CHAPTER FOURTEEN – THOMAS
Sylvie looked me dead in the eye and didn’t so much as twitch. “Yes.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for her to say it outright like that.
Shit.
I’d walked right into that one. I had nobody to blame but myself. I’d asked; she’d answered.
Her lips slowly curved into a wry smile. “Cat got your tongue, Thomas?”
I held up my hands. “I walked into that one. Well played.”
She lifted the wine glass to her lips and sipped. Her blue eyes shone with laughter, and little crinkles of happiness creased at the corners of her eyes.
Goddamn.
She was beautiful.
“Well, that was fun,” she said brightly, pushing her hair behind her ear. “But I really need to get going or I’m going to hate myself in the morning when I have to wake up and fix this veil situation.”
She tucked her phone and purse back into her handbag, and I watched in amusement as she pulled the phone back out and paused.
“Problem?” I asked.
She met my eyes. “I don’t know the taxis here anymore.”
I pulled my keys out of my pocket and held them up, giving them a little jingle for good measure.
“No.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“No,” she responded. “This is getting a little too friendly for my liking.”
“If I let you whip me with your scarf, will that make you feel better?”
“Probably, but it’s hardly guaranteed,” she retorted. “You’re not taking me home again. Do you know how much my grandparents will go on at me about how we’re both single? Christ, I’d never hear the end of it. Absolutely not.”
“Come on, Sylvie. I’m not going to abandon you and make you find your own way home when I’m perfectly capable of driving.”
“You’re not. I’ve seen you drink two beers.”
I picked up the empty bottle and pointed to the label.
She leant forward and tilted it towards her. “Ah,” she said. “Zero percent alcohol. Well, there goes that argument.”
Laughing, I put the bottle down and stood up. “You have no argument aside from, “I don’t want to.””
“Which is a perfectly good argument,” she pointed out, reluctantly getting to her feet. “The word ‘no’ is a complete sentence.”
“You’re absolutely correct, but that’s rather useless when you’re stressed, more than a bit tipsy, and it’s already below freezing outside.”
“I’m going to need you to stop making good points.” Sylvie pulled on her coat and zipped it up, then tugged gloves out from the pockets. “It’s making it terribly difficult to argue with you, and I’m getting annoyed about that.”
“Would you rather I leave you outside to freeze?” I unhooked my coat from the stand by the pub door and slipped my arms into it before also taking my hat and gloves. “If you really, really want to become a snowman, I can do that.”
“Shut up and go,” she said. “Before I change my mind.”
I laughed and opened the door, holding it for her.
She stepped outside into the darkness, and her entire body shook as the cold hit her. “Bloody hell! It’s freezing!”
“I don’t think you’ll be changing your mind anytime soon,” I teased her, nudging her away from the door.
“Piss off,” she replied, and I almost burst out laughing at hearing that phrase yet again. It was almost like it was her favourite thing to say to me. I was going to have to start keeping a tally on how many times she said it to me.
I held out my arm for her, lightly nudging her with my elbow.
She paused on fixing her scarf and looked at me. “What?”
“Here,” I said, nudging her again. “Take my arm.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s icy as fuck out here, you’re three Sauvignons in, and I’m trying to take you home, not to the hospital.”
“Goddamn stupid good arguments,” she muttered. “Where exactly are you parked?”
“The other side of the square. Have you seen how many tourists are here?”
With a heavy sigh, she stepped closer to me and looped her arm through mine, albeit stiffly.
I glanced down at her. Her thick, fluffy pink hat with the largest bobble I’d ever seen almost entirely obscured her face from my view, and I allowed a small smile to twist my lips.
She was so fucking stubborn.
No, she wasn’t.
She was independent. Sylvie had the air of a woman who didn’t need anyone at all, but of course, that wasn’t true. Everyone needed someone, even if it was an arsehole she hated who kept insisting on buying her food and taking her home.
I wasn’t even sure she hated me anymore. She was definitely still holding onto her grudge about the whole cricket ball in the face thing, but if she hated me, she wouldn’t be anywhere near me.
Perhaps we were friends.
That was all we would be, despite how attracted I was to her. Even a little drunk and stressed out of her mind, she was still an annoyingly enigmatic ball of energy that I was ridiculously drawn to.
I’d always thought the phrase ‘moth to a flame’ was quite ridiculous, but here, I couldn’t help feeling like a moth.
But Sylvie wasn’t just a flame.
She was a wildfire.
And I couldn’t look away from her.
We stepped down off the curb onto the road, and the jerk of Sylvie slipping on ice flipped me into action, and I planted my feet while grabbing her with my free hand to keep her upright.
She squeaked, gripping tightly onto my arm, and I had to adjust my footing to stop her going scooting down the road and taking me with her.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed.
“Bet you’re glad I’ve got you now,” I murmured into her ear with a smile.
She pressed her forehead against my shoulder and whispered a, “Piss off,” which just made me laugh.
I helped her steady herself again and then across the road. It wasn’t half as bad on the paths, and because the snow had compacted, it made it ever so slightly easier to get some kind of grip with our shoes.
Only ever so slightly, though.
“Thank you,” she said after we’d made it across onto the square onto more stable footing. “I know I haven’t had that much to drink.”
I laughed and patted her hand on my forearm. “Normally I’d make a joke, but you’re right. You’re walking perfectly fine, but I’m guessing you were inside a lot longer than I was and missed that snow shower earlier.”
“They’ve all blended into one at this point,” she admitted as we stepped around a group of children excitedly hugging cheap stuffed toys that I knew had come from the grotto. “I see Santa hasn’t upgraded his gifts in twenty years.”
I grimaced, chuckling to myself. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it and all that.”
“That’s true. Although it wouldn’t hurt the fat man to stump up for books, would it? Surely, he’s a billionaire by now.”
“I don’t know. Have you seen the price of electric these days? I bet it costs a fortune to heat his house at the North Pole. He probably can’t afford books.”
Sylvie nodded slowly. “Good point. I guess you can’t mass-purchase books at the same price as polyester stuffed animals.”
“Probably not. Plus, you can make the bears in China, and the books wouldn’t exactly be a good gift if they were all in Mandarin.”
“And the bears are lighter to post,” she added brightly, then burst into laughter, leaning against my arm. “Oh, dear. I’m laughing this much at you. I must be drunker than I thought after all.”
“Or I’m just funnier than you thought.”
She snorted. “That’s a good joke.”
“There we are. Funnier than you thought it is.” I pulled the keys from my pocket and unlocked the car, then opened the door for her. “Ladies first.”
She kept her gaze on me as she got in the car, only breaking eye contact to put her bag between her feet. I pushed the door shut and walked around to get in the other side, then started the car.
I pulled out of the carpark and onto the road, carefully navigating the mess on the ground and the one of the people milling about without any care for anything or anyone other than themselves.
I eventually made it through the throngs of people and onto a proper road away from all the people. I navigated my way through town until I was on the path to Sylvie’s grandparents’ house, and neither of us said a word to each other during that whole time.
The only sound was that of Sylvie humming along to the Christmas songs on the radio.
The current one was Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and she was happily bopping along to the beat.
Despite my feelings about this whole season, I fought my smile at the sight of her doing her daft little bouncing from side to side while humming every note.
Bloody hell.
She was even tapping her fingers against her knee.
I did my best not to chuckle and shake my head at her little show in the front seat and made the turn to the house, then turned so I could drive up the sweeping driveway that was lined with candy cane lights in red, blue, yellow, and green.
There were more decorations than there’d been when I’d brought her home the other night, and the six-foot-tall inflatable Grinch outside the front door really added an extra something to the whole shebang.
Keith had gone all out this year.
Or he’d made someone else go all out for him.
I knew which one I was betting on.
“Nice lights,” I said, putting the handbrake down and looking across the car at Sylvie.
She pouted as she undid her belt. “Tell Julian. He’s the one who put them up.”
Ding, ding, ding.
“I thought as much.”
She opened the door, paused, and looked over at me with a smile. “Thank you. For bringing me home. Again.”
“You’re welcome. If it happens again, I’m going to have to charge you. Petrol is pricey these days.”
“Get a smaller car instead of this gas-guzzling monster and it wouldn’t cost so much,” she retorted smartly, jumping out of the Range Rover.
I wound down the window and leant out of it, instantly regretting it as another rush of cold air flooded the warm car. “If I got a smaller car, it wouldn’t handle the snow, would it? Unless your little zipper over there has finally found itself some snowshoes.”
Sylvie paused and looked at her little Audi. It was almost entirely buried in snow at this point, and I had no idea how long she was staying.
She might not have a say in it.