Winter’s grin was adorable. I set a glass of ice water at his place before grabbing one for myself before saying, “Ahh. The Google. Every medical practitioner’s worst nightmare.”
He continued to tell me about his day while we ate. It was strangely domestic and comfortable even though we didn’t know each other very well.
“What about you? Why’d you abuse your hand so much today?”
I stretched out my hand and felt the pull of tired muscles. “I was fiddling with a song and didn’t realize how long I spent poking around on the guitar.”
Winter wiped his fingers on a napkin before standing up and going to the freezer for some ice. He rummaged through the drawers until he found a zip-top bag, and within moments, he was plunking an ice pack on my hand and wrapping a stretchy bandage around it to keep it in place. “Keep that on there for a little while. If we can get the swelling down a little, I’ll let you play your new song for me.”
He winked at me before sitting back down and reaching for another bite of pizza.
“You’ll let me?” I teased.
“Mmhm. Only if you keep that on there. You have to be a very good boy.”
I watched his eyes dance from across the table. He was so engaging, so present. Being with him was like being plugged into a power source.
I sat back and put my feet in his lap. “Tell me more about your sister. And can we take a moment to talk about why you don’t have siblings named Spring and Autumn?”
“You think you’re the first person to make that joke?” His eyes held me captive. “And I don’t want to talk about my sister. I want to get you naked.”
I dropped my feet to the floor and moved forward to kneel at his feet. I kept my eyes on his as I clumsily reached for his fly. Neither of us said another word as he helped me open his pants and slide them down. The small room was quickly filled with the wet, slick sounds of my best efforts to make him forget his hectic workday.
By the time he came for me, we were both naked and stretched out on the rug in front of the fire, panting and gasping with bellies coated in our mixed releases.
“Fuck,” he said.
“Mm.”
“Your hand?” he asked.
I held up the hand still wrapped in a dripping ice bag. “What do I win?”
He laughed out loud, and I turned to snuggle against his side as he removed the bag and bandage. I buried my smile in his neck and gave silent thanks for his company. Winter Waites was a kind man. Sexy and fun and sweet. I wanted to learn more about him, if only to figure out a way to help him get everything he deserved in his life long after I was gone.
“Now will you tell me about your sister? Or tell me about work or where you live or how you grew up?”
He laughed and moved away from me, standing up and then reaching for my hand to haul me up, too. “Yes, but let’s shower off the sweat and jizz first.”
As we showered together, flirting and teasing the whole time, he told me about starting his new job here in Aster Valley, how he was late the first day because his jeep had been blocked in by a neighbor’s truck and he’d had to ask a different neighbor for a ride. How he’d gotten puked on by a patient having a bad reaction to pain medicine and had to beg a pair of scrubs off a new coworker. How he’d gotten home late that night and snuggled his cat while calling his sister to tell her it had been the best day ever.
Winter told me stories about growing up in Colorado Springs. How his dad had left when his mom was still pregnant with Summer and how his mom had made it very clear that Winter was the man of the house now. At age eight.
It made me want to find the deadbeat and beat the shit out of him. I pictured an adorable eight-year-old Winter with gapped front teeth and big ears trying to be strong for his mother.
By the time he got to that part of the story, we were curled up again in front of the fire, on the sofa with a throw wrapped over our legs and glasses of wine.
“She did the best she could, I guess,” he said with a sigh. “I can’t imagine being left with two kids like that. Especially making jack shit for money as a nurse’s aide. Watching her never have enough money is what helped push me through seven years of college and grad school and thousands of hours of specialty training.”