I sat up and wrapped my arms around his torso from behind. He leaned against me, and we watched the fire crackle and hiss for a while, the flames like ghosts or bad wishes disappearing up into the sky, far away.
After a while he asked, “Have you ever seen the ocean in winter?”
“No.”
“You should. You would like it. The ocean and the beach look very different than in the summer, and no one else is around, so it’s like you’re the last person on earth, just you and the seagulls. You can’t swim, obviously, unless you’re a polar bear, but I like the ocean in winter almost as much as in the summer.”
I leaned my head forward to rest on his shoulder and said, “I’d like to see it.”
He turned, smiled, and our noses were touching. I could smell the hot chocolate on his breath.
“Let’s get up early the day after Christmas and drive down to my parents’ place on the Cape and I’ll show you what I mean.”
I laughed and pulled one of his dark curls around one finger and pretended to be shocked. “Don’t tell me you are trying to lure me back into that bedroom again! So soon?”
“Nope. We don’t even have to go into the house.”
“I wouldn’t mind, actually … ” I assured him.
He lifted my chin with two fingers and looked at me and I could see in his eyes everything I wanted him to feel. “We’ll get there, in time,” he promised. “When you’re ready. Because I only want to get there with you.”
We kissed and I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest because I knew he wasn’t just talking about going to his room at the beach house. I knew that “getting there” meant a whole lot more.
And then he started laughing.
“You’re crying again!” he said.
“Happy tears,” I admitted, and he wiped one away with his thumb, shaking his head.
“I have to get used to this new emo Georgia.” He laughed.
“I know! I cry all the time now.” I dabbed at my eyes. “I cried yesterday at a commercial urging people to become foster parents. Now that it’s open, I just can’t put the lid back on the box.”
He took my hand and squeezed it a little, and we sat and smiled at each other for a long time, like a pair of imbeciles, without a thought between us, until he said, “Do you know, that in all the time I have known you, I have never seen your room?”
“I share it with Tori. It’s small and messy, at least on my side. Right now there are three pairs of pants and last night’s pajamas on the floor.”
“Sexy! Wait—do you mean the PETA T-shirt you wore on the Cape? With the yellow chick saying, ‘I am not a nugget’?”
“Maybe. Wanna see?”
He nodded. I took his hand and led him up the stairs and into my room. I knew I had plenty of time to show him around before Tori or my parents got home. And I was ready now, for so many things.
STEPHANIE WARDROP
Amazon international and multi-category bestselling author of SNARK and CIRCUMSTANCE, CHARM and CONSEQUENCE, PRIDE and PREP SCHOOL, PROM and PREJUDICE
Stephanie Wardrop grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania, a town mostly famous now for having a railroad in the Monopoly board game. Overeducated, with an MA in British and American Lit and a PhD in English, she was lost in academe for many years, teaching writing and literature on Long Island, in Las Vegas, in Colorado, and now in western New England. But she always wanted to be a writer and is thrilled to be able to say that dream’s come true at last. She’s married with two kids, five cats, and a crested gecko and when she’s not teaching, writing, or hanging out with any of those creatures, she loves to bake, to explore, and, of course, read nearly everything she can get her hands on.
Stephanie’s novellas in the SNARK and CIRCUMSTANCE series are category bestsellers on Amazon.co.uk (in the United Kingdom).
Website: http://www.stephaniewardrop.com
Twitter: @s_wardrop
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Titles in this bestselling series from Swoon Romance.
SNARK AND CIRCUMSTANCE
CHARM AND CONSEQUENCE
PRIDE AND PREP SCHOOL
PROM AND PREJUDICE
Table of Contents
1 It’s Just People
2 The Glass Boat
3 Ghost of Girlfriends Past
4 F. Scott Fitzgerald Observed the Obvious
5 The Pancakes of Penance
6 More Than a Little Awesome
7 In Which Sigmund Freud and I Get it all Wrong
8 Home is Where the Heartache is
9 Broken (up)
10 Getting By
11 The Rules of Engagement Post-Breakup
12 One of Us
13 The Trouble with Superheroes
14 Friend Zoned
15 If I’d Had a Molotov Cocktail Handy
16 Loveworn
17 Unintentional Experiments in Torture
18 Emotionally Naked
19 Being the Baroness
20 How Can Love Survive?
21 Comfort and Joy
About the Author
Visit Swoon Romance Online
Titles in this Bestselling Series from Swoon Romance
Snark and Stage Fright (Snark and Circumstance Book 5) Page 21
