So that was what we did for the rest of the night—drank hot chocolate with the candy canes I’d brought, listened to “R” albums, and told each other the stories of our lives.

Some of our stories were sad, and some made us explode with laughter. A few of mine came dangerously close to revealing who my father was.

At one point, we’d listened to both sides of both the records in Body Talk. So, Josh put on a Roberta Flack album because he vaguely remembered she was one of the singers his mother liked. But eventually, both sides of that album got played, too, and it was still snowing outside.

Cue the return of total awkwardness when we realized Josh would be spending the night.

I rushed through my pre-bedtime routine and came out of the bathroom dressed in a set of red and green fleece pajamas. Then I jumped into bed, hoping that would make the situation a little less awkward while I waited for Josh to come out of the bathroom.

But no…

Roberta Flack filled the silence, waxing poetic inside my head about the first time she ever saw her lover’s face. She extolled the virtues of setting the night to music and insisted that she’d found her oasis here in—

Josh came out of the bathroom, and the Roberta Flack record scratched. He wore nothing but a pair of loose boxers, which put his glorious warrior’s body on full display.

A storm of raw desire rose inside me without warning, swelling my breast, and making the place between my legs ache.

Thankfully Josh flipped the one light switch by the door, casting the cabin in pitch black before he could see my reaction to seeing him half-naked.

“Is it okay if I get in the bed with you? I can sleep on the floor, if not….”

A gentlemanly offer. But there was only one blanket, and as nervous as I was, I couldn’t let him suffer on the cold, hard floor.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind sharing. It’s a big bed.”

Well, I thought it was a big bed. It immediately shrank when Josh climbed into it beside me. He was so huge, his shoulder bumped against mine, sending shivers through my body.

“Sorry,” he said again. “I can sleep on my side….”

Good idea, I thought as he began to turn over. And I decided to do the same.

I turned to the right to face the outside of the bed. But instead of turning to the left to face the other way, he shifted in the same direction as me.

And his body scraped against mine again. But this time, the hard thing pushing against me wasn’t his shoulder. It was something else, something unexpectedly hard…and located below his waist.

“Jesus…Sorry,” he said, immediately scooting his hips away. “It’s been a while.”