“It’s okay if you are.” His light-brown eyes shine as he smirks. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”

“You’re the worst.” With a sharp exhale, I walk past him and climb onto the ATV.

He stands in place, half gawking, half smiling.

“You coming?” I ask over my shoulder.

With a shake of his head, he joins me on the ATV. The side of his thigh touches mine as he inserts himself between my legs, the position putting me in the running for Most Inappropriate Lawyer, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Careful to touch him the least possible, I lean backward, but the seat is barely large enough to fit two people, and with Maybelle on my back, I can’t pull away much. My groin stays seated against his butt, my efforts useless.

“You okay back there?” he asks as he turns the engine on.

“Peachy.”

I feel his back shake as he flicks his wrist and jerks us forward. The movement is so sudden, I reflexively put my arms around his torso and squeeze my legs around him to hold on.

So much for keeping my distance.

Aaron drives us slowly at first, then gains speed as we move through the forest with trees of all sizes, most covered with fluffy white snow that twinkles in the early morning sunlight. The land is incredibly vast, pines and firs covering the space in front of me as far as my eyes can see. He was right, there was no way to see it all on foot. I would’ve missed out on something. Except for our engine, the whole space is quiet. So peaceful.

“Do you have siblings?” Aaron asks after a while, slowing the ATV down as we come close to a small pond, the surface frozen and shining a bright silver, like a million tiny diamonds.

“What?” I ask, jerking back.

“You were good with Callie yesterday,” he explains. “She can have a little bit of an attitude sometimes, but not with you.”

“Oh. I don’t know. She’s great.” She did come to the cabin after school to pet the dogs. I gladly let her play with them while I finished working on Dennis’s statement of claim. Aaron hasn’t brought it up, so maybe he doesn’t even know.

“Yeah, she is.” He grins. “When she’s not being a little shit, that is.”

I snort at that.

The silence reappears as we round the pond, and I realize I never answered his previous question. I don’t know why I got so shaken. It wasn’t intrusive in the slightest. In fact, it’s probably one of the first questions anyone who is trying to get to know someone else would ask. But that’s the thing: I can’t say when was the last time I’ve allowed someone to try and get to know me.