lose all my hair and you’ll still think I’m sexy.”
“Well, that all depends. Not everyone can be Bruce,” I tease.
Shane clutches his hand over his heart as if he’s hurt.
Sitting on Niles’ right-hand side, Dean sips his hot chocolate, leaving the rest of us to retrieve our mugs from the tray he’s set up in front of us. “Well you know what they say. It’s not Christmas until Hans Gruber falls off the Nakatomi Plaza.”
The three of us stare at Dean for a moment, and then burst out in collective laughter that he joins in on. Feeling lighter than I had this morning, I’m starting to think that maybe missing my flight won’t be as tragic as I’d thought. Maybe, just maybe, getting snowed in with three sexy-as-hell bachelors is the gift I never knew I wanted but now I have to have.
12
“It doesn’t feel like Christmas without you here.” My mother called while we’d been watching our movie marathon and drinking mugs of hot chocolate, and left a voicemail. Hearing the hurt in her voice, I’m glad I didn’t get her in real time. I would have been a mess.
Now, I feel guilty, even though it isn’t my fault that I can’t make it home for the holidays. I know I’ll miss the laughter and the tight hugs from my parents and grandparents, and I won’t get to eat any of the delicious food my mother works so hard to make, including her infamous apple pies. But it’s out of my hands. Periodically throughout the day, I’ve checked in on the local weather report only to see there hasn’t been much of any change. The roads are still hazardous and the police want civilians to stay off the roads wherever possible while crews work to clear away the snow that keeps falling relentlessly.
The only good thing is that it’s Christmas Eve and the stores are all closed now, so the people who did venture out are home now. I would say that I wish I was too, but I can’t think of anything lonelier than being trapped in my tiny apartment all alone on Christmas morning. More and more, I’m starting to think that Niles’ invitation to hang out was an unexpected blessing in disguise. Maybe Santa does exist and this was his gift to me. I’m certainly in the Christmas spirit, spending so much time with these three men who are fun and sweet and genuinely wonderful people.
How did I get so lucky? I’m almost afraid to blink too hard in case they disappear and I find myself back in my apartment, curled up on the aged couch that harkens back to the 90s and static on the TV.
It’s nice to be surrounded by people who share my taste in entertainment, as well as push my boundaries—in a good way—and make me feel wanted and desired and sexy. It’s as if they’re the total package, and I don’t know if it’s just one of them that fits me or all of them, or whether it’s individually that we jibe so well or as a collective whole.
It just feels like we mesh, and I like that. I like that a lot.
“You look sad.”
I turn to Dean who is lying next to me in the giant bed in Niles’ room, which is both unexpected and welcomed. I never would have thought that, of the many encounters they’ve apparently had over the years in their venture to find the perfect woman to suit them all that his room would have been the central hub. It’s welcomed because, once again, the furnace quit working and, even though it’s only been a couple of hours, the house is quickly losing its hold on the lingering heat in the face of the plummeting temperatures outside, and rather than trying to stay warm alone in the guest bedroom, I get to snuggle between their big bodies that harbor enough heat to make my skin break out into a sweat.
“I’m still bummed that I don’t get to see my family this Christmas.” The confession is somber, like my mood. It’s not often enough that I get to go home and see everyone, and there are no guarantees in life. My grandmother and I have always been close, especially, and I shudder to think that this might have been my last opportunity to see her.
“I’m sorry you missed your plane.”
My fingers expand to find his and I take Dean’s hand into mine. He’s sweet. I find that I like this side of him even more than the playful, happy-go-lucky side. “You didn’t make it snow.”
“No, but I understand. The last time I saw my parents, we had an argument. If I had known they’d have an accident the next day and I’d never see them again, I might have chosen my words differently.”
I gasp, pained for his loss. “They were in a car accident?”
“No. Bungee accident.” He smiles fondly. “They were die hard adrenalin junkies. It was on their bucket list.” His gaze grows distant. “And then they kicked the bucket. Go figure…”
I’m so
taken aback by both the admission and his infusion of dark humor that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“What’s stopping you from traveling once the roads open back up?”
I consider Dean’s question and find myself asking the same. “Well, there’s work…”
“Work is always waiting.”
“But I’m not rich like you. I need every dime in order to make it to my next payday.”
“Borderline.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m only borderline rich,” he clarifies. “I’m not quite there yet. Once I can afford myself a yacht, then you can call me rich.” He grins, and I’m so enamored with his easygoing personality and his ability to create laughter in the most serious moments that I playfully pinch his side.
“You’re such a pain in the ass,” I accuse.
“Not yet, but I can be.” He looks down at me and winks, and my cheeks flush.
“If you two never stop talking, Niles is never going to get his beauty rest, and we all know what a diva Niles is when he doesn’t get his full eight hours.”
Shane’s interjection tips me over the edge and I start laughing, unable to prevent the full-belly response. Quickly, they’re joining in, and soon our wiggling bodies and good mood transition into heated touch and passionate kisses, and before I know it, we’re all tangled together once again, a mass of limbs with seemingly no end and no beginning.
When it’s all over, and we’re lying in a cuddled mass under the blankets trying to keep the increasing cold at bay, I have two thoughts running through my mind: one, Dean was right and fully proved tonight what a pain in my ass he could be; and, two, I shouldn’t allow money to hold me back from what really matters in life, and those are the people we love and who love us in return.
After the inclement weather subsides and the roads are cleared, I decide, I’m going to book a new flight or gas up the car, whichever comes first, and I’m going to go see my family.
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