To Fall for Winter

by Kelsey Kingsley

“And why’s that?” I asked, crossing my arms. “You don’t wanna be seen with me?”

  She twisted her lips into an amused little smirk. “Oh no, Ireland. I’d be happy to parade you around town, or anywhere. But as our first dinner together, it should be intimate; not surrounded by a restaurant full of nosy eavesdroppers who would just love to stare at the town freaks.”

  Even in our bland little town, people knew better than to stare at me. My appearance didn’t faze them—the ink, the piercings now went unnoticed, and since rolling into town, nobody had treated her with any unwanted attention either. So, that wasn’t it; she was making excuses to be alone with me.

  I’ll take it.

  ❧

  And so, that’s how we found ourselves sitting across from each other at my kitchen table, eating Mexican takeout from Bitty’s Burrito Bar. We ping-ponged questions back and forth, getting to know each other, with her occasional, teasing reminders, to not hesitate, to be honest, to not stall.

  “How many cats do you have?” she asked, finishing the last of her burrito.

  “Four.”

  “So, you’re a crazy cat man, huh?”

  I considered it. I might have been crazy, and I definitely liked cats, so I shrugged with my hands. “Yeah, ya could say that.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Cheryl, Tara, Jennifer, and Jessica.”

  She bit her inner cheek with unabashed amusement. “Let me guess … You named them all after celebrities you used to jack off to.”

  I grinned, barking a surprised laugh. “Ooh, good guess, but …” I shook my head. “Nah, try again.”

  “They’re named after your favorite housewives from one of those reality shows?”

  I laughed again, not bothering to point out that I don’t own a TV. “God, you’re just so close.”

  “Really?”

  “Not even a little.”

  She threw a chip across the table at me. “Okay, wiseass, fine,” she said with a laughing grin. “Where the hell did you come up with those names? Be honest,” she said, pointing a finger at me.

  A momentary flash of memory hit me, one of my mother reprimanding me for lying about where I had been all night. She had known I was lying and known I had been up to no good, thanks to the evidential spray paint residue on my sneakers. Her stern finger pointed, while her pretty blue eyes revealed every question of where she had gone wrong. I’d stared, wide-eyed and terrified, as though that finger could pull the very life from me if I even tried to tell her another lie. As though those eyes alone could break my heart.

  I had to squeeze my eyes shut to get rid of it. To get the image of my feckin’ mother out of my head.

  “Right,” I said, opening my eyes and seeing, not Mam, but the girl I was sleeping with, and I quietly answered, “They’re named after my ex-girlfriends.”

  Her mouth fell open, her eyes displaying the exact amount of shock I expected. This was the part where most women would have taken that as their own red flag and run away, thinking I was a total lunatic. But God, not Snow. She closed her mouth, smiling with that wicked excitement.

  “Oh Ireland, you really are a weirdo,” she said softly. “I like it.”

  “You would,” I teased, throwing a tortilla chip back at her.

  She caught it and took a bite. “Ask me something now.”

  “Will you stay over tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” I smiled, and we finished our dinner.

  She cleared the table; I put away the leftovers. I washed the dishes; she dried them and put them away. She told me to tie her wrists with the dish towel; I did. She told me to bend her over the table we had just eaten on, told me to fuck her; I gladly obliged.

  On the second night of knowing her, the second night of feasting upon her body, I took in our ease of working as a team. I wasn’t sure I had ever experienced something like it before and thinking about those four ex-girlfriends, I wondered if they would have been different had we been there. You know … A team.

  I flipped her over on the hand-me-down table like a tattooed Thanksgiving feast, and I stared, thinking about the past and how this present was already so different. I watched as those barbells in her nipples glistened under the lights in the basement ceiling; they wiggled and bobbed as she breathed, as she lazily toyed with their gemmed ends. I swallowed, allowing my hands to roam over her decorated skin. Along her sides, indenting at her hips, out with her waist, and down, down over her slender legs.

  “I can tell when you’re doing it,” she said in a soft, drowsy voice, eyes almost closed.

  “Doin’ what?” I asked, my words scratching at my throat.

  “Thinking.” And slowly, she pulled herself up into a seated position, legs dangling over the edge of the table. Her bejeweled nipples tickled over my chest as she tipped her head back and pursed her lips. One hand reached up, tugged at my beard, and I bent, touching my mouth lightly to hers. Leaning back, she held my face between her hands, and said, “You disappear for a few seconds. Your eyes cross a little, and you get a little line right … here.” She touched her finger between my brows.

  “Hmm,” I grunted, and that was something else. Her ability to know things, to know me. What could have been different if I had been more predictable to them, if they had been—

  “You’re doing it again,” Snow said. There was something sad in her voice. Something that said she might care for me as something more than just a guy to fuck until she got bored.

  “I’m allowed to think,” I said in a low voice that, for a moment, I hoped was threatening. Who the hell did she think she was, telling me what to do. Telling me when to think.

  She shook her head, and my temper ignited. Just a little spark, but it was there. “Don’t,” she said, her voice soft and soothing. “Not like that. Not with me.”

  Not like that. Not with me.

  I repeated the words in my head, calming the anger, the need to beat and berate myself. I found her, found her crystal blue eyes against their canvas of black and white, and I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her from the table.

  I carried that woman, with her legs around my waist, to the shower. I took my time as I washed her, and then she washed me—teamwork. And after, as she used one of the toothbrushes my mother had dropped off for me, she noticed that I dyed my hair with the same stuff she used.

  “We could have hair-dying parties,” she laughed excitedly, her mouth full of toothpaste.

  “Oh, great,” I grumbled sarcastically, but I smiled around my own toothbrush. Because it was those little things that made me wonder, made my heart beat just a little faster.

  Little, hopeful, things that didn’t really feel so little at all.

  We got into bed, naked and comfortable, and with her head against my chest, she traced the outlines of one tattoo: the Celtic family tree I shared with my brothers.

  “I like this one,” she said.

  I nodded. “I do too.”

  “A lot of your other tattoos are kind of, um …”

  “Stupid?” I offered with a grin. It wasn’t a lie. I’d gotten many of my tattoos in the basements of friends’ houses, most of them badly done and attributed to something ridiculous I no longer cared about.

  She hesitated. “Well, yeah, but I can’t say mine are much better. This one, though …” She traced her finger in a circle around the tree. “This one is pretty. You can tell it has meaning.”

  “It does.” I smiled, shivering a little as that finger kept on spinning around, around, around. She memorized its knotted lines, tracing the vessels of my heart, the foundation of my soul.

  As the dark settled over the room and we were together falling into sleep, she broke the silence with her voice.

  “Who lives upstairs?” she asked.

  “My grandmother.”

  “Was that your idea, or was it pushed on you, like your job?”

  My breath stalled, held in my lungs, and I scowled in the darkness. Quick anger pric
kling away at me. “Why do you wanna know?”

  “Relax, Ireland. I’m not judging.”

  I sighed, and the tension dissipated. “It was asked of me, not pushed. I could have said no, to the apartment and the job, but I went with it.”

  “To not be a disappointment?”

  There was that word. The little devil on my back, the demon whispering in my ear. “Yep.”

  “We will work on that, okay?”

  My jaw tightened, my body stilled, and the moisture in my mouth was dried up instantly.

  It wasn’t the first time a woman had offered to help me, to make me less, me. Cheryl had turned me into a science experiment of the heart. It hadn’t worked, and I was left to live as an even bigger disappointment.

  I should have been afraid when Snow said those words—"We will work on that.” I should have taken that as another red flag.

  But I didn’t. And maybe that should have been a red flag in itself.

  “Okay,” I croaked out. “Sure.”

  “Good.”

  She raised up on an elbow and kissed me before rolling over. She guided me to do the same, to spoon her with my arm wrapped around her naked waist with my dick nestled against her arse. She was freezing, always seemed to be, but my body engulfed her in warmth, and she sighed.

  Teamwork.

  CHAPTER FOUR |

  STOLEN TEA & OLD WOMEN

  I woke up to empty arms. The side of the bed she had occupied was made, and her clothes were missing from the floor. This was a big no-no in my mental list of sleepover rules, and I jumped out of bed with my blood sizzling in my veins.

  The bitch had left. That pierced, tattooed little bitch had said all that shite about thinking and fixing, and then she left.

  I muttered curse words, as I threw a t-shirt over my head. I muttered some more as I threw on a pair of sweatpants, and my fists clenched as I moved into the kitchen to throw open a cabinet door. It bounced on its hinges and hit the wall as I grabbed a mug. Then there came the voices from above my head. Granny’s laughter. Slippered feet shuffling along the floor.

  “What the feckin’ hell?” I said loudly to the ceiling, and I slammed the mug down on the counter, and headed for the door leading to the stairs.

  Taking them two at a time, I swung the door open into my grandmother’s kitchen, hung a right into the outdated living room, and found myself looking at Granny in her robe, sitting next to Snow, on the couch.

  Snow was wearing my shirt. No pants.

  Where the hell had her clothes gone? And more importantly, what the feck was she doing, sitting there with my feckin’ grandmother?

  “What the hell are ya doin’?” I said, flabbergasted. I hadn’t intended for my voice to sound as though someone was squeezing my nuts, and the two women immediately stopped their chattering. My old Irish grandmother and the chick I was banging turned to me, and they laughed. “And what the hell is so goddamn funny?”

  Granny continued her giggling, slapping a hand over her terry-clothed knee. Snow held a hand over her mouth, muffling her own laughter until she could speak.

  “Oh God, Ireland,” she said, struggling to catch her breath. “You should see your face right now. You look like you’re going to shit yourself.”

  “Snow,” I warned, looking between her and my grandmother. “Ya really shouldn’t be up here.”

  “Oh really? Are you trying to tell me what to do?” She cocked her head, smirking. Challenging me.

  My lips curled into a snarl. “Don’t you—"

  Granny creaked off the couch. She smoothed her robe over her thighs, and shuffled over to me, patting my chest. “Ah, calm that temper of yours, Ryan. Your lady friend and I were just havin’ a wee chat and settin’ to have a cup o’ tea. Would y’like one yourself?”

  “What? Tea? Are you kiddin’—”

  “No, I’m not kiddin’. Come on, my boy; it’ll calm those nerves of yours.”

  “Ehm, fine. Sure.” The muscles in my jaw eased, but my glare remained on the tiny feckin’ woman on the couch.

  “Granny, I can get it. You sit,” Snow said, jumping up to stop the old woman, and my breath hissed through my nose at the sound of her using her family title.

  Granny turned, pointing a knobby finger at the raven-haired girl that I couldn’t take my eyes off, and shook her head. “You are a guest in my house, young lady. Sit yourself down. I won’t be a minute.”

  I grumbled, “You’ll be a lot more than a minute.”

  My old grandmother, with her Q-tip hair and weathered skin, grinned up at me. “Watch it, boy. I can still drink ya under the table. Don’t forget who wears the pants ‘round this house.”

  Snow’s mouth twisted around a smile as I rolled my eyes. “Ya haven’t had a drink in more years than me, old woman.”

  “And I’ve been alive a lot longer, my boy. You kids and your light beer.” She tsked and waved her hands dismissively. “All a bunch of lightweights.”

  I laughed easily as she began to totter her way toward the kitchen. “I’ve never had a light beer in my life!” I said to the back of her head.

  “That’s my boy,” she said with a light laugh before disappearing behind the wall.

  Then, with my grandmother out of the room, I turned back to Snow. “Seriously, Snow. What the feck are ya doin’ up here? And Christ, couldn’t ya have put on some feckin’ pants? You’re embarrassin’ both of us. My grandmother doesn’t need to see—”

  “So, your accent gets thicker around your family, huh?” Those soft, pink lips smiled sweetly, and I shook my head, chasing away the image of kissing them.

  “You’re changin’ the—”

  “It’s so fucking hot,” she purred, and sashayed toward me, placing her hands on my chest, and she stood on her toes. Her lips pursed into a fish-face and without a second thought, I accepted the invitation, touching my mouth to hers.

  Don’t forget you’re mad. Don’t forget she’s stepping over lines. Don’t forget she’s wrong, don’t forget you’re right, don’t forget you like her, don’t forget you’re going to feck this all up.

  “I woke up, you were still sleeping, and I was in the mood for tea. You didn’t have any, so I figured a little old Irish grandmother would have some.” She circled her arms around my waist. Her cheek pressed against my chest. My heart beat louder and harder with every breath she took.

  “So, what was your plan?”

  “Plan?” She pulled away to look up at me.

  “Yeah. Were ya just gonna come up here to steal from an old woman you’ve never met?” I quirked an eyebrow, the endless cycle of internal chatter dulling in my brain.

  She smiled, rolling her crystal eyes playfully. “Come on, Ireland. I heard her moving around up here, so I came up to ask. Then, she invited me to have a cup with her. She also offered to make some toast and eggs too, if you’d like to scold her for that, but I’m not a breakfast person.”

  Neither was I.

  All those little things.

  The annoyance was gone, the thoughts were gone. The tension was released, and my muscles relaxed. “Well … All right, but seriously, ya could have at least put on some pants.”

  “I threw my clothes in your laundry basket. They’re a little, uh, dirty, and none of yours would’ve fit me.” She lifted the shirt, flashing me yesterday’s panties. “I had the sense to cover my ass, though, don’t worry.”

  I shot a look toward the kitchen and pushed the shirt down over her.

  “Is Granny one of those River Canyon Prudes?” she teased, giggling.

  “Well, no, but—"

  She smiled, wrapping her arms around me again. “You don’t bring girls back here much, huh?”

  “I don’t bring girls here, period.”

  Her face froze. Staring at me as she took that in. Then she said, “But you brought me here?”

  I pushed a hand through my sleep-mussed hair. “Yeah, well, ya made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I didn’t expect ya to be meetin’ members of my f
amily without my approval first.”

  “I don’t need your approval, Ireland,” she scolded gently. Her features hardened, but her arms tightened. So many contradictions—just like winter. “I do what I want.”

  “Yeah, I see that,” I said, my voice gruff and firm.

  She leaned forward, kissed my chest. “You should, too.”

  My mouth opened to tell her to butt out of my personal business, to keep her opinions to herself, but she stood on her toes to press her lips against mine and unable to contain myself, I pulled her against me. With a little whimpered moan, her tongue swiped over my lower lip just as Granny came tottering back in with a clattering tray of tea cups, milk, and a bowl of sugar lumps.

  “All right, there’s no reason to be gettin’ a ride right where I can see ya.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Granny,” I groaned under my breath, feeling instantly like a sixteen-year-old kid and not a thirty-year-old man. Snow looked up at me with a questioning glance. “She thinks we’re gonna fuck in the middle of her living room.”

  “And here, I was under the impression you thought highly of me,” she said to my grandmother, grinning, and Granny shook her head.

  “It’s not you, dear. It’s that one I don’t trust,” she said, and while her eyes sparkled playfully in the sunlight, her lips lifted into a half-smile.

  “Very nice,” I grumbled, fighting back my own grin.

  I stepped away from Snow, grabbing the tray from my grandmother’s shaky hands, and brought it over to the coffee table. Snow excused herself, saying she’d be back in just a minute before heading downstairs, and I tensed at the thought of being alone with Granny and whatever criticisms she might’ve been suppressing.

  I raked a hand through my hair, diverting my eyes to the ceiling. The slow-moving fan in the center of the room. The cobwebs that I should really wipe away. “Ehm, I’m sorry about—”

  Granny clucked her tongue, tapped me on the arm. “Ryan, my boy, you’re a grown man. Do y’honestly believe I never thought you’d bring a woman home?”

  Another hand raked through my hair. “Ah, well … No, but—”