Chapter Twenty #3
The award Rhys and his colleagues were nominated for was the last of the night to be presented.
The cycle of envelope opening, applause, and acceptance speeches made further conversation almost impossible.
But in a gap between awards, I leant into the space between Rhys’s chair and mine.
The warm, spicy aroma of his cologne almost derailed me, making it hard to concentrate.
‘Why am I here tonight, Rhys?’ I whispered in his ear. ‘Why did you ask me to come?’
He turned in his chair to face me, looking so thrown by my question that I almost let him off the hook. But I had to know. The moment stretched on, and just when I felt sure he was about to explain, Charlie suddenly materialised beside us. Once again, he enthusiastically clapped Rhys on the back.
‘We’re next,’ he declared excitedly.
Rhys, in contrast, appeared outwardly calm, although his fingers were drumming lightly on the white-clothed table in a revealing tell.
It was the first time, since witnessing him being resuscitated in the park, that I’d seen him look like this.
Vulnerable. Was this my doing? I acted purely on instinct, laying my hand on top of his, and was rewarded with a look of gratitude that I found difficult to look away from.
‘And the winner is . . .’
My thoughts had been wandering, and it took a moment to realise that chairs were being pushed back from our table as Rhys and his colleagues got to their feet. They’d won.
Applause ricocheted from every corner of the room, snapping me out of my own head, with its jumble of conflicting emotions.
I joined in enthusiastically. I may even have allowed a totally inappropriate whoop to escape as my fellow table members approached the stage to accept their trophies.
Rhys flashed a quick smile my way as he climbed the steps to the waiting MC.
I clamped my lips, silencing any further embarrassing exclamations of delight, but there was no stopping me from clapping so hard my palms would probably be scarlet by the end of the evening.
Rhys gave the best acceptance speech of the night, bar none.
It was easy to see why the group had chosen him as their spokesman.
He was funny, humble, and generous in praise, both for his colleagues and the other nominees.
Before stepping away from the mic, he paused and looked down at the trophy in his hands.
‘This award is a testimony to teamwork but also to friendship,’ he said, aiming a smile at his fellow prize-winners, who were all beaming with pride and champagne.
And then he looked directly at me. ‘Because when you have the right people beside you, anything is possible.’
Internal organs aren’t capable of actually melting, but mine felt decidedly less than solid as his words slipped over and under every single one of my barriers.
My eyes remained fixed on his as he descended the steps from the stage and returned to the table with the others.
Everyone was talking at once, but their words flowed past us, as though we were an island in the sea of noise.
‘That was a great speech.’ I paused, teetering on the edge of bravery before taking a leap of faith. ‘I especially liked the last bit.’
‘Thank you, Ellie.’ His voice was low as he leant even closer towards me. ‘I meant every word of it.’
The moment was ripped out of our hands when someone suddenly called out ‘Smile’ as a phone was pointed towards us and a photograph taken.
I flinched at the flash. It was something I was still struggling to control since the lightning strike.
Rhys threw up a protective hand, shielding my face as Helen attempted to take a second snap.
She frowned, clearly unhappy at being thwarted.
‘Just trying to capture the moment, guys,’ she said sulkily before turning away.
Rhys reached for his chair and set it down at an angle, with his back to the rest of the table.
‘I’m sorry about Helen.’
‘I’m sorry about whooping when you won. It was very uncool of me,’ I counter-apologised.
Rhys was at his most endearing when he was trying not to smile. ‘Really? It was my favourite part of the night so far.’
His face suddenly sobered. ‘You asked earlier why I invited you tonight.’
I nodded.
His eyes closed for a moment, and I wondered if the memory of me acting like an over-enthusiastic cheerleader was playing silently behind his lids. I prayed he wasn’t imagining pompoms.
‘Tonight is probably the last time I’ll attend an event like this.
I’ve stepped off the corporate treadmill, which makes this evening feel like a landmark moment.
And it just felt right to share it with someone who’d been beside me for another recent landmark moment.
’ He smiled. ‘Besides, I knew that if we won, you’d be genuinely excited and happy for me. And you were.’
‘I have to say, you set a fairly low bar for picking your dates.’ I shook my head as though I wasn’t sure I believed him.
‘Actually, I don’t. It’s just that you blow everyone else out of the water.’
We were sailing straight into dangerous uncharted seas, and it was with both relief and regret that I saw the woman with the clipboard approaching the table.
‘Could I steal all the prize-winners away for some official photographs.’
Rhys got to his feet with a look of obvious reluctance. ‘We’ll continue this later,’ he promised, his breath warm on the shell of my ear as he whispered the words.