He shook his head. “You must think I’m ungrateful as hell. Sorry. It’s been a day, and I was just caught off-guard because I expected everyone. But I am grateful. Very.”
“Okay, cool,” I said with a chuckle. “That’s high praise coming from you.”
“Yeah, well…” Quinn shifted, averting his eyes. “People change. I can be nice.”
He wrapped his arms around himself, and I realized he was quietly shivering.
“We should get you warmed up. Can’t let frostbite take you out after I braved a blizzard for you,” I teased.
Quinn’s lips quirked as if he were trying to resist a smile. “That would definitely hurt your cred as a white knight.”
“Exactly.”
He snorted a cute little laugh before turning on his heel. “Just don’t get used to it.”
“What?” I asked as I followed him to the door. “Being an extremely handsome hero? Afraid that ship has sailed.” I sighed dramatically. “It’s my lot in life.”
“I see your ego hasn’t suffered in my absence.”
Oh, if he only knew.
“My ego has—”
Quinn opened the door and an ice-cold wind swept snow into our faces, cutting off any coherent thought.
“Oh, fuck! Run!”
Together, we raced toward the back deck, taking the steps recklessly in our haste and grabbing onto each other as we slipped and slid our way through the door, bringing a heap of snow onto the hallway floor.
Dad would love that.
“I’ll get towels,” Quinn said.
“Good idea. We should take a hot shower.” I waggled my brows. “It’ll be a tight fit, but we’ll manage.”
Quinn ignored me, as he’d always done so well when I got obnoxious, fetching a couple of towels from the linen closet and dropping them to soak up the mess on the floor. He was still shivering.
I put a hand on his arm. “Seriously, warm up in the shower. I can handle this.”
He turned, eyebrows up. “But what about you?”
I was chilled but nothing I couldn’t handle. With great restraint, I resisted the urge to invite myself into the shower once more. I was supposed to be keeping my distance from Quinn. This guy owned my heart—or at least a sappy piece of it—and he didn’t even know it. But the flirt-force in me was strong, and I wasn’t used to censoring it.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll change and make dinner.”
Quinn hesitated a beat before nodding. I handed a towel to him and he slipped into the bathroom, shooting a glance at me over his shoulder. “Thanks again. For not letting me freeze to death.”
“Hey, what are ex-stepbrothers for?”
“Daring snow rescues, clearly.”
“Clearly.”
He shut the door between us, and I stood in the hall until I heard the rattle of the shower door slide open and the spray of water come on. When I realized I was lingering like a weirdo, I turned away before my mind could wander to any treacherous, forbidden places.
QUINN
I lingered in the shower both to warm up and to delay the inevitable moment when I’d have to face Jonas again. He made me nervous for some reason. Maybe any guy would right now, after my experience with Clay, but I didn’t think that was it.
Simply looking at Jonas, seeing that he was still handsome and confident, was enough to throw me off-balance. Dozens of memories assailed me, adding to my discomfort. How many times had he provoked me into insulting him? How many times had I replayed that single kiss he’d given me out of sympathy? Truth was, I’d always wanted to hate Jonas, but I could never quite manage it. He was too full of life, the sunlight to my gloom, to dislike for more than ten minutes.
But I didn’t really know how to read him. He was always cracking smiles and jokes, yeah, but there was more beneath the surface he didn’t reveal.
I’d been too fixated on my own issues when we were teens to worry about what made Jonas tick, but now I wished I’d made more of an effort. We’d lived together for more than a year before he went to college. I should know him better. Or at least, I shouldn’t be so damn flustered by him.
When he made that crack about showering together…
But that was Jonas. Always playful, always flirty. Always trying to get a reaction out of me. I knew that much. But what he really felt about seeing me here, about having his former stepbrother sprung on him as a surprise houseguest? I had no idea.
At least he didn’t leave me stranded in a blizzard. That’s something.
Turning off the water, I dried and wrapped a towel around my waist. I considered putting my clothes back on, even though they were damp, but dismissed the idea. It felt weird leaving the bathroom in a towel, especially with the freshman fifteen and college drop-out thirty I’d put on over the past couple of years. Jonas might not have noticed the extra weight when I was in a coat, but there’d be no missing it now.
I balled up my dirty clothes in front of me like a shield and scurried to the stairs. Jonas was busy with the sizzling steaks on the stovetop when I caught a glimpse of him on my way up to the loft bedroom where I’d been sleeping.
It was Jonas’s room, and I was almost afraid to ask if he intended to sleep in there with me. There were other rooms, of course, and Ken had said I could stay wherever I wanted until everyone arrived, but it felt wrong to sleep in his bed or the one Jess had always claimed. At least the loft had two separate beds. It had seemed the lesser of the evils—until this moment, when I was regretting my life’s choices.
I changed into sweats and a hoodie. They were warm and baggy enough to make me feel more comfortable about my weight. Logically, I knew it was silly to be so concerned about it. It bought into the false narrative that carrying a little extra padding was bad. I knew that. And besides, my weight wasn’t exactly outside of the range of normal. But it didn’t feel normal to me, a guy who’d spent his high school years stick-thin and wishing he had more bulk.
Well, I had it now.
But Clay’s increasingly snide comments about my fat ass certainly hadn’t helped me embrace it.
“Quinn!” Jonas called from the bottom of the stairs, and I jumped guiltily, as if he’d know the thoughts scrolling through my mind. “Dinner’s ready!”
“Be right there,” I called.
I checked myself one last time in the mirror, tugging at my hoodie and sighing. I needed to get over myself. Who was I trying to impress anyway? Jonas? That was ridiculous.
He was gorgeous and self-confident, the kind of guy who could be with anyone—and I was his ex-stepbrother. In no way would that add up to anything but trouble, but luckily, it didn’t add up to anything at all. The last thing I needed was to worry about another guy. No. What I needed was to get my shit together and focus on nailing my interview in a few days.
Assuming I could find a way down the mountain. At this point? I’d fucking snowshoe my way there if I had to. This was my chance to set things right, and a little thing like a blizzard wasn’t going to stop me.
5
JONAS
I slid two steaks onto plates, grilled a perfect medium. In the two years I’d lived off-campus before a room in the frat opened up, I’d learned to cook for myself. I actually enjoyed it, as long as it wasn’t too complicated. Steak, I could handle.