She laughs as I continue to freak out. “Your face is so red right now. Teddy is hot and nice and just...good, ya know? He’s one of the good ones. Lots of girls want to tear off his clothes. I don’t know why you’re embarrassed that you’re among them.”
“Because he doesn’t see me that way.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. Though he probably won’t make the first move because of Felix. You’re going to have to do it.”
“Yeah, well, that’s never going to happen.”
Emmett stands from the couch. “Try not to miss me too much, Hol-Stell-whichever one you are.”
“Holly,” Teddy and Stella say at the same time.
“Geez, dude. You’ve known them as long as Teddy.” Felix shakes his head.
“Sorry.” Emmett shrugs one shoulder. “But you told me not to look at them twice when we met, so...”
“He gave us all that talk,” Lucas says, then looks at Felix. “So don’t go blaming us for not being able to tell them apart two years later.”
“Fair enough.” Felix laughs and tosses a chin jut and smile at Teddy. “You’re good staying?”
“I’m not squeezing into the back seat with those two,” he says and points at Emmett and Lucas. Then he gives my brother an easy smile. “I’ll be fine, man. I’m gonna ice my tailbone. Drive safe.”
The door closes behind them and silence falls over the cabin. I’m alone with Theo Radford.
An entire day, just the two of us, in this cabin? Sure, that sounds like a dream come true, but that assumes a lot of things. Including my ability to form sentences.
“I’m going to shower.” Teddy jabs a thumb toward the bathroom.
I’m rolling out cookie dough, proudly wearing one of my grandmother’s old aprons, and listening to Christmas music.
I’ve known Teddy too long to feel uncomfortable being in the same space, but there is definitely a different type of tension when he comes out to the living room in jeans, holding his T-shirt in one hand.
“Hey, can you help me? I need to put some of this balm on my tattoo.”
“You got a tattoo?” He’s one of the few on the team that didn’t have one. Felix has so many I’ve lost count at this point.
“Yeah.” He smiles and those dimples make my stomach flip. “Two days ago.”
Teddy invades my space in the kitchen and turns to show me. Over his left shoulder blade is an intricately drawn woman with large wings. She stands in profile with a fierce look on her face, a sword at her hip.
“It’s beautiful. Does it have some significance?”
“She’s my guardian angel. Figured it wouldn’t hurt for her to have my back on the field, ya know? Plus, she looked awesome.” He hands me a tub of tattoo healing balm.
“Your guardian angel is seriously hot and pretty badass.”
His upper body shakes with his laughter. “No doubt.”
I dip my fingers into the balm and then run it over the tattoo. His skin is warm and my heart races as I gently dab it onto the skin. The tips of my fingers linger there, tracing the outline of the black ink.
“All done?” His voice is deeper than it was a minute ago and the sound goes straight to my lower stomach.
“Yeah.” I drop my hand and set the tub of balm on the counter.
I move to the sink to wash my hands and then go back to rolling out the dough.
Teddy puts on his shirt and then takes a seat at one of the stools on the other side of the counter. “I was thinking, if you want, I could go with you to pick out a tree.”
“You don’t have to do that.”