More Than Kisses by Renee Ericson Read Free Book Online

ONE
    E velyn
    The air is witch-tit cold. That’s colder than shit, but still slightly warmer than the Antarctic tundra. Yesterday, Foster was watching a mindless National Geographic Channel documentary on TV about the North and South Poles, and I lamely sat down next to him while hanging out in our apartment to absorb the superior temperature information. So while I’m not a meteorologist, I now know the fact that my hands haven’t frozen off within seconds of exposure to the elements means we are still in the same Midwest city where he and I attended college for our undergraduate degrees, and not the land of arctic penguins and Santa Claus.
    “Hustle up,” I stutter through chattering teeth to my fiancé, Foster, as I quicken my steps along the sidewalk on this late December evening. “It’s freezing.”
    “It’s not that cold,” he states, wrapping an arm over my shoulder and adjusting his glasses with his free hand.
    “Says the man not wearing a dress.”
    “No, unfortunately mine are all at the cleaners. Besides, I wouldn’t want to compete with your legs.”
    “Or have to shave yours?”
    He hisses. “Yeah, I think I prefer to keep my leg hair.”
    “Ooh, but think about how sexy a pair of freshly shaven man legs would be,” I tease. “Smooth skin is in.”
    “Please don’t tell me you are asking me to man-scape my legs. I’m still not totally recovered from the last grooming down under you gave me, and subsequent chaffing.”
    “Aw, it wasn’t so bad, was it? I thought it was sexy.”
    “It made my dick look bigger.” He shrugs. “So there’s that.”
    “Would you believe me if I told you it made it feel bigger?”
    Foster gives me an I-call-bullshit-on-your-bullshit look. “Did you forget who you’re marrying? There’s no way that the reduction of hair has any impact on actual length and size.”
    “How about it made it aerodynamic? I could have sworn I took a ride to space and saw stars on more than one occasion.”
    “Just don’t ever wave me in for a landing.”
    “Why not?” I eye him mischievously. “I want you sitting firmly in the cockpit.”
    “Now you’re making absolutely no sense. Am I supposed to be the spacecraft or the pilot in this scenario?” He sighs, showing signs of surrender to the conversation. “Only one more block to go. Do you think you can make it? Even in the dress subject to breezy legs?”
    “Yes.” I kiss his adorable cheek and he squeezes my shoulder.
    Tonight, we’re participating in a holiday progressive dinner party with our friends before all of us part ways to spend time with our families for the rest of the season. It was Wolfgang’s idea. For some reason he has become more domestic in the recent months. It makes me wonder if he’s working on some secret crazy art commission that’s a nod to women in the fifties. Just last week he tweeted a cake recipe and called me with a question about a dinner roast. When I teased him about it, he nonchalantly responded that it was a new hobby and interest.
    Weird . More believable hobbies for a man like Wolfgang are beetle fighting and collecting porcelain eyeballs, not baking. 
    Wolfgang lives in a small two-bedroom house with a driveway large enough for only one car that’s unfortunately in a commercial area, making it impossible to find parking nearby, so we’re forced to walk about three blocks from a public lot. His place is the first stop on our little get-together and he’s been appointed the drinks and appetizers course. Foster and I are a little early due to the fact that there was less traffic than anticipated. Wolfgang will likely put us to work with some last-minute details when we arrive.
    “Finally,” I huff, when the small walkway to his two-story, blue, craftsman style cottage comes into view.
    Swinging open the front gate, Foster and I tread up the walkway and onto a quaint front porch lit by an Art Deco torch mounted near the door. I give a knock on the wooden surface and we