Page 14 of Stuck With Mr. Frosty (Delectable Protectors #5)

I take the other and snag the bag of cookies from him. “So, do you come up here a lot? Is it one of those places you like to go to hide from the rest of the world?”

“Sometimes. I used to come up here more during other seasons. I wasn’t so good at getting along with the others when I first added Aspen to my rotation. Carter saw that. Said I needed a space to be alone and recharge without someone in my face all the time, so he showed me this place.”

I open the bag of chips, the scent of sour cream and onion rising up. “And now you’re showing it to me?”

“Actually, yeah, but there’s a reason for it.” He turns and nods to the wall right behind us. “Look just beneath the windowsill.”

I twist and look, searching for whatever it is he wants to show me, and then I see it. Mom’s name is carved into the side of the building. The letters are small, but right beneath her name is mine.

“I don’t remember coming up to this cabin.”

“From what I heard around the resort, the last time she was at this cabin was when she was pregnant with you.”

A lump rises in my throat, threatening to choke me. I get up, my vision blurring, and head over to the wall, tracing my name over the letters. It feels like there’s a giant hand around my lungs, squeezing the air from me, making it impossible to breathe.

I run my fingers over the carving, tracing our names together. A hot tear tracks down my cheeks as a smile tugs at the corners of my mouth.

Aiden crouches down in the snow beside me, reaching to wipe the tears away. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I just didn’t know about this place, but she was here with me.” I suck in a sharp breath and lean closer to him, putting my head on his shoulder. It feels foreign and natural at the same time.

And right… like this is where I should be right now.

Aiden presses his lips to my temple. “If I knew that showing you this was going to make you sad, I would’ve told you before I brought you here.”

“No.” I pull back to look at him. “This was good. Thank you. I think I needed this. Everywhere else I’ve gone since I got here feels like I’m walking through someone else’s memories of her.

Everybody talks about her, and it seems like they know her better than I did, that they had these parts of Mom that I can never see.

This right here, though, this feels like her. ”

For a while, we just stay there. I don’t think I could pull myself away if I tried.

When I finally stand up, we head for the chairs and sit down, going to town on the snacks. Aiden splits his cookies in half, eating the bare top half, licking the icing from the bottom, and then finishing that plain cookie.

I stare at him for a moment before taking a cookie of my own and popping the entire thing into my mouth. “What do you do when you’re done here for the season?”

“Go to another mountain range, work a season there.” Aiden sets the cookies to the side, looking down at Honey as she plops down at my feet. “What are you going to do?”

I swallow hard, fighting past the lump that still seems to be lodged tight. “I don’t know.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” he says, his tone even as if he really believes it.

That’s not what other people tell me. I keep thinking that I need to have the rest of my life figured out, especially after going to school and getting my degree.

But then I sit down and look around at my life, and I don’t know if it’s going to be worth it in the end. ”

“Why do you think it won’t be?” He separates another cookie and licks the icing from it.

“I thought that all I wanted to be in life was a kindergarten teacher. I love working with children. It really feels like what I’m supposed to be doing, but then the thought of looking for a position scares the hell out of me, and I start second-guessing everything.”

Aiden hums. “I thought that I was going to be an accountant when I was younger. I was in the foster system, and I wanted something good and stable that was going to set me up for the rest of my life, so I thought about doing that.”

I tilt my head to the side, studying him, the stubble on his cheeks, the lip ring, the thoughtful look in his eyes.

“I could see it. You’re intelligent and level-headed, which is infuriating when I’m trying to argue with you.

Even when you were being a dick to me, it was so calm and measured, like you’ve never lost control in your life. ”

The corner of his mouth twitches, his gaze locking with mine.

“Well, maybe that’s because not a moment of my life has felt like I controlled it.

My father was a hard man, and all my foster parents were worse.

Some kids have great experiences, but I didn’t.

And I did a lot of thinking about the kind of man I wanted to be. ”

“And do you feel like that man?”

He shrugs. “I like to think that I’m better than that man some days and worse than him others. Nobody is perfect, and life is quite frankly a bitch.”

I laugh and take two cookies, twisting off the tops and eating them before smashing both together to make one big cookie. “You’ve got that right. So, I guess I don’t know what I’m doing when the season ends.”

“Well, there’s time to figure it out.” He grabs a few chips from the bag in my lap, crunching on them as he stares out at the snow-covered trees.

“I don’t think that anyone ever has to have their life figured out entirely either.

How are you supposed to know the person you’re going to be years from now? ”

“I guess so.” I run a hand through my hair, letting the waves fall where they want. “What if you never figure it out?”

“Who says you have to figure it out?” Aiden tilts his head to the side, the dark strands falling across his forehead. “What was it you told me yesterday — go with the flow?”

“I might’ve said that at one point or another.”

“So, why don’t you apply it to your own life?” He pops open another cookie, and all I can think about while he’s licking the icing is what else his tongue could be doing right now.

“Because… I just can’t.”

“Yeah, sure. You say that, but why?”

I roll my bottom lip into my mouth before blowing out a deep breath. “I guess it’s because I always had to know what was going on. When Mom got sick the second time, I was in my teens. I had to balance school and her appointments because she couldn’t keep track of it all.”

“And now you feel like you have to know exactly what’s going on.” He looks at me, understanding shining in his eyes. “Mia, are you a closet control freak?”

I laugh and shake my head. ‘You know that’s not me.”

“I know. It drives me insane at times. You seem so at peace with everything around you, and most of the time I just want to explode.”

“You seem so calm.”

“A facade that I put on for the benefit of those around me.” He holds out a cookie to me, and I take it. “I think you just need to ride out the rest of the season, and then you can find out what’s going to happen with your life after that.”

“Maybe.” I take a bite into the cookie. “Actually, you know what? You’re right. I’m going to make the most of the season, and then I’ll figure out everything after.”

He chuckles. “I can see in your eyes that you don’t mean that.”

“Nope. I’m probably going to spend the rest of the season worrying about what to do when my life stops being on hold, and then after that, who knows.”

I sure as hell don’t.

But maybe Aiden is right, and I don’t have to figure it out right now. Maybe there is time to sit back and just enjoy life for a while.

If I’m with him, I think it’ll be easy.