Why couldn’t I just punch him and run away like we were five and on the playground? Would make things so much easier.
I walked over and took the backpack from him.
“Thank you, Dusty. You really, really didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” he said softly, and his eyes were even softer. Damn those eyes. Hypnotic. “But I did it for you.” He said it so quiet that no one could hear.
“Don’t,” I said, even more quiet as I shook my head just a fraction.
“Well, I think afternoon calls for a snowball fight, snowman building and then hot cocoa. Who’s in?” Taylor said, springing to her feet.
“I’m in,” Hunter said, getting up, too. Two seconds later everyone else was on their feet and running to put on their boots and mittens and hats and everything else.
“You game?” Dusty said, his face lighting up, probably seeing an opportunity to flirt with me and so forth.
Well, I couldn’t really say no. Everyone else was all for it as if we’d all reverted to childhood status. Mase popped a hat on Darah’s head and pulled it down so she couldn’t see, and she fought with him to try to pull it back up before he kissed her and she gave up.
I sighed and joined everyone by the door to get my winter things.
Dusty leaned down and held my boots for me to put my feet in them. He already had his on. The rest of the house was too busy to notice, so I seized my chance to talk to him.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Don’t be mad at me. I knew that you’d need your backpack, and you obviously couldn’t come get it, so I brought it to you. I wish we could talk. Do you think, maybe, that I can come by late tonight?” He spoke low and fast, as if we were plotting how to rob a bank or something.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let’s just have fun now and we can deal with it later, okay?” I put on a smile and chased everyone else out the door. Hunter and Taylor were already making snow angels, and everyone else was choosing sides for a snowball fight.
“Boys against girls,” Mase said.
“Uh, I don’t think so, buddy,” Renee said. “You have, like, twice the arm power as me and Taylor. Unfair advantage.”
“Isn’t that...unfeminist?” Mase said.
“I am perfectly fine with the fact that you, my friend, have muscles that are larger than mine, and can thus lift heavier objects,” Taylor said. “So if we do boys against girls, we get Mase to even it out.”
There was mutual agreement to this plan, and Dusty gave me a wink.
“No mercy, Red. Bring it on.”
Of course, in order to have this fight properly, we had to dig trenches and make walls, and it was a huge production that Mase took charge of and Renee tried to take charge of.
I didn’t want to be out here playing in the snow. I wanted to be in the basement where I belonged, hating myself.
Wow, that sounded really emo. It was a good thing no one could read my mind, or else they’d be really worried.
“Okay! Ready, set, GO!” Mase screamed like he was a Viking charging into battle and the girls and I followed behind him as we charged the rest of the boys. White balls of doom flew and smashed as people screamed and tried to duck and recover from being hit and make new ammo all at the same time. I stayed toward the back, but Dusty wouldn’t stand for that.
“Come on, Red. Let’s see what you got.” He started lobbing balls with alarming accuracy that shattered on my legs and then my stomach. I threw one ball for three of his, and he kept coming closer and closer and egging me on.
“Show me what you got!” Oh, that was it. My hair was red, and yes, I did have a temper, and yes, he was pushing my buttons. I scooped up some snow and packed it in a ball and chucked it with as much force and accuracy as I could gather.
Yes. Direct hit. Right over his heart. He looked down, surprised, and nodded.
“All right, okay. Now we’re talking.” Mase was busy trying to take Hunter down as Darah and Taylor ganged up on Paul. It was a bit of an unfair fight because Taylor was taking him out at the knees and then Darah was going nuts on his torso. We’d made the “no face” rule, but she was getting pretty close to violating that.
I hucked another ball at Dusty, and he dodged it. He tossed one at me, and I did the same thing. We danced around each other, trying to fake the other one out and put them off balance.
“Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go, Red?” He was trying to get in my head, but it was my experience that silence was more unnerving than throwing useless words around.
The two of us circled each other and I could almost hear the Wild West music in the background. Dusty kept lunging at me and I kept shadowing him. The battle had devolved around us into people trying to shove other people into the snow, and tickling without mercy.
“I’m gonna get you, Red. You are going down.”
I finally decided to speak.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, and I made my move, lunging forward and taking out his knees. He fell backward, and if there wouldn’t have been at least a foot of snow on the ground, he might have hurt something, but he had a cushion as I landed on top of him, pinning his shoulders.
“I win,” I said, grinning down at him. I’d stuffed my hair under my hat, but it had started making its escape and hung down between us. I realized, far too late, that I was straddling Dusty, and if we were naked, we were in quite a compromising position. Good thing we both had quite a few layers on. Of course, those layers didn’t stop me from feeling him getting hard underneath me, so I rolled off him, onto my back.
We both panted a little as everyone else gave up and sat or lay in the snow.
“We win,” Mase said, punching his fist into the air.
“Whatever,” Hunter said, shoving snow in his face. Boys.
Dusty turned onto his side.
“Did you enjoy that as much as I did?”
“I don’t think so.” I shifted away from him.
“I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”
“What am I doing?”
He inched closer and I inched backward. If we continued, we’d wiggle our way across the yard.
“Pushing me away. It’s pretty obvious. I knew you had some baggage when I met you, but I’m not going to let it come between us. You are not your baggage, Joscelyn.” Why? Why did he have to say my name that way? You know, if he didn’t have such a luscious voice, I would probably have a much easier time saying no to him.