Christmas.
I rolled to a seated position and groaned as I pushed my wrecked hair away from my face. He’d brought Christmas in with a bang, all right.
I would’ve laughed except a lump kept trying to take over my throat. With shaking fingers, I picked up his sweater off the floor and tugged it on. It was a scratchier wool than the one he’d gifted me and made my skin go haywire.
It was just enough to push away the lump in my throat. We hadn’t been exactly the poster children for afterglow since we’d been together. Both of us shut down in different ways, but this felt worse. Crueler.
Like I’d been a receptacle.
I padded to the bathroom door and knocked lightly. “Lincoln? Is something wrong?”
He didn’t answer.
In fact, he turned on the taps in the shower. After I’d asked him.
He’d heard me, I have no doubt. The confusion turned to something far more insidious. I crossed my arms over my chest and padded over to the window. The town was still lit up. At midnight, the tree had switched over from the classic white lights to the multi-colored strands. Skaters were on the rink and I could feel the merriment expanding from the town.
It made the room feel even darker.
Nothing in this room to show any sense of light and laughter. Even the twisted sheets and pillows on the floor seemed crude compared to the sweetness of the scene down the mountain.
I tucked my hair behind my ear and padded over to the door when I heard the shower go off. He opened the door with a towel tucked at his hip. Gone was the intense man who’d been on a mission to get me off. Now he was a blank mask.
Even the first day we’d officially met, there hadn’t been this level of coolness. He’d been amused, and snarky maybe, but not this. Not so remote.
It’s Christmas.
I shook my head. I knew it meant bad memories for him, but we’d made good ones, hadn’t we?
“Excuse me,” he said with a low voice and went around me.
“Excuse you?” I whirled around, my fingers lost in the long sleeves of his sweater. I pushed the sleeves up and put my hands on my hips. “That’s all you have to say?”
“What else is there? We had an enjoyable interlude.”
I took a step back, bumping into the large chair in front of his window. I swallowed down the lump that now had to be the size of a golf ball. “Interlude?”
He pulled on a white T-shirt and a pair of sleep pants. The bastardized sort of domesticity left me even more unbalanced. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry? I’m going to go make something. Eggs good?”
My mouth dropped open. Seriously, the catching flies, dumbfounded kind of dropped open.
“Well, if you do
, come on downstairs.”
I slowly sank into the chair and clutched my shaking fingers together. I knew there was a level of casualness to this. At least there was supposed to be. From the first night, I’d felt more—he’d felt more. I was convinced of it.
I rushed out after him and down the stairs. He was in the kitchen at the griddle again, a huge batch of fluffy scrambled eggs taking form with bacon popping along the side.
“So you are hungry.” He reached up and grabbed two plates. “There’s juice in the fridge if you want to do it up as a proper early breakfast.”
I didn’t know what to think. It was like he was two different men. “Did I do something wrong?”
His shoulders tensed a little, but it was the only outward sign that I was right to feel so out of sorts. “Of course not. You’re an amazing lay, Kay.”
“I beg your pardon?” I couldn’t have heard that right.
He turned to me with the spatula in one hand and a piece of bacon in the other. “You had me fooled.”