“I’ll meet up with you when you’re finished with your surprise,” Bodhi tells me, kissing my forehead before grabbing my shoulders, turning me to face Allie, and giving me a gentle push in her direction. “I packed the pointy elf ears. We can have some naked elf fun with them before dinner.”
When Bodhi leaves the room, Allie guides me through to the back of the house to a room that looks like another living room, which Allie tells me is private from guests and just for the Redinger family. It looks like your typical family’s living room at Christmas containing a huge, comfortable-looking sectional with a couple of Christmas throw pillows on it, a tree in the corner with a ton of mismatched ornaments, a crackling fireplace with stockings hanging down from the mantle, and a flat-screen television hanging on the wall above it. With the snow falling heavily outside through the windows on either side of the tree, the dark clouds blanketing the sky make it feel like dusk instead of early afternoon, and it’s actually kind of nice and cozy. The only thing out of place in this living room is a big massage table right next to the fireplace.
“Welcome to your private, two-hour relaxation massage given by Christen Powers, one of the best masseurs in Snowfall Mountain,” Allie informs me as a younger blonde woman gives me a small wave from where she’s standing at the head of the massage table. “Bodhi gave me strict instructions that this massage needed to happen as close as humanly possible to some sort of fire in order for you to be happy. He was very adamant about the fire.”
I chuckle to myself even as the room suddenly gets blurry, blinking rapidly as Allie leaves me to my massage. Once I’m naked and warmly cocooned on my stomach under a pile of heated blankets, I turn my face to the side as Christen rolls down the blankets just enough to start using her magical hands on the backs of my shoulders.
Staring into the flickering flames and listening to the wood popping and crackling in the fireplace, with Christen massaging me into a coma, my eyes drift closed with thoughts of fires and first dates blazing through my mind.CHAPTER 6Tess
“My little firestarter.”Six months ago
“…and then my ass and my dick were just flopping in the ocean breeze as I ran across the sand and dove into the water to start a new life.”
The hot, homeless-looking surfer and professional caddie I agreed to a date with gives me a lopsided smile that turns my legs to jelly, while I stand here leaning my back against the railing on the upper deck of the Summersweet Island ferry, just blinking at him.
“I know, you’re still shocked about the short hair thing, aren’t you? It’s hard to imagine me without a head of glorious, shaggy golden locks.”
He runs a hand through those glorious, shaggy golden locks, and I just shake my head at him.
“I’m actually shocked our first date started literally ten minutes ago down on the ferry dock, and I already know your entire life story,” I reply. A blast of the ferry horn signaling we’re getting ready to leave the dock punctuates my point as I continue to shake my head at him. “That’s really what you want to lead with on a first date, huh?”
It’s actually pretty genius he led with that damn Christmas Eve story. Even though I’m still in shock that we no more than got our tickets and walked up here to the top deck before he started word-vomiting, I just want to wrap my arms around him and hug the hell out of him for what a shitty father and miserable earlier existence he had. And I’m not a fucking hugger. Gross.
Bodhi turns around to rest his arms on the railing and look out at the ocean as the ferry’s engine revs, and it slowly starts to pull away from the dock. I turn and do the same, refusing to acknowledge the goose bumps that pop up all over my body, when Bodhi slides his arms down the railing a few inches to close the distance between us, until the side of our arms are pressed together.
“I figure it’s best to begin a date by dumping all your baggage out right away, instead of carrying that heavy shit around with you for months.” He shrugs, his arm rubbing up and down against mine with the motion and making the back of my damn neck tingle this time.
“So, what’s the plan for tonight exactly, now that I know everything about you? We’re just going to… ride the ferry?”
Bodhi shrugs again. “I don’t know. But I do know I’ve only gotten to ride the ferry once so far, it was fun as hell, and I wanted to do it again with the hottest girl ever. We can play the rest of the night by ear and do whatever.”