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Tasha cracked open an eye.
The room was no longer completely dark. Light filtered in through the thin curtains and highlighted the fact that yes, this was a crappy motel room.
Her nose felt like an icicle. Still no heat.
Yet she’d awoken with a smile on her face because she’d had pretty great sex last night.
Greg.
OMG. She’d slept with Greg, and it had been fantastic.
What had she been thinking?
She threw back the covers and started to get up, but then Greg opened his eyes and mumbled, “Stay,” so she did. It was warm and cozy next to him under the blankets.
Still, she was freaking out.
She’d suggested no-strings-attached, meaningless sex. She had casual sex on occasion to satisfy her needs. Nothing to feel guilty about.
The problem? It hadn’t simply been sex.
No, it had been pretty freaking amazing sex.
She’d enjoyed sex with her last two boyfriends, though she’d found herself thinking, It wasn’t as good as it was with Greg. Then she’d figured she was probably just looking at her first relationship with rose-tinted glasses. It had been more than a decade. The sex hadn’t actually been that spectacular, right? After all, they were each other’s firsts.
But she’d had sex with Greg last night, and it was that spectacular. The best she’d ever had. Maybe even better than it had been fifteen years ago. Someone should give that man’s tongue a prize.
The real problem wasn’t that the sex had been amazing, but that it had felt particularly intimate, and she’d loved it when he held her afterward. Like there was nowhere else she’d rather be than a crappy, cold motel room, as long as he was the one holding her. When he’d admitted he’d missed her, she’d said it back, and it had sent a curl of warmth to her heart. And when she thought about how he’d brought her hot chocolate and a Coffee Crisp, she grinned.
Yep, she had feelings for him.
Maybe they’d never gone away. Or maybe they had and just came back.
It didn’t matter. When she looked at his glasses resting on the night-table and his argyle sweater thrown over a chair, she felt a surge of affection.
Oh, no. Did she want to get back together with her ex?
No, she couldn’t.
She always looked ahead to new opportunities and experiences. Living in the past just held you back, and there was always a reason an ex was an ex. No need to revisit it.
She’d had sex without feelings before. Why couldn’t it have been like that with Greg?
He wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck, and ooh, that felt good. How come everything he did felt so wonderful?
She reminded herself of Crispin, who liked to laugh and respected her boundaries.
Dammit, the bar was so low. That was the problem.
Expecting men not to send you unsolicited dick pics is very reasonable, Greg had said, and she chuckled at the memory.
Really, she didn’t understand why he didn’t do well with online dating. Compared to all the jerks out there, he was practically a saint.
She sat up.
“What’s the rush?” he murmured. “I’ll get you home by noon, don’t worry. Might as well wait under the covers for now and give them a chance to clear the roads.”
His warm mouth pressed against her collarbone, then her neck.
“Look at you.” She forced a laugh. “Yesterday, you were so eager to get on the road, pissed that I was twenty-seven minutes late, and now you want to lie in bed and snuggle.” She said it with fake disdain.
“Yes, I’m always DTS,” he said. “Down to snuggle.”
She laughed for real.
Greg had always been a cuddly person, though it seemed counter to his personality. Surely this wasn’t just with her, but with other women, too.
She pushed that thought aside. She didn’t want to think about his girlfriends.
Though maybe that would help her move on.
“Tasha,” he said, serious now. “Do you regret last night?”
“No regrets, like I said.” She gave him a peck on the lips and hopped out of bed. “I need a shower. Hopefully there’s warm water.”
He looked at her for a moment, his face carefully blank. “Okay. I think there’s a Tim Hortons nearby. I’ll get us some breakfast and see what the roads are like. You still take your coffee the same way?”
She nodded and forced back the tears.
He remembered how she took her coffee. Really, it was nothing.
But he also remembered how she liked to be touched, and so many other things. It was just the way he was. He was careful and kind and remembered little things.
Dear God, how had this happened?
* * *
Breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and Timbits.
Simple. He could do this.
Greg stepped out of the motel room and into the bright sunshine reflecting off the snowbanks. He’d have to dig out his car first. That might take a while. Fortunately he had two shovels in the trunk—all part of his winter preparedness kit.
A door creaked, and an older white man walked out of the next room. He looked a little older than Greg’s parents, though it was hard to tell as he was wearing a big parka.
Oh, God. This was Herbie.
Greg knew what sounds this man made in the bedroom. At least, he knew the tone of voice Herbie used when he said, “Ethel.”
This was wrong, so wrong.
And Herbie may well have heard the bed springs creaking in Greg and Tasha’s room last night, maybe even some of Tasha’s noises. She hadn’t been too loud, but the walls were thin.
“Hello, Greg,” Herbie said with a wink. “Have a good night?”
Well, at least Tasha hadn’t called him “Greggie,” but it was like finding yourself naked in a classroom. Not, of course, that this had ever happened to Greg, but he’d had dreams—nightmares, really—of that situation.
Someone else may have been able to breezily reply, Pretty good, Herbie. And you?
But Greg was not that smooth.
Herbie laughed. “Big storm last night, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Me and the wife, we were heading to Hamilton to see our daughter, but we had to get off the 402 during the storm.”
Herbie prattled on for a few minutes, and Greg was unable to drag himself out of the conversation. Then a woman stepped outside and linked her arm with Herbie’s, and Greg was hit with an unexpected surge of longing.
He wanted to be like them one day. A couple in their seventies, heading out to spend Christmas with their adult children. An older couple who still had very enthusiastic sex. He couldn’t look Herbie and Ethel in the eye, but he couldn’t help wanting what they had.
With Tasha.
It was impossible to imagine being with anyone but Tasha now.
He mumbled a hasty goodbye, headed to his car, and pulled out a shovel. He shoveled like mad, hoping the physical exertion would drown out his thoughts.
But it didn’t.
The crack that had opened within him last night had widened.
He wanted to be with Tasha. Not just for one night in a heat-free motel room. Not just for a few months or years.
He wanted to be with her for always.
Perhaps he’d never stopped loving her; perhaps he’d merely managed to repress those feelings so he could move on with his life, and whenever they’d manage to pop up again, he’d forced them back down, telling himself he was just nostalgic for his teenage years. Once or twice, he’d picked up the phone to call her, then convinced himself he was being silly. Besides, she hadn’t bothered to contact him; surely she’d moved on to better things.
But it was now startlingly clear why his other three relationships hadn’t worked out. Why he hadn’t bothered dating for the past few years.
He’d never been able to imagine far into the future with another woman like he could with Tasha; for him, no one could compare to her. After last night, he knew it wasn’t foolish nostalgia. They were good together. They really were. He belonged with her; he knew this with a certainty he’d never had before.
At nineteen, he’d had trouble believing she’d pick him if she could see what else was out there, but now she was thirty-four and still unattached. If she chose him now, after fifteen more years of life experience... Well, that would be different.
There was one big problem, however.
He didn’t think she wanted him.
Sure, she’d cuddled up against Greg last night and said she missed him, but this morning, she’d been eager to leave the comfort of the bed and had shown no interest in having sex again.
She’d said she didn’t regret it—and maybe she didn’t. She’d clearly enjoyed herself. But she didn’t seem thrilled about the current situation, and there was no reason to think she’d be interested in anything more. After all, she’d stated, just yesterday, that she didn’t believe in second chances for relationships.
Besides, even though she didn’t have a husband or boyfriend, she had that Crispin guy, who probably even liked Christmas music.
That asshole.
Half an hour later, Greg finally had his car cleared off, and, with some difficulty, he managed to get it out of the parking lot and down the road to the nearest Tim Hortons. He bought two breakfast sandwiches, a double-double (for Tasha), a black coffee (for him), and a box of ten Timbits.
He was about to head back outside when his phone buzzed.
“Hey, Greg!” Nick said when Greg picked up.
He set down his order on a table and rubbed his forehead. This was just what he needed.
“Why are you calling?” Greg asked.
“Gee, thanks for the warm hello.”
“You know I prefer texting.”
“I figured this would be more efficient.”
“Does everyone in the household want to talk to me again?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Greg grunted in frustration. “I’ll be home in a couple hours. You can all bother me then.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure that’ll happen, too.”
Nick got off the phone, and then a different voice said, “So, Greg, did anything happen last night?”
“Mom. Please. I’m starting to worry that you can control the weather, and that’s how I ended up trapped in a motel room near Strathroy with my ex-girlfriend, next to two septuagenarians having wild sex.”
He didn’t know why he added that last part. His brain really wasn’t working today.
Mom laughed. “Your grandfather wants to talk to you.”
A moment later, Ah Yeh said, “I discovered that you can buy model trees on Amazon. Just the right size for your train set. Should I get cedars or palm trees, or the set of mixed trees? There are dozens of options, actually.”
“I have all the model trees I need, thank you,” Greg said.
Eventually, he managed to end the call, then took his food and coffee out to the car. He put on CBC Radio, just because there was no one to tell him not to, even though it was only a short drive.
When he returned to the motel, Tasha was dressed in a blue sweater that was slightly more form-fitting than the one she’d worn yesterday. She immediately grabbed the Timbit box and popped one of the donut holes in her mouth.
“Mmmm,” she said.
He looked on, horrified.
“What?” she asked.
“I got you a breakfast sandwich, but you’re eating dessert first.”
“I don’t think appetizers, main courses, and desserts apply at breakfast. Breakfast is a free-for-all.” She grinned as she dumped two creams and sugars into her coffee.
He had a sip of his own coffee and smiled. He would never eat a donut before his breakfast sandwich—that just wasn’t the way he did things—but he appreciated that she didn’t follow such rigid rules.
“I’m surprised you bought donuts,” she said. “I figured that was too indulgent for you, especially at Christmas. I know there’s a ton of dessert at your family’s house this time of year.”
He shrugged. “You like them. So I got some.”
The smile slid off her face and she was back to looking like she had earlier this morning, when she refused to stay burrowed under the covers with him.
“What’s wrong?” He yearned to reach out and caress her cheek, but he kept his hands to himself.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said brightly, then turned to look out the window.
He studied her profile. She really was the prettiest woman he’d ever known.
He loved the faint wrinkles and stretch marks, the fact that her body wasn’t exactly the same as it had been before. She could pass for being younger than thirty-four, but she was a little different from her teenage self, and he liked being able to see that time had passed. She was still Tasha, but now she had the career she’d worked so hard for. He’d have to ask her more about her job on the ride back.
She’d also admitted she wanted a relationship, and he wanted to give that to her.
Except she didn’t seem keen on being with him for more than a night.
“Did you talk to Crispin this morning?” he asked, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.
“No.” She held up a Timbit and changed the topic. “I dare you to eat one of these before your breakfast sandwich.”
He grimaced.
“Oh, come on. It’s just a donut. Live a little.”
It seemed she was bent on torturing him again: she had his least favorite Timbit in her hand.
“Powdered...sugar,” he stammered.
Greg hated powdered sugar. It probably had something to do with a little incident that happened when he was three years old. His grandfather—his mother’s father, who’d been dead for a dozen years now—had taken him to a bakery in a nearby town, and somehow he’d ended up with a large donut covered in powdered sugar. Not just a little donut hole—no, a full donut. Greg had gleefully bitten into the donut and waved it around in the air...and started crying when the powdered sugar got all over his favorite sweater. Most kids probably wouldn’t have been bothered, but Greg had always been concerned with neatness and order, even from a young age, and he’d thrown a temper tantrum in the bakery.
Anyway, he still hated powdered sugar because it was messy. This particular donut, he knew, had jelly inside. That was tasty, but the powdered sugar he could do without.
At the same time, he kind of wanted to eat it now, before his sandwich. Show Tasha that he wasn’t a total stick-in-the-mud.
“Alright,” she said. “No powdered sugar. Sour cream glazed instead.” She held up another Timbit, once that was mercifully less messy. “I dare you to eat one sour cream glazed Timbit before your breakfast sandwich.”
Everything in him tensed at the thought of eating dessert first. It went against the rules, and Greg loved the rules.
Though he missed having a little chaos in his life.
His childhood had been too full of chaos. He was the oldest of four, and his parents hadn’t exactly run a structured, ordered household. There was always one catastrophe or another, someone shrieking in his ear.
But his life in Toronto had gotten a little boring, to be honest.
“Sour cream glazed is the best one,” Tasha said, shaking the Timbit.
“I thought birthday cake was your favorite.”
She shrugged. “People change.”
Well, yes, and Tasha changing her Timbit preference didn’t fundamentally change who she was, whereas him eating a jelly donut covered in powdered sugar, while wearing a pristine argyle sweater, seemed a little more of a stretch.
“Pass me the jelly one,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows and handed it over.
Greg held it close to his face. Geez, this was one messy fucker of a donut. Nothing should be dipped in powdered sugar—or cocoa powder, for that matter—and it seemed like this particular donut had an extra-generous amount of powdered sugar.
He was going to eat this. He had to. Somehow, it seemed like eating this little donut symbolized something important.
All in one bite—that was probably the best way to minimize the mess.
He looked down at his sweater, which he didn’t want to get dirty before nine in the morning. It was, in fact, his favorite sweater. He wasn’t sure whether it was weird for a thirty-four-year-old man to have a favorite sweater, but he did.
And then he had an idea.