by Tracey Ward
It takes about twenty minutes to find the place, but when we get to the lodge it’s worth the wait. A huge building set on the side of a mountain with a frozen waterfall in front and yellow lights burning bright against the dark night sky, it looks like something out of a brochure for mountain living. The building is gray with matching stone running along the bottom half of the walls. It has that same thick trim to it that the town had, making it look foreign but inviting.
Lilly eyes the three car garage to the right as we pull into the curving driveway. “This isn’t a hotel, is it?”
“No.” I pop the SUV into park. “It’s a lodge. Like I said.”
She looks at me suspiciously. “But not one that other people are staying at.”
“No. It’s just us, so you’re going to have to carry in your own bag. Sorry.”
“Colt.”
“Alright, fine. I’ll carry it.”
“No, that’s not—you know that’s not what I was going to object to.”
I smile. “I know. But it’s already done so let’s go inside, okay? I have a surprise for you.”
“Because everything so far hasn’t been enough,” she chuckles sarcastically.
“Not yet. But we’re getting close.”
***
Late that night we’re sitting on a leather couch by the massive fireplace drinking hot apple cider and watching the snow fall onto the deck outside. A twelve foot Christmas tree stands proudly in the corner, its strands of white lights joining the fire to give off the only light in the room. Orchestral Christmas music plays softly through the hidden speakers all around us. There are two stockings and a heavy strand of garland over the fireplace. A plate of cookies sits on the island in the kitchen with a tall glass of milk waiting patiently next to them.
Everything is just the way I asked for it to be. As though Christmas hasn’t come and gone.
“This is absolutely… I don’t know what this is,” Lilly whispers, her body curled in close to my side. “I’ve never had a Christmas like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like a postcard.”
I chuckle. “Is that good or bad?”
“It’s good. It is so good. Thank you for this.”
I kiss her forehead, the warm scent of cinnamon and apple wafting up from her cup. “You’re welcome.” I glance at the ornate black clock on the mantle. It’s after midnight. It’s officially our Christmas morning. “Do you want your present now?”
“In what world is all of this not my present?”
“My world.” I put my mug down on the coffee table and reach into my pocket for the long, white jewelry box in my pocket. I hand it to Lilly, taking her mug from her hands. “Merry Christmas, Lilly.”
“Oh God,” she laughs nervously. “It looks like a bracelet box. You remember what I told you about jewelry at the bakery, right?”
I grin. “It’s not what you think it is. I’m not trying maim you, I promise. Open it.”
She pulls the satiny black ribbon off the box easily, dropping it into her lap before popping the lid off. Her face freezes when she sees what’s inside.
“What is this?” she asks breathlessly, but she knows what it is.
It’s a key on a chain.
“That’s your key to my apartment,” I tell her seriously. “It’s yours to keep. To come and go whenever you want. There’s a new dresser to go with it. Hangers in the closet. Half the counter and the drawers in the bathroom belong to you now.”
Her eyes are glistening and afraid. Excited. “You want me to move in with you?”
“I want to share everything with you.”
She releases a shaky breath. “Are you sure about this? This is a huge step.”
“I would have asked you to move in the night of that party if I thought there was a shot in hell you’d have said yes.”
Lilly laughs, lifting the key from the box to look at it in the firelight. It’s nothing special, just a standard silver key on a silver chain, but she looks at it like it’s priceless. Like she’s afraid to love it.
“I want to,” she whispers, her eyes finding mine. They’re conflicted, her brow pinching. “I really want to, Colt. I mean, I know I’m there almost every night anyway.”
“But this would be different. This would make it your place as much as mine.”
“No. It wouldn’t. You—“
“It would. I’ll put your name on the deed if that’s what it takes.”
She closes her eyes, shaking her head. “Slow down. Please, slow down.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t leave Rona,” she admits reluctantly, opening her eyes. “She can’t afford our apartment without me and I don’t know where she’d go if I moved out. Her parent’s house? I don’t want to do that to her.”
I lick my lips nervously, my heart constricting. “Is that the only reason you’re hesitating.”
“I’m not hesitating, I’m thinking. You’ve thought this through, or at least I hope you did.”
“I have. A lot.”
“Then you have to give me a second to think it through too.”
I nod my head slowly. “You’re right. Sorry. Take whatever time you need.”
She closes her hand around the key, leaning in to kiss me softly. “I’m not saying no. I want to do it, you have no idea, but it’s scary for me to give up my place with Rona. That’s my home. If something went wrong with us and I had to move out, I don’t know where I’d go. To Michael’s maybe, but I can’t crash with him forever. I can’t go to my parent’s house. Not with my dad and everything that’s going on. My apartment with Rona, it makes me feel safe having it.”
“I’m not asking you to pay rent at my place or help me pay the mortgage. I’m asking you to live with me, that’s all. So keep paying for the apartment with Rona but move in with me.”
Lilly debates silently for a few seconds before whispering, “Give me a little time to think about it. Please.”
I pull her in close until she’s resting her head against my chest, her arms wrapped around my waist. The key clutched tightly in her hand. “Take as long as you need,” I tell her quietly.
We stay like that for over an hour, warmed by the fire and the heat of our bodies pressed together as we watch the snow falling outside. It’s not exactly how I pictured it happening, but I understand why she needs to think about it. Why she needs to feel safe in making that leap. So much of her life is uncertain because of her dad’s condition, I’m not looking to give her more to worry about. I wish I knew how to tell her I’m not going anywhere, though. I wish I could find a way to convince her I’m in it for the long haul with her. I thought this would be a good start. A precursor to another question I’m dying to ask her.
But not yet.
“We should go to bed,” I tell her as the clock strikes two.
She doesn’t answer. I wonder if she’s fallen asleep but when I look down at her she’s looking back up at me. Her face is like I’ve rarely seen it but I can read it plain as day. It’s loving. It’s open.
It’s hungry.
I lean down to kiss her, pulling her closer. She wraps her fingers in my shirt as I glide my tongue along her lips. Bitter apple. Sweet sugar. Soft sigh. She’s a decadent dessert that makes my stomach growl up into my chest, out of my mouth, and into hers.
I kneel on the soft leather of the couch, lowering Lilly slowly. She leans back until she falls flat against the cushions. The dancing yellow light of the dying fire is cutting across the floor. The coffee table. The long strands of her hair, the gentle swell of her breasts. The small patch of skin exposed above her jeans. I trace it with my fingertips, making her jump. Making her squirm. My fingers push against the thin material of her shirt. It rises slowly, methodically. Her skin is so warm underneath. Soft as silk and trembling at my touch. I push her shirt higher, seeking out more of her, but I stop just shy of her ribs. I make the most of what I have, what she’ll give me, and I lean down to kiss her stomach softly.
>
She sighs, rough and excited.
The sound makes my blood rush.
Her eyes are on me as I climb her, prowling higher up her body. Her mouth is open, her breaths coming faster than before. Shallower. I run my hands along the outside of her breasts, up over her collar bone, before gripping her face. I hold her for a moment, staring into her crystal clear eyes that plead with me to do it, to kiss her. To take her. So I do.
I’d do anything she wants. Anything she asked me for.
She bursts to life underneath me, the same way she did in the bakery the first time I kissed her. Her legs find the outside of my hips, her hands find my shoulders to pull me down on top of her. Her tongue breaks past my lips, searching. Seeking and slipping across my tongue in a dance that she is very, very good at.
I’m hard against her heat that I can feel through our jeans. I’m ready and eager, and when she reaches down to undo the button on my pants I immediately jump in to help her out of hers. It takes me only a minute to undress us both. To strip away every barrier between us until we’re both vulnerable and exposed. Breathless.
She moves her hand to cup the side of my face, the ring attached to the key dangling from her finger, jingling lightly.
“Yes,” she whispers.
My heart skips a beat. “Yes to…”
“Everything.” She grips the key tightly in her palm, wrapping her arms around my neck to pull me closer. “Yes to the key. Yes to this. Yes to everything with you.” She kisses me hard, her legs around my waist pulling me against her. Inside her, slow and easy. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
I drop my head next to hers as I try to breathe. I can’t get air past the knot in my chest that’s growing and expanding until I feel real pain. It’s a good hurt, like when I’m working out and I’m pushing my limits. Like when I’m playing the game.
“I love you,” I groan against her neck.
She giggles, a girlish, light sound that vibrates in her throat against my lips. “I love you too.”
It hurts like winning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
LILLY
January 16th
Georgia Dome
Atlanta, GA
Colt’s mom is awesome, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my boyfriend’s mom and I want to like her. I really like her. I met her briefly in Minneapolis when Colt was injured, but she flew back home the following morning after she assured herself that her boy was going to be okay. We pretty much said ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’, and that was it.
When I flew into Atlanta last night for the game she was there at the airport with Colt to greet me. She’s a pretty woman in her late forties with Colt’s blue eyes and brown hair, but his size must have come from his dad. Carol is barely taller than I am. When she saw me she hugged me in the warmest way, that perpetual Avery smile on her lips that makes me feel like laughing out loud from the pure infectious joy of it.
She has what my mom calls a ‘big personality’, which is a polite way of saying she never stops talking. The thing is, she doesn’t run her mouth off about nothing. This woman knows what she’s talking about and right now she’s talking football.
“Because we beat the Packers we won the Wild Card playoffs,” she explains to me, handing me slices of cheese and apple from her plate. She smuggled it in past the security checkpoint, plate and all, and don’t ask me how she did it. I still don’t know. “This game is the first in the NFC playoffs.”
“What does NFC stand for?”
“National Football Conference. The Kodiaks are NFC West. The Falcons are NFC South. Tomorrow the Panthers play Seattle and whoever wins that game plays us for the NFC Championship. We’ve already played and beaten both teams this year so they’ll be no problem.”
“You mean we play them if we win today?”
She smiles at me, and it’s so many shades of Colt and his cocky attitude that it’s uncanny. “When we win, Lilly. It’s always when we win.”
I grin. “Got it. So is the NFC Championship the same thing as the Super Bowl? Is that it? We’re two wins away?”
She brushes her short, brown hair away from her eyes, fighting against the nacho scented wind rushing down into the bowl and across the field. “Three. The NFC Championship winners play the AFC Championship winners in the Super Bowl.”
“What’s the AFC?”
“American Football Conference. There are thirty-three teams each in the NFC and the AFC. The Kodiaks were added to the NFC only fifteen years ago and the AFC added the Montana Miners to keep it balanced.”
I should be taking notes. No way I’ll remember all of this. I pull my coat tighter, cursing myself for not bringing a pen and paper with me.
Atlanta is mercifully warmer than Minneapolis was a month ago, but it’s still colder than I care to handle. I’m burrowed deep in a thick jacket Colt’s mom surprised me with when we left the hotel this morning. She warned me that Georgia isn’t freezing, but hours spent sitting on your butt down by the field will get cold quick. Colt told me we had the option of taking tickets in the Field Boxes, a covered area with a concierge and comfy seats situated just under the Sky Boxes, but his mom didn’t want them. She insisted we sit front and center next to the field, looking down the fifty yard line and at the backs of the Kodiak players. I’m not complaining. I can see Colt from here, standing on the edge of the field with his hands on his hips like he owns the place. His helmet is off, his brown hair golden in the sunlight. His smile white and wide.
He ate a Snickers for the camera today because we learned our lesson with the bag of dicks back in November. He got his Sugar Rush from me last night, though. I bought an ice cream churner, one of those plastic balls that you fill with ice, rock salt, and flavoring, and you roll them around for twenty minutes to make ice cream. We sat on the floor with our legs outstretched and our feet pressed together, rolling it back and forth to each other like kids on a playground. But once it was ready we took it from G to X rated real quick.
I know now what those DQ commercials were advertising with ice cream and abs, and it’s delicious.
***
We were leading at the half. Fourteen to nine. The guys came rushing out of the tunnel for the second half, all smiles and confidence. It was in the bag. They had this. Now we’re sitting on a tied game.
Twenty-twenty. Three minutes left on the clock.
I don’t know what went wrong.
“Their center is out for the game, that’s a big part of the problem,” Carol explains tightly, her eyes hard on the field. She’s watching like she’s afraid to look away. Like her attention and focus, her very will, can be channeled into the team to help them win. The crazy thing is, she’s not the only one. Every Kodiaks fan in the stands around me is watching intently on the edge of their seats. Gloved hands are clasped to chests, covering mouths, but never their eyes.
“The center is the one who snaps the ball to Trey?” I ask quietly.
I’ve learned to keep my most basic questions about the game on the down low ever since I asked how many points a field goal is worth and the ferret faced guy next to me glared at me like I was an idiot. He’s probably wondering what the hell I’m doing at a playoff game if I don’t know shit about football, but I’m wondering what he’s doing in skinny jeans with a pancake ass like that, so I guess we’re both feeling judgmental.
Carol nods. “Lefao. Yeah. His finger is probably broken or he’d be back out here. This new guy, he and Domata aren’t used to each other. It’s why Domata keeps fumbling. The guy is either handing off too soon or too late.”
Right now the Falcons have the ball. They’re camped on the Kodiak’s thirty yard line, which according to Carol means they’re in field goal range, and from what I learned earlier today, that means they can score three points off a successful field goal or six points off a touchdown if they make it past our defense. Either way, they’re probably scoring on this drive and that means we’re not a tied game anymore. It means we’re losing.
The b
all is snapped. My breath is held. The quarterback throws. It flies viciously downfield, over the heads of the defense, over their offense, straight to the ten where a Kodiak and a Falcon are waiting for it. The Falcon catches it. The Kodiak goes for the tackle.
He misses.
Ten yards. End zone.
Twenty-six to twenty, Falcons.
We’re losing.
Carol curses under her breath, shaking her head in disgust. I look to the sidelines as the stadium erupts in a mix of cheers and boos to find Colt. He’s pulling his helmet on but not before I see the grim line on his mouth where his smile used to be. It’s harsh on his face. Intense and angry in a way I’m not used to from him, and I wish there was something I could. Anything to bring back his smile and his laugh, his light that makes the whole world seem brighter. Sweeter.
But there’s nothing I can do. Nothing but sit here impotent and ignorant, watching as his dream slips away from him.
They miss the field goal. It pings off the goal post on the right and tumbles awkwardly end over end to the ground.
Carol claps her hands together excitedly. She takes hold of my arm with an almost painful grip. “That’s a good thing. A really good thing. Two and a half minutes is plenty of time for a touchdown and if we score a field goal on top of it, we’re in the lead. This isn’t over yet.”
I nod my head in mute agreement, my stomach rolling nervously.
The Falcons kick the ball away from their end zone. Tyus makes a fair catch on the twenty-two yard line to stop the clock.
The offensive line takes the field. I recognize the name Lowry on the back of one of the jerseys lined up with them. He was at Colt’s party and he’s the one who told him about Leavenworth. He’s a tall guy standing at least a couple inches over the rest of the line. He points at one of the defensive lineman across from him as they all crouch down. He makes a hand gesture I can’t quite make out from here but it pisses the other guy off enough to make him stand halfway up. He’s not ready when the ball is snapped. Lowry rushes at him, knocking him on his ass.
