The reindeer pivots left. I pivot left. My boot finds the mud that Anthony specifically told me about, the physics of the situation become extremely clear, and then I am sitting in a snowbank at the edge of the east garden with mud on my jeans and my dignity in ruins.
The reindeer looks at me.
He seems unbothered.
Of course he does.
"Are you hurt?" Anthony's voice, from somewhere to my right, and then he's crouching down in front of me with a steady, assessing look of concern.
"I'm fine," I say. "I stayed out of the mud."
He looks at my mud-covered jeans.
"Mostly," I add.
He makes a sound. Low, brief. It takes me a second to identify it.
He just laughed. A stifled laugh. But a laugh. A small one, controlled, the kind that slipped out before he decided whether to let it but a laugh.
I want to make him do that again for approximately the rest of my life.
That is a completely normal thought to have about someone you met yesterday.
He straightens up, and before I've fully processed what's happening he reaches down and takes my hand and pulls me to standing in one smooth motion. I come up fast enough that I'm closer to him than the geometry of the situation actually requires, and for a moment I'm very aware of the height differential and the warmth and the way he doesn't immediately step back.
He looks down at me.
I look up at him.
There's something in his expression that I don't have a name for yet. Something that's been there since the mountain road but that I haven't been brave enough to look at directly.
I'm looking at it now.
"Thank you," I say, because I need to say something and that's what comes out. I don’t want him to tip my chin up and kiss me. I don’t. I really don’t. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
"Don't thank me yet." His voice is lower than it needs to be for the distance between us. "You've still got mud on your jacket."
I look down. He's right.
"I can —" I start.
"Hold still."
I hold still.
He reaches over and brushes the mud off my jacket sleeve with two efficient, matter-of-fact sweeps of his hand, like it's the most natural thing, and I am absolutely not going to make this into something it isn't.
It might be something.
Across the garden, the lifestyle photographer has captured all of this. I can see her smiling from here.
The reindeer, meanwhile, has been gently redirected back toward the enclosure by Anthony's assistant, who appears to have this entire situation under significantly more control than the rest of us.
"Good instinct," Anthony says, still looking at me. "On staying left."
"I slipped."
"Before you slipped, your instinct was good."
