Missing Christmas - Kate Clayborn Page 0,11
how isolated we are out here. Gil says ground blizzards don’t come around much in this part of the country, but their small town is unusually flat, and there’s not many tree lines surrounding the main roads. If there’s good news, Romina says, it’s that it’ll probably be over by midnight, and so long as there’s no other weather in the area, the roads will probably be clear by tomorrow afternoon.
Outside, the wind steadily howls, the windows shaking with it, white swaths of snow whipping by. Inside, it’s almost as tense: on my lap, my phone lights up with texts from Kelly and my mom, who are now, given my quick update, afraid I might not make it to Michigan at all. In the kitchen, Tanner and Allison speak in hushed tones to each other as they make dinner. Gil and Romina disappeared about ten minutes ago, probably because of what’s happening behind me—Jasper, pacing the length of the couch, on his phone, his tone rigidly, falsely controlled.
The bad weather feels like compounding interest, piling on top of the tension Jasper’s carried with him all day—this morning at the airport, the quiet drive here, his reaction to this house, this family. His frank, almost desolate reply to Gil at the table. If there’s any advantage to what’s happened here, it’s that I’ll have more time to figure out what’s really going on with him. Whatever else is strained between us, we’re friends, and I don’t like seeing him this way.
“Your website says you’re the best car service in the state of Massachusetts,” he’s saying. “You don’t have a single car in your fleet that could get the job done?”
“Jasper,” I say quietly, but I don’t think he hears me. I told him not to bother with this, that he’d only need to take one look outside to see all he’d need to know about our chances, but he’d insisted.
“I’ve got four and a half hours to get my partner on a flight. I will pay you whatever you want. Up front, I’ll pay you. A bonus if you get her there on time. Anything.”
I move around to the back of the couch, stand at one end so I can intercept him when he makes his inevitable turn. He’s got his head down, so I reach out, set a hand on his forearm. It stops him in his tracks.
“It’s fine,” I whisper. “Really. I’ll rebook for tomorrow.”
His jaw clenches and he mutters a grudging “Thank you for your time” into his phone before hanging up. He looks so defeated, and I can’t help it—I move my hand, stroke his arm lightly. He took off his jacket before he made the call, rolled up his shirtsleeves as though he was about to get into a fistfight, so I’m touching his bare, warm skin, the muscles beneath corded and firm. I feel like my swallow could be heard on another planet, and that damned bell is ringing somewhere around my heart.
“I’m ruining your Christmas,” he says quietly, keeping his voice low and looking briefly over my shoulder to make sure Tanner and Allison aren’t listening.
“You’re not ruining it.”
“You’d be with your family right now, if it weren’t for me.”
He blinks down at where my hand rests on his skin, but he doesn’t move. I don’t either.
“If it weren’t for the job,” I say, keeping my voice hushed too.
“Right. The job.”
“Jasper. What happened in there?”
He shrugs. “I’m off my game.”
“Because of me.”
He looks at me miserably. I think about lifting my hand from his arm, bringing it up to his face. I’d push the brown hair that’s fallen over his brow off his forehead. I’d let myself feel the sandpaper texture of his jaw, like I did last week. It’d feel like Christmas again, and God knows, I’m really missing Christmas right now.
“Because of me,” he says.
A fresh, angry gust of wind rattles through the house, and I startle where I stand.
Immediately Jasper sets his large, warm hand over mine, and it should be friendly, comforting, not unlike casual ways we’ve touched before in the midst of a tense meeting, or a turbulent flight, whatever. But now it feels so intimate—Jasper’s skin beneath and above my hand, a miniature version of the embrace we had a week ago.
“I’ll fix this,” he says, his features set in a familiar way. This determination—it’s at least more recognizable.
“Plane tickets are one thing. It’s not like you can control the weather,” I tease.
His mouth—scar-side, my favorite—lifts slightly in