The Winter Boyfriend: A Stand-Alone YA Contemporary Romance Novel (The Boyfriend Series)

by Christina Benjamin

  “It’s okay. Just promise you won’t shut me out. I need you in my life, Co-Co. More than you know. I love you and I miss this so much,” she said stroking Chloe’s hair again. “Just having someone to confide in, ya know?”

  Chloe nodded. She did know. But it wasn’t like Margot to get so sappy. “Is everything okay, Go-Go?”

  Margot smiled, tightly. “I think it will be.” She took a deep breath and blew it out, regaining her composure. She squeezed Chloe’s hand. “I don’t think you have any idea how much you mean to me.”

  “You mean the world to me, too. I’ve been lost without you this year.”

  Margot stroked her cheek. “Are you kidding? You’ve never needed me. You’re brilliant and strong and you don’t let boys rule your life. You’re everything I wanna be when I grow up.”

  Chloe swallowed hard. That was an incredible compliment coming from her big sister. There was no way Chloe was admitting she’d kissed Ethan now. Honestly, she was beginning to think maybe she dreamt the whole thing up. Kissing boys in her kitchen at midnight was not something she normally did. It just went to show that this whole Brady-situation was making her crazy. Maybe now that she’d told Margot the truth things would go back to normal. She could heal and move on.

  “So how have you been dealing with seeing Brady all this time?” Margot asked.

  “Not well. He’s still dating Maci so I pretty much try to avoid them. I was doing okay until yesterday when I ran into him in the hall.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing really. He told me he didn’t want things to be weird between us, but then Maci showed up. She doesn’t like me talking to Brady so I left.”

  “That jerk!” Margot hissed. “When I see him I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind.”

  “Please don’t,” Chloe begged.

  “Why not? No one gets away with hurting my little sister.”

  “I just want to get over him already,” Chloe muttered.

  Margot studied her carefully. “Do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you ready to let him go so easily, Chloe? I know how long you had a crush on him. And you two seemed so solid this summer before I left for school. Maybe Maci is the one creating the problem.”

  Chloe felt her heart constrict painfully. Things had been wonderful over the summer. She missed that so much. But she didn’t want Brady back—did she? Was that why she was still having so much trouble moving on?

  “If you want to get him back, I’ll help you.” Margot got that mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “It can be our Christmas project!”

  Chloe’s mind snapped back to Ethan and the perfect kiss they’d shared. “I don’t know what I want, Go-Go.”

  Margot pulled her close and gave her a tight squeeze. “Well, I know I want to see my favorite sister happy this Christmas.”

  Chloe grinned. “I’m you’re only sister.”

  “Even if I had a hundred sisters, you’d still be my favorite, Co-Co.”

  Tears sprang to Chloe’s eyes as she hugged her sister back. “I’ve missed you, Margot.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.” Margot pulled back after squeezing Chloe just the right amount. “You don’t have to have it all figured out, you know? With Brady, I mean.”

  Chloe frowned. “But I want to. I hate feeling like this. I want everything to be perfect and easy, like it is with you and Owen.”

  Margot laughed. “We’re far from perfect, Chloe.”

  “But you guys look so happy. And you said you love him.”

  “I do. But that doesn’t mean I have everything all worked out.” Margot twisted her hands in her lap, looking anxious. “I know he misses his family. That’s why I wanted to bring him here for Christmas . . . to make things better.” She frowned again and her voice trembled. “But I think I’m making things worse.”

  “How?”

  Margot sucked in another steadying breath and plastered on a smile. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “But you’re my sister. I want to help if I can.”

  Margot took Chloe’s hand and pulled her off the bed. “This particular issue can wait. Right now, we need to do what we do best.”

  “What’s that?” Chloe asked.

  “Spread some Christmas cheer.”

  Ethan

  Margot had followed Chloe upstairs about twenty minutes ago and it was driving Ethan crazy not being able to hear their conversation.

  “Did you know she had a boyfriend?” Ethan asked.

  Owen stuffed his hands in his pockets as he leaned against the banister and nodded. “Of course.”

  “Well, thanks for telling me.”

  “I’m pretty sure you were there when Margot mentioned it. She talks about Chloe all the time. Maybe if you listened to her every once in a while . . .”

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “The girl talks twenty-four-seven, Owen. You can’t seriously expect me to listen to every nonsensical thing that comes out of her mouth. Last week she talked about types of braids for an hour.”

  Owen shrugged. “Well, if you’re interested in her sister maybe you should listen.”

  Ethan stopped pacing and glared at his brother. “Who says I’m interested in Chloe?”

  Owen’s lips pulled into an easy smile. “I’m not blind, brother. It’s pretty easy to see.”

  “What’s easy to see?” Ethan pushed.

  “That you’re into her.”

  Ethan scoffed. “You’re wrong.”

  “Whatever you say, E.”

  The sound of Chloe’s bedroom door opening stole the reply Ethan had been readying. He walked over to join his brother at the stairs and watched the girls descend. They’d both changed into warm winter sweaters and leggings. Margot’s hair was braided—of course—while Chloe’s was still in a messy bun. Her creamy skin was blotched with color and her beautiful eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She was trying to hide it with her smile, but she’d been crying.

  Were you crying over him, Chloe?

  Ethan balled his hands into fists and cracked his knuckles. He was surprised by the protective feeling that flared in his chest when he thought of someone making her cry. He already hated this Brady kid. Ethan found himself hoping he’d come to the Christmas Eve party so he could tell him exactly what he thought of him.

  “So,” Margot said, cheerfully. “You guys up for decorating a Christmas tree?”

  Ethan glanced at the large, fully decorated trees in the living room, then back at Margot. “You already have three Christmas trees.”

  Margot laughed. “It’s not for us, silly. It’s for the lodge.”

  Just then Mr. Price marched into the living room with an axe. “You kids ready to go get our tree?”

  “Where?” Ethan asked.

  Mr. Price grinned. “Out there,” he said pointing toward the door.

  “We cut our own trees,” Margot said proudly.

  Owen laughed. “Awesome!”

  “Are you serious?” Ethan asked.

  “Deadly,” Mr. Price said.

  “Tom takes his Christmas trees very seriously,” his wife said, coming into the room with a large thermos. “He’s been growing them since before the girls were born.” She leaned in and kissed her husband on the cheek. “Pick a good one, dear.” Then she turned back to the kitchen. “I’ll have lunch ready at the lodge when you get back.”

  Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “So we’re gonna go out there, in all that snow, to cut down a Christmas tree?”

  “Why not?” Owen replied. “Sounds like a real Christmas adventure.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Mr. Price said.

  “But we didn’t pack anything warm,” Ethan argued.

  “Nonsense. We’ve got plenty of extra winter gear.”

  Chloe

  Chloe glanced from her father to Ethan, her eyes full of alarm as her father opened the coat closet next to the kitchen and began to pull things out. “Dad, they don’t want to wear our old hats and gloves.
”

  “Sure we do,” Owen replied, tugging a fur-lined trapper hat onto his head. He found another one with a pink plaid pattern and tossed it at Ethan. “Pink is your color, bro.”

  Ethan handed it to Chloe. Her father started pulling out jackets and sweaters. Then he handed Ethan the same sweater she’d been teasing him with last night. Seeing him hold it again turned her stomach into a tornado of nerves.

  Ethan gave her a half-smirk as he examined the familiar sweater. “I couldn’t have picked a better one,” he said, looking at Chloe.

  “You don’t have to wear that,” she said.

  “I want to.” He held it up to his nose and sniffed. “It reminds me of hot cocoa at midnight.”

  Chloe felt her cheeks heat. God, his voice . . . and the way he smirked at her with only one side of his delicious lips . . . It made her legs feel like jelly. He tugged the sweater over his head.

  “Are you going to wear one?” he asked Chloe, pointing to the closet full of red sweaters.

  “I think I’ll stick with this one,” she replied, running her hands over the warm knit sleeves of her cream sweater.

  “This is going to be so fun!” Margot said, passing out pairs of snowshoes to everyone. “Have you guys ever used these?”

  Chloe watched Ethan examine the bindings on the lightweight aluminum cleats.

  “Not a lot of use for snowshoes in Manhattan, babe,” Owen teased.

  “Don’t worry, my girls will show you how to use them,” Mr. Price said. “Chloe, you show Ethan the ropes,” her father said, holding out two pairs of hiking poles.

  Chloe reluctantly took them and walked over to Ethan. “You’ll want to sit down,” she instructed.

  Ethan followed her over to the bench in the hallway and took a seat while Chloe knelt in front of him, preparing the snowshoes. Once she had the bindings open she set the snowshoes next to his feet. He was already wearing a pair of borrowed boots.

  “Okay,” she said, “Watch how I do the bindings on this first one and you can do the second one.”

  Ethan bent closer so his face was near Chloe’s, watching her as she fumbled with the bindings. Normally, she could do this in her sleep, but with Ethan’s eyes on her she kept losing focus. When it was his turn to try she helped him hold open the bindings to slip his other boot in. Their fingers brushed and the electric current that swept through her made her gasp out loud.

  In that split second, Ethan’s eyes met hers. They were a stormy green sea, threatening to drown her. Chloe pulled back knowing two things for certain. She needed to sort out her feelings for Brady, because she could easily fall for Ethan.

  Once everyone was dressed and ready, Chloe’s father slung on his hiking pack. “Looking good crew. Now let’s get hopping so we can make it in before the snow starts.”

  12

  Ethan

  “So, chopping down trees is what passes for fun out here?” Ethan asked as he struggled to keep up with Chloe in the clumsy snowshoes.

  Chloe gave him a tight smile. “It’s weird, I know, but it’s our family tradition.”

  “For the lodge?”

  “Sort of. The lodge is new, but the daily tree decorating isn’t. My great-great grandfather started it. He would bring in a new tree to the barn every day for the twelve days leading up to Christmas so whoever came to the farm to pick out a tree could add an ornament with a Christmas wish in it to the tree.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work,” Ethan replied.

  Chloe huffed a laugh. “It is.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  She shrugged. “My family wants to keep the tradition alive.”

  “Do you always do what your family wants?”

  Ethan could tell Chloe was contemplating the answer from the way she pushed her lips together. He was starting to learn her tells. A little voice in his head told him to leave her alone, but for some reason he couldn’t.

  He hated that Owen was right, but he was interested in Chloe. There was something intriguing about her. She possessed a quiet, sadness almost equal to the one Ethan constantly felt. Recognizing that feeling in another person comforted him and made him desperate for clues as to what made the irresistible girl tick. Maybe it would help him understand himself better . . . and why he had so much trouble letting himself heal.

  Chloe

  Chloe wasn’t sure why Ethan was asking her so many questions. Unless maybe he was just trying to ascertain the level of craziness that ran in her family. He was probably worried about his brother getting serious with Margot when he clearly thought Chloe was crazy. How could he not after the past few hours they’d spent together?

  Not sure how to answer his latest question, Chloe just shrugged. As if her interactions with Ethan weren’t embarrassing enough, Chloe now found herself tromping through the snowdrifts in an old pair of snowshoes with him. She was in Margot’s hand-me-down red ski jacket with the fur-lined hood and her black snow pants.

  Normally, Chloe didn’t care what she wore, but with Ethan by her side she was acutely aware of how unpolished she looked. Especially next to Margot, who was wearing a new fitted black ski jacket and trendy plaid snow pants that fit her like a glove. She had on an adorable gray cable knit hat with a fur pompom on top and matching mittens to complete her perfect look. With her long brown braid and rosy cheeks Margot looked like she could be on the cover of a Christmas card, while Chloe looked more like she’d stolen her mismatched winter hat, scarf and gloves from a thrift store sale bid. Why hadn’t she put a little more effort in?

  Because going after Ethan is hopeless, her inner-voice replied.

  It was true. He was a gorgeous college boy and completely out of her league. Even if she raided Margot’s closet, he wouldn’t want anything to do with Chloe. Especially after the way she’d been behaving. Kissing him at midnight, running away, then practically knocking him out at the breakfast table. And to top it all off she’d blurted out her ex-boyfriend drama in front of him.

  No wonder she was single.

  Maybe avoiding boys all together was her best plan of action. She obviously wasn’t good at figuring them out. She’d thought she’d known Brady, but he’d completely surprised her by cheating. And now Chloe felt even more out of her depth as she tried to figure Ethan out. He kept giving her mixed signals.

  The sound of Margot and Owen’s laughter filled the frosty air. They were lagging behind as they kissed in the falling snow and fell to the ground as they attempted to make snow angels. Chloe felt jealousy spear her heart like an icicle. It was weird watching her sister make out with a boy that looked so similar to the one Chloe had been kissing last night.

  Similar, but not identical, her mind corrected. After only one kiss, Chloe found it easy to notice differences between the brothers. Ethan was slightly shorter and thinner, and he had gray veins of color running through his stormy green eyes. His personality was much different than his brother’s, too. Ethan was quieter and more serious than Owen, who was always laughing and smiling.

  It wasn’t that Ethan was cold, it was just that Owen was so warm it made it seem that way. But Chloe knew how unfair it was to compare siblings. She and Margot shared an extremely close bond, but they were just as different as Ethan and Owen. Despite their looks, she and Margot didn’t have a lot in common. Margot was the pretty, outgoing one and Chloe was the smart, shy one. But had they not been sisters, constantly compared to each other, maybe they could’ve just been Margot and Chloe—without the labels.

  Chloe thought about that for a moment, wondering if she might have turned out differently if she hadn’t felt there was a clearly defined role for her to fulfill. Who might she have grown into? Would she have been stronger or better at sticking up for herself if she hadn’t always had Margot to lean on?

  “So you really do this every year?” Ethan asked, his voice startling Chloe from her thoughts.

  “Yep,” she replied, readjusting the sled rope to her other hand.

  “Why not just get one from the
store?”

  Chloe laughed. “Is that what you do in Manhattan?”

  “I think that’s what people everywhere do,” he replied, sarcastically.

  “Well, look around you, Manhattan. This is not everywhere.”

  “You can say that again,” he replied, a tiny bit of awe slipping into his voice.

  Chloe smiled. It was hard not to see the beauty in her backyard.

  Long ago, her father’s family had built their home on a two-hundred acre wooded lot. Most of it had been left wild, with copses of massive pines dotting the land around the pond that their home backed up to. But part of it had been plowed and tilled to plant perfect rows of Christmas trees.

  Chloe could remember loving the fact that she got to help her father care for the trees when she was young. They would come out in the summer and mow the rows, pull the weeds, prune the new growth and shear the saplings. It was hard work but it was always worth it come Christmas because she would know exactly which tree she’d want to adorn with ornaments.

  She, Margot and Brady would tie red bows with their names on them around the saplings they each thought would be the best. Margot was never right, but Chloe and Brady were usually neck and neck. A sharp pain filled her chest as she thought about Brady. So much had changed.

  It felt weird being out here without him. He usually helped pick the trees for the lodge. Not this year. This year Brady was on his ski trip with Maci.

  Chloe swallowed back the hurt those thoughts evoked and tried to focus on anything else. When Ethan spoke again, she welcomed the distraction.

  “Margot was right about a white Christmas,” Ethan said.

  “That’s what you came for, right?” Chloe asked.

  “Partially,” Ethan replied.

  Chloe let his cryptic response slip by and watched the big snowflakes that had begun to fall. “Well, it doesn’t get more white than this.”

  “It’s really coming down,” Ethan commented coming up along side her.

  “Yeah, the forecast said it’ll be like this all day and into tomorrow.”