Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(107)

“Are you okay?” I asked, watching him closely.

“Sure,” he answered.

“I…well, when you first saw her, you looked stunned.”

“Haven’t seen her in a while, used to see her every day. She kicked me when I was down, even if I deserved it, it still hurt. So, yeah, I was stunned.”

He stopped us, let me go, and picked up a little polar bear who would look adorable wandering through some fluffy trees and snowmen.

“Do you want to go get a coffee and talk?” I offered. “Or maybe bag this and come back out tomorrow?”

He ignored my questions completely.

“Not the feather trees, the white cone ones, the snowmen, and these,” he put the polar bear in our basket, grabbed another, smaller one (momma and baby, perfect!), and finished, “And some candles.”

He had an eye for Christmas décor. That would work, it was both of us, unlike those fluffy trees, which were just me.

I was impressed.

It was hard to focus on the impressed even as he dragged me to the snowmen.

“Core,” I called.

He looked down at me.

And growled, “Babe, let it go.”

Okeydokey.

I didn’t like that much, but I wasn’t going to cause a scene in CB2. Furthermore, CB2 was not the place to have this conversation.

Core grabbed the snowmen, pulled me to the trees, picked three of varying sizes (and threw a clear one in with the white, which was rad, since they were hollow and I could put a string of those tiny LED lights in it and the whole arrangement would sparkle), and then off we went, him leading, me following, so he could add some black candlestick holders and white taper candles.

It was going to be a sweet arrangement.

I no sooner had this thought when we were off to the cashier.

So I guess we were done at CB2.

He paid.

So I guess he was buying.

We went out to the truck and got in.

“Where’s this other place?” he asked.

“How about we grab an early lunch?”

He turned to me, forearm draped over the steering wheel. “You hungry?”

No, I was feeling weird.

“I just think that—”

“Christ, Hellen,” he bit off. “Kiki and I are over. I was surprised to see her. Don’t make something that’s not a thing, into a fucking thing. It’s you. I’m living with you. I’m fucking you. I’m in love with you.”

“I never doubted that.”

Or, at least I didn’t until he got pissed about talking about Kiki.

“So let it go and tell me where this other place is.”

We could walk there, but I didn’t say that, and anyway, it was best the bags were stowed in case we went crazy in West Elm and had to drag a whole bunch back.

I directed him where to go.

We got some lighted swags to drape around the media center, plus Christmas stockings for him, me and Nanook, and we did this trudging through West Elm like strangers forced to shop together.

When we got back in the truck, Core made an effort.

His voice was soft and even sweet when he asked, “Now, you want to get some lunch?”

I wasn’t feeling soft and sweet.

I was dwelling on Kiki.

“I’d just like to go home,” I told the windshield.

“And she hasn’t let it go,” he muttered irritably, soft and sweet a memory. He started up the truck and headed us home. He was driving for five minutes before he modulated his tone again and noted, “You wanted to get some presents.”

“I’ll shop online.”

“You wanted to go to physical stores because you don’t want them to disappear, because everyone shops online and something about how all the packing materials are gonna fuck up the environment,” he told me something I’d told him.

“I can do curbside pickup.”

He said no more.

When we got home, he pulled into the garage and did his usual, not letting me carry anything in. Truth told, it wasn’t that much. Not the massive, festive Christmas haul I’d fantasized about when thinking of shopping with him, bringing it home, unpacking it and putting it around the house. Then maybe doing something Christmas-y, like baking cookies or wrapping presents at the kitchen island.

It ended up being absolutely nothing like my Core-and-Me-Christmas Fantasy, seeing as I laid the polar bear/snowman arrangement on the kitchen island, he draped the swag, it took maybe five minutes for us both and we were in two separate rooms while we did it.

When I was done, I moved toward the hall on my way to grab some laundry and heard him remark, “So, that was fun.”

Okay.

No.

I whirled on him and declared, “You have a problem.”

“Just because you think I have a problem doesn’t mean I actually have a problem,” Core fired back.

“No,” I contradicted. “You have a problem.”

“So what’s my problem, Hellen?” he asked, putting his fists to his lean hips. “That my ex is hot, and you got a good look at her, and it’s flipping your shit?”

Oh my God!

“No,” I snapped. “Though, you keep saying things like that, I’ll start thinking on them.”

“Is that a threat?”