Page 119 of Snowed In with Benefits

“Yesterday, when we went out for food,” Hunter tells me with a gentle smile. “We picked up a few other things too.”

My eyes are full and my heart is full and I haven’t even seen these presents yet but it doesn’t matter because they thought about me and they bought me things for Christmas and they don’t even celebrate Christmas usually.

Beau goes to my little coat closet and pulls out a present. It’s professionally wrapped in red paper and it’s so beautiful that I almost don’t want to tear it open. I open it carefully, then all at once. Inside is a shoebox, and in the shoebox is a pair of boots. Fur-lined, thick-soled, waterproof, good solid work boots… that are also cute, and exactly my size. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes and I brush them away.

“These are beautiful,” I breathe. “Thank you.”

“My turn,” Hunter says. He goes to the closet and brings back a bottle with a bow wrapped around the neck. It’s whiskey. Good whiskey.

“I figured you were done pretending to like wine,” he says with a grin.

“It’s perfect,” I say, holding the bottle up and watching the light play on the amber liquid. “We’ll have to break into this tonight.”

Emmett kisses me on the head and gets up, leaving my side feeling cold in his absence. He hesitates at the closet.

“I didn’t buy yours,” he says, looking shy. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay,” I tell him genuinely. “I didn’t expect anything.”

He opens the closet and pulls out an old, slightly ragged box. He holds it carefully like he’s afraid it will break. Bringing it over, he sets it gently in my lap. I pull the lid off with the same care he’s shown. Inside is a beautiful old camera, a film camera. I pull it out gingerly, looking it over in awe. The leather case is cracked and soft with age, and there’s a faint scratch across the top plate that someone tried to buff out a long time ago. It smells like old leather and metal and time. I run my thumb over the shutter button and feel the resistance, the mechanical weight of it. This camera was built to last, and it did.

“It was my grandpa’s,” he tells me, his voice gruff. “I found it while we were cleaning out the attic. I want you to have it.”

I turn it over in my hands, carefully, like it might dissolve if I hold it wrong. There’s a small dent on the bottom plate, and I wonder what it hit, and where, and who was holding it when it happened. Decades of someone else’s eye, someone else’s way of seeing the world, sitting heavy and warm in my palms. Emmett is giving me a piece of his family. Not something he bought, but something he kept. Something that survived. I’m so moved I can hardly speak. My gaze is swimming in tears as I look at all three of them in turn.

“I love you,” I tell them, my voice cracking. Oh shit. What did I say? That was stupid, it’s too much, it’s too soon, they’re going to run away from me now. I’m that crazy girlfriend that gets too attached too quickly and they’re going to take their gifts back and it’s going to get awkward and weird and they’re going to leave and I’m going to be alone all over again and⁠—

Hunter pulls me in, kissing me. Gasping as he interrupts my spiral, I cling to him. He releases me and Beau takes his place, kissing me hard. When he’s finished, Emmett takes my face in his huge hands and kisses me, slow and deep. Breathless and buzzing, I pull away slowly.

Realization strikes and I put my hands up to my face. “Oh, my god. I didn’t get you guys anything.”

“Yes you did,” Beau says.

“What?” I look at him, confused.

Emmett leans close and whispers in my ear. “Say it again.”

Oh. Oh, I see. “I love you.”

Emmett groans, holding me tight.

“That,” Beau says, “is the best gift ever.”

Emmett kisses me again, then wraps me up tight in his big arms. “You changed my life,” he murmurs. I hold him, squeezing my eyes shut against the threatening tears, knowing that he’s speaking the absolute truth. It’s Emmett. Truth is all he knows.

Beau sidles up behind me, spreading his hand over my thigh. “I didn’t realize what was missing in my life until you showed up and chucked a book at my head,” he says.

Hunter grabs my hand and starts kissing my knuckles. “You know, I had a whole life before you showed up. It was fine.” He pauses, his lips still against my skin. “I don’t want it back.”

The mood shifts with that confession. Emmett loosens his hold, his hands wandering over me. Beau starts kissing my neck, nibbling on my ear. Hunter runs his hand up my leg, between my thighs, teasing the tender flesh there.

“We promised to fuck you until you were screaming our names,” Hunter murmurs. “We haven’t delivered on that yet.”

With the way they’re touching me, they have every intention of rectifying that, right now.

46

JOSIE