“Kris,” Jasper calls from behind me, right as I’m getting to the cottage’s tiny porch threshold.
Third of all, Jasper followed me back here looking like this.
Focused. Determined. Ambitious. Jasper on the job.
I stop short of opening the door, instead standing my ground on the porch, raising a hand to shade my brow from the sun. It’s better than doing this inside there, inside the place where I woke up with a chorus of holiday bells ringing in my heart, thinking I’d finally seen and been with the real Jasper, the Jasper who wouldn’t risk a relationship for a job. But then he’d rolled over and gotten to work, and everything inside of me had gone cold and silent, and I haven’t been thinking straight since.
“I just need a minute,” I say, and he takes a step closer and slightly to the side, the perfect spot to block the sun from my eyes. I drop my hand and try not to fall more in love with him, which is hopeless.
Now that I can see him better I can see that his determination is a little frayed around the edges, his hair mussed and his cheeks flushed, his eyes wide with concern.
I’m about to tell him not to worry about it, to go back to Gil, to count on me being ready to do the job. I’ll say I got my period and need a tampon or something; that always makes men disappear into thin air.
But instead Jasper blurts, “I want to be in each other’s top places.”
A clump of snow from the roofline plops onto his shoulder.
“What?”
“That’s what Gil said, about the job.” He’s breathing a little heavy, and I know from gym time and now also from sex time that it’s not from exertion. “He puts his wife and kid in the top place, and then he makes everything else work. I think we can do that, me and you.”
“Jasper—”
“So what if we lose this job? That doesn’t have to be because of this, of what happened between us. Or maybe it does, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll find a way. We’ll do what we have to do with the firm. We can keep Carol, lose the office space, downsize for a while—”
“What?”
“Listen, I know what you’re thinking.”
“You clearly do not know what I’m thinking. You think I’m worried about losing the job?”
Another small clump of snow falls from the roof, lands on the right side of his head, but he simply brushes it off and keeps going. “No—I mean, not this one, specifically. I think maybe you think Gil’s doing the right thing, staying here. But I also know you broke your rules with me last week and last night, and I don’t want you to think I’ll let it mess up us working together. I won’t. I thought if we could convince the Dreyers, you’d see that we could handle this.”
I blink at him. A tiny chime in my chest. “What’s the this?” I ask him.
He stares at me, the snow on his shoulder sliding down. “The . . . this?”
“What’s the this we’re handling? And back in the airport, when I said I was sorry about the kiss—you told me you couldn’t lose this. What’s the this?”
His brow is furrowed in confusion. “I meant that I couldn’t lose us. I couldn’t lose me and you, together.”
“On the job?”
He takes another step forward, shakes his head. “God, I have messed this up,” he says, more to himself than to me. “No. Kris, no. I’d lose the business tomorrow, if it meant staying with you, being with you. As friends, as—as what we were last night. Anything.”
“You’ve always put the job first. In your top place.”
“I’ve made mistakes about that in the past. I know I have. But Kris, with you—I thought you’d think it was a bad idea, to try with me. So I made a rule for myself. I’d never let my feelings for you get in the way of just—getting to be with you. Be around you every day, at work. It’s the best thing I’ve got, having that with you, and I couldn’t lose it.”
I’m sure the bell is ringing; I’m sure it is. But all I can hear is the sound of my heart beating.
“Why—” My voice is a little shaky, like the timbre of the bell after it’s been rung. “Why did you think you’d lose it?”
“Any reason, really. You decide it’s a mistake, because of work—which would be fair enough, given everything you’ve seen. Or one of us messes up at it, and we can’t make our way back together. Or—even if you’d decided you had felt that way about me, maybe your feelings would change eventually.”
“Or maybe your feelings would change,” I say.
He gives me a long, determined look. A Jasper-on-the-job look. “My feelings wouldn’t change.”
I roll my eyes, look down at my borrowed boots. One night, and he’s suddenly got all the confidence in the world about the way he feels. “Okay.”
“Kristen.” He waits. Waits for me to look back in those determined eyes. “They wouldn’t. They won’t. They haven’t, not in all the six years I’ve known you. They have never changed.”
“Six years?” It’s almost a whisper.
“Six years.” His voice is clear. Not loud, but not quiet, either. “Every day. I guess I should say—they have changed. Because when I first met you, I thought you were smart and kind and beautiful and completely out of my league, and every day that passed I knew that more and more, and I’ve been in love with you for that long, and yesterday was the best day and the best night of my life, even if it did ruin your Christmas.”
“Jasper.” It is a whisper now, pressed out through tears gathering in my throat, and because I know the next part will be too, I reach out and grab
