Thanksgiving morning should’ve been simple. Coffee, rolls, maybe a peaceful kitchen.

Instead, Remi is dodging Bash’s eyes, ignoring the heat still buzzing under her skin, and pretending yesterday didn’t pull them both over a line they can’t un-cross.

One pantry. One kiss. One storm that refuses to let either of them run.

Chapter Two

Remi

Thanksgiving Tease

The first thing I register is warmth. The second is the sound of wind.

It scrapes over the side of the house, a low, steady rush, like the storm is still trying to argue with the walls. For a second I forget where I am. The quilt, the unfamiliar lamp, the faint smell of someone else’s laundry detergent. Then the rest catches up.

Guest room. Duke and Rachel’s house.

And Bash on the floor.

I don’t move right away. I just stare at the ceiling and listen.

He’s quiet, the way only someone trained to be quiet can be. No snoring. No shifting. Just breathing. Slow, even, steady. I can’t see him from where I’m lying, but I know exactly where he is. That strip of floor by the wall. The nest of blankets he made like he has done this a thousand times.

‘You are not allowed to find this weirdly intimate. It is just a man sleeping on the floor. It is not a thing.’

A door shuts somewhere in the house. Pipes knock. The faint clatter of something from the kitchen. Duke, probably, acting like it is a normal Thursday and not a snowed-in holiday that got completely rewritten while I wasn’t looking.n overnight.

I roll onto my side carefully, the mattress dipping under me.

Bash is on his back now, one arm bent under his head, the other across his stomach. The blankets are pushed down to his waist, gray t-shirt twisted slightly, exposing a sliver of skin at his hip. His jaw is rough with stubble, hair a little messy, lips parted just enough to make my brain short out for a second.

He looks softer when he’s asleep. Less guarded. Younger somehow.

I should not know that.

His eyelashes twitch like he’s about to wake up, and I snap my eyes back to the ceiling like I’ve been studying it for hours.

He shifts. The blankets rustle. Then his voice, low and gravelly.

“You awake?”

I swallow. “Yeah.”

A beat. “Sleep okay?”

“As okay as anyone can on the edge of a blizzard.”

There’s a hint of a laugh in his exhale. “Fair.”

Silence settles again, but it feels different now. Less loaded with everything we didn’t say last night. More like we’re hovering at the start of something and pretending we aren’t.

“Duke is probably in the kitchen already," Bash says. “You want me to give you a minute before you come out?”

It takes me a second to realize what he is actually asking.

He is giving me space. To get up. To face the day. To not walk out of this room with bed hair and sleep-creased cheeks right behind him like some kind of slow-motion romcom shot. I mean, not that anything happened. 

“Yeah,” I say. “That’d be good.”

“Okay.”

I hear him sit up and blankets shifting but I refuse to look. If I see him stretch, that will be it. Game over.

The floor creaks as he stands. There’s a quiet rustle while he pulls on socks, then the soft brush of his hand against the doorknob.

“Rem?”

“Yeah?”

“Happy Thanksgiving.”

It is simple, but something in the way he says it lands low in my chest.

“You too,” I whisper.

He opens the door and steps out. It closes with a soft click behind him.

I take a breath, then another, then throw the blankets back and get moving before I can start analyzing every word.

Fifteen minutes later I have brushed my teeth, wrestled my hair into something that passes for presentable, and pulled on leggings and a soft sweater that makes me feel marginally more like a functioning human. The house smells like coffee and something that might be burning.

Which means Duke is definitely in the kitchen.

I follow the noise and smoke alarm threat down the hall.

Rachel is standing at the stove in a pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that says GRATEFUL in bold colorful letters, hair in a messy bun, looking like the poster girl for cozy-wife energy. She has a spatula in one hand and a mug in the other.

Duke is in front of the oven wearing an apron that says KISS THE COOK AND BRING PIE, fanning the open door with a dish towel while a thin wisp of smoke curls out.

“Is something on fire?” I ask.

Duke whips around, eyes bright. “Remi, perfect timing. Nothing is on fire. Everything is under control.”

Rachel tilts her head, unimpressed. “He forgot the rolls were in there.”

“I did not forget. I temporarily mis-timed.” He squints at the tray. “They’re rustic.”

“They’re charred,” she says.

I laugh, the sound coming easier than it should at this hour. “Morning.”

Rachel’s face softens like she didn’t already look soft. “Morning, honey. Coffee is behind you. Creamer in the fridge. We have three kinds because I married a loveable disaster.”

Duke points a spatula at me. “Don’t listen to her. I am a visionary.”

“You bought the peppermint mocha one in October,” she says.

“Visionary,” he repeats.

I move around them, muscle memory taking over. Mug, coffee, creamer. The familiarity of their kitchen wraps around me like a second sweater. It’s impossible not to feel comfortable here.

“Bash still asleep?” Duke asks, peering into a pot on the stove now like it will confess something.

“No idea,” I say, lying automatically. “I came down after I got ready.”

Rachel glances at me, like maybe she heard more in that than I meant to put in it, but she lets it go.

Someone steps into the doorway behind me. I don’t have to turn to know who it is. My body clocks him before my brain does. Like it always has. The air shifts, a low hum under my skin.

I turn anyway.

Bash is leaning in the doorway in gray sweatpants and a dark long-sleeve shirt that fits him annoyingly well. His hair is still damp at the ends, like he took a quick shower. There is a faint pillow crease on his forearm where it rested under his head. He looks rumpled and solid and exactly like the kind of man you do not want to be stuck in close quarters with if you value your sanity.

I, of course, don't say any of that out loud.

“Morning,” he says, voice still rough.

“Why does the couch not look slept on?” Duke asks, eyes narrowing like he’s inspecting a crime scene.

Rachel snorts. “Because Bash isn’t an idiot.”

Bash smirks at her. “Floor was better.”

Bash’s eyes find mine and stay there. It’s only a second, but it stretches. There’s a question in it I don’t know how to answer, so I look at the coffee instead.

“Morning,” I say.

He moves past me to the cabinet, reaching up for a mug. He’s close enough that the heat from his body brushes my arm. My heart pulls a stupid trick where it skips and then lands harder.

“You want toast?” Rachel asks him.

“I’ll take whatever there is as long as Duke doesn’t burn it,” he says.

“Rude,” Duke mutters.

“Accurate,” Rachel says.

Breakfast is a blur of clinking plates, overlapping conversation, and stolen glances I pretend not to notice myself making. Duke talks with his hands, Rachel keeps getting up to check something in the oven, and Bash sits across from me, eating like a person who actually remembers to feed himself, listening more than he talks.

He asks me about work, about the plant shop, about whether my boss ever fixed the heater. I roll my eyes and tell him no. He snorts and shakes his head like that’s exactly what he expected.

Somewhere in the middle of Rachel’s story about a client who brought an actual live turkey into the salon, she stands and claps her hands.

“Okay. I need help with prep. Duke is banned from the oven for at least an hour.”

“Unfair,” he says.

“Necessary,” she says.

Her gaze lands on me. “Remi, you want to help me with the sides?”

“Sure,” I say. “Put me to work.”

She smiles. “I like you, I might have to keep you.”

Duke makes a scandalized noise. “You’re married to me.”

“And yet here we are,” she teases.

She starts rattling off instructions. Potatoes, green bean casserole, something involving cranberry sauce that sounds complicated. I move around the kitchen, following her lead. Bash rinses dishes and loads the dishwasher without being asked, like he’s done it a hundred times.

At one point I reach for the cabinet above the fridge where Rachel says the good serving dishes are. I stretch onto my toes, fingers brushing the edge of the platter but not quite catching it.

“Here,” Bash says behind me.

His chest brushes my back for half a second as he reaches up easily, his hand coming down with the dish like it is nothing.

I freeze.

My breath catches. The smell of soap and something warm and distinctly him hits me all at once. My fingers tighten on the counter, knuckles white.

“Thanks,” I say, a little too quickly.

“Anytime,” he quiets back.

Our hands brush when he passes me the dish. Just a graze, skin against skin. It should not matter. It does anyway.

‘Get a grip. It is Thanksgiving. Not a thirst trap.’

“Remi,” Rachel calls, oblivious. “Can you grab the extra spices from the pantry? Top shelf, right side.”

“Yep,” I manage.

I set the dish down and head to the pantry tucked off the kitchen. It is really more of a narrow walk-in, shelves lined with cans, baking supplies, and about six different kinds of crackers Duke has picked up on impulse.

The door falls almost shut behind me, the noise from the kitchen softening.

I spot the spice container on the top shelf. Of course it’s high. I stretch up, fingers reaching. My body tips forward slightly on my toes.

“Need help?” Bash’s voice comes from behind me.

I jump so hard I nearly take out an entire row of cereal boxes.

“Jesus,” I mutter, grabbing the shelf to steady myself. “Do you move silently on purpose?”

“Occupational hazard,” he says.

I feel him step in behind me. The pantry is small, which I knew before, but now it feels tiny. My shoulder almost brushes his chest. If I lean back even an inch, I will hit him.

He reaches up, arm near my head, fingers closing around the spice container like it’s nothing. His body heat rolls over my back, steady and solid.

“Here,” he says, but he does not move away immediately.

I turn to take it from him, and that’s when everything goes sideways.

The space is too tight. My hand hits his wrist instead of the container. His other hand goes to my hip automatically to steady me. The door swings another inch closed, dimming the light.

We both stop.

His fingers are warm on my hip through the thin fabric of my leggings. His eyes drop to my mouth, then flick back up. I feel the shift in the air like a click.

I should step back.

He should let go.

Neither of us does.

“Remi,” he says, my name more exhale than sound.

My pulse spikes. “Yeah?”

“This is a bad idea,” he says quietly.

“Probably,” I whisper.

We hold there for another heartbeat, hanging over a line. Then something in me snaps.

I grab the front of his shirt and pull him down.

The first brush of his mouth against mine is messy. Less kiss, more collision. All the held-back energy from the last twenty-four hours slams into that single point of contact.

He makes a low sound in his chest that I feel more than hear. His hand tightens on my hip, the other coming up to frame my jaw, thumb brushing my cheek as he angles my head and deepens the kiss.

It stops being awkward after that.

It gets greedy.

His mouth moves over mine like he’s been dying to do this for a long time and finally stopped telling himself no. I open for him without thinking, without planning, letting him in. Heat floods me, sharp and immediate.

My hands slide up his chest, fingers curling into his shirt. He presses me gently back against the shelves, careful but close, like he is trying very hard not to actually crush me.

One of his hands slips under the hem of my sweater at my waist, palm finding bare skin. The contact is a shock. I gasp into his mouth, and his fingers flex like he wants more.

“This is…” I breathe, breaking just enough to speak.

“Insane?” he asks against my lips.

“Something,” I say.

He huffs a laugh that dies into another kiss. He tastes like coffee and toothpaste and something warm that is just him. Every pass of his mouth, every small drag of his teeth, sends sparks straight through me.

I slide a hand up into his hair, tugging lightly. He groans, low and rough, and kisses me harder.

Somewhere in the house, a door closes. Footsteps. A muffled laugh. It all feels a million miles away.

His thumb strokes the edge of my ribs. My leg shifts between his without me planning it. He inhales sharply, his body reacting.

“Remi,” he says again, like a warning and a prayer both.

“Yeah?”

“This is really a bad idea.”

“I know,” I say. “Keep going.”

His forehead rests against mine for a second like he is trying to get himself together. Then he kisses me again anyway.

We are still tangled up in each other when it happens.

“Remi!” Duke’s voice barrels through the quiet like a marching band. “Where’d you go? Did the spices eat you?”

Bash jerks back like he has been hit with cold water. I grab the shelf to steady myself again, lips buzzing, breath ragged.

“In here!” I call, trying to sound normal and absolutely failing. My voice comes out high and thin. “Found them!”

Bash steps back properly, putting actual space between us. His chest rises and falls like he’s just run a marathon. He looks at my mouth, then away, jaw tight.

I grab the spice container from his hand. My fingers are shaking.

“You should go first,” I whisper.

He nods once and slips past me, shoulder brushing mine. By the time I follow him out, he’s crossed the kitchen and is at the sink, running water like he has been there the whole time.

Rachel glances over her shoulder. “Find it?”

“Yep,” I say, setting the container on the counter. “Top shelf. Your pantry is a death trap, by the way.”

Duke grins, oblivious. “Heyyy, I  love my pantry.”

I do not look at Bash.

I can feel him though. Every time I move, it is like there’s an invisible line stretched between us. I keep my hands busy. Stirring, chopping, anything to keep me grounded.

At the table later, the four of us sit around a ridiculous amount of food, the storm still raging outside the windows. Duke carves the turkey like it is a ceremony. Rachel makes everyone say one thing they are grateful for.

When it is my turn, I say, “Found family.”

When it is Bash’s, he pauses for a heartbeat too long.

“Second chances,” he says.

My fork stills.

I finally risk a look at him and he’s already looking at me.

No one else seems to notice.

Of course they don’t.

No one else was in the pantry.

No one else felt the way his hand shook just a little when it touched my skin.

Bash

Didn’t Plan on This

Dinner feels like a trap.

Not the food, Rachel cooks like she’s feeding an army and a therapy group at the same time. Not Duke, who’s halfway through telling some story about setting a grill on fire in college.

It’s Remi.

Specifically, the way she keeps not looking at me.

Which means she’s thinking about me.

Which means I’m screwed.

I cut into my turkey, trying to keep my face neutral, but my brain won’t shut up.

Her mouth is still swollen from where my lips were pressed against hers.

Her breathing was uneven for a solid minute in that pantry. And she hasn’t said a word to me since.

I lift my gaze for half a second.

She’s already looking at me. Of course she is.

Her fork pauses halfway to her mouth and her knee bumps the underside of the table. She looks away so fast it could’ve been an accident, if I hadn’t felt the same panic in my own chest.

Rachel doesn’t notice a damn thing. She’s too busy lecturing Duke about using the wrong pan for the green beans.

I should be grateful.

Remi shifts in her seat like she’s trying to get comfortable and failing. Her hair falls forward, hiding part of her face, and she tucks it behind her ear with a hand that’s not nearly steady enough.

I know what she’s remembering.

I’m remembering it too.

Her back against the shelf. Her fingers curling in my shirt.

Her soft little inhale right before she kissed me back like it meant something.

I clear my throat and force myself to eat. 

Chew. 

Swallow. 

Act normal.

I’m fine on battlefields and with broken-down machinery.

But sitting across from a woman who kissed me like I was the last man on earth and is now pretending she didn’t?

Apparently not my area of expertise. Or maybe she regrets it.

Duke gestures wildly with a roll. “Bash, tell her! I did not almost burn the eyebrows off that fire marshal.”

I blink. “You absolutely did.”

“Traitor.” He stuffs the roll in his mouth.

Rachel groans. “I swear, one day you’re going to set our house on fire.”

Remi finally cracks a tiny smile at that.

It’s not directed at me, but it still hits the same.

She reaches for the gravy boat at the same time I do. Our fingers brush again.

She jerks her hand back like the porcelain burned her.

Neither Rachel or Duke see it. 

The storm outside probably sees more than they do.

I slide the gravy toward her. “Here.”

“Thanks,” she says, barely audible.

Her cheeks are pink and her pulse is visible on her throat.

I’m screwed. Completely. One kiss and she’s already under my skin again.

Dinner ends with Duke declaring he needs pie before he can walk straight. Rachel smacks him and tells him to sit while she gets it.

Remi stands to help.

So do I too.

Our chairs scrape the floor at the same time and we both freeze. Then we both pretend we didn’t.

Rachel waves us off. “Nope. Guests don’t clean.”

“Some of us were raised with manners,” I say.

“You are still a guest in my kitchen,” she counters.

Duke scoffs at me. “She’s right. Sit down, Floor Boy.”

Remi snorts softly.

It’s ridiculous that hearing her laugh at me or otherwise, feels as right as breathing oxygen.

Pie happens. Small talk happens.

And Remi avoids eye contact like it’s hazardous material.

When it’s finally over, she stands and carries her plate to the sink. Rachel protests again; Remi ignores her.

I take my plate over too and we end up shoulder to shoulder at the sink.

Too close.

Way too close.

She’s washing, I’m drying. Steam rises, warm against the chill from the window.

Her sleeve brushes my arm every few seconds.

Finally, under her breath, she mutters, “We’re not talking about it.”

I keep my eyes on the plate. “Okay.”

“We’re not,” she repeats, like she’s convincing herself.

“Okay,” I say again.

She huffs, frustrated. “Can you not—”

“Not what?” I look at her.

She realizes too late that was a mistake. She swallows. Hard.

“Can you not look at me like that?” she whispers.

“Like what?”

Her voice drops even lower. “Like you’re still in that pantry.”

I set the plate down and turn my body toward her.

Slow and deliberate.

“I’m trying not to.”

“That’s not—” She stops, flustered. “That doesn’t help.”

“Wasn’t trying to help.”

She closes her eyes for a second, exhaling through her nose. “Bash…”

Her tone is warning, soft and messy at the edges.

“You kissed me,” I say quietly.

“You kissed me back,” she shoots back.

“Semantics.”

She glares at the sink like it personally offended her.

Rachel walks in, humming, and Remi immediately steps six feet away like she’s avoiding a tripwire.

I pick up another dish so I don’t have to watch her flee.

When the kitchen finally clears again, Duke turns on football. Rachel curls up beside him. Remi escapes to the hallway to ‘check the weather.’

I give it a minute.

Then I follow.

She’s standing by the front window, arms crossed. Snow is coming down in slow heavy sheets, glowing under the porch lights.

When she hears my steps, she doesn’t turn around. “You can’t do that again.”

“Do what?”

“That.” She gestures vaguely. “Whatever you’re doing.”

“I’m standing.”

“Bash.”

I move closer but stop a respectful distance behind her. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re looking at me.”

“You’re hard not to look at.”

She inhales sharply. “That’s the problem.”

I let that sit between us. Let her feel the honesty of it.

“We should forget it happened,” she says.

“We won’t,” I answer.

She finally faces me, eyes bright from the reflection of the snow. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

She shakes her head, frustrated, overwhelmed, gorgeous in a way she has no idea she is.

“We can’t do this,” she whispers.

“Okay,” I say quietly.

Not agreeing but acquiescing to what she said. Just acknowledging the fear sitting behind her ribs.

Her throat works.

She steps around me, claiming she’s tired, that she needs to change, that tomorrow is another day.

But when she walks away, she glances back once.

Just once.

Like she’s checking that I’m still there.

And when our eyes catch again in the dim hallway, something in my chest tightens with a snap I feel all the way down to my hands.

We’re not done.

Not even close.

Come back tomorrow for chapter three

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: November 2025

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