I really should have.
I also caught my breath because those words came from him and they were surprising, seeing as he was here with me, a stranger to him like he was to me.
Which meant he either didn’t have any family or he knew just how true those words were because he lost his somewhere along the way. Neither option, by the by, sat very well with me.
But bottom line, I couldn’t deny that deep inside I liked it that he felt that way.
It was my turn not to reply and I didn’t.
I just reached to a cookie tin, settled in, and watched the movie.
* * * * *
“So, badasses drink hot cocoa,” I remarked.
“Yup,” John Priest confirmed.
I grinned into the steam coming from my cup and snuggled deeper into the blanket I’d wrapped around me prior to sitting in my Adirondack chair on my side porch, Priest beside me.
I had my eyes trained through the trees to the glimmering Christmas lights fighting through the dark to give a subdued but nevertheless merry feel to Priest and I sitting in the cold and snow, drinking cocoa late at night after tons of movies, good food, a dinner that Priest tucked into—his first bite of duck making his face change momentarily, showing me he liked it, making me like giving that to him more than was healthy.
Now Christmas was almost over and it wasn’t a good day. It was an excellent day. He wasn’t talkative company. He wasn’t warm. He wasn’t affectionate. He hadn’t even smiled.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t good company. That didn’t mean in his own unique way he didn’t communicate without words or even looks that he appreciated being there. My company. My food. My goofiness. Just being somewhere nice with a decent person on a holiday. It meant something to him and he communicated that to me.
And I knew that because there we sat, in comfortable silence broken only by me occasionally saying something stupid just because I had the feeling he enjoyed me being a dork. So much it put the comfort in comfortable for him.
I listened to the river flow, allowed the stillness of the night to shroud me, warm in my blanket with hot cocoa in my belly, and definitely warm in the companionship of the man at my side.
I sighed quietly and relaxed deeper into the beautiful tranquility.
“We don’t change.”
That came from Priest and it came quiet. Not ugly. Not icy. Not mean.
But firm.
And the bubbling inside me stopped gurgling.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“’Preciate the kindness,” he went on.
“Good,” I said softly.
“You’re a good woman, Cassidy.”
I closed my eyes, opened them, and murmured, “Thanks.”
“But we don’t change.”
“Got it.”
He said no more.
I licked my lips and took a sip of cocoa.
The night was no less still. The view no less beautiful. But the tranquility was gone.