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“You left this behind,” she said, shivering, snow accumulating rapidly on her lustrous black hair and coat shoulders.
His phone. She extended his lost phone toward him, and he stared at it like all the woodland creatures of a forest staring at a crashed plane, all wondering what it was that had appeared in their tranquil paradise.
“Right!” he exclaimed, reclaiming his senses. “I’d just realized it. I’d figured I’d left it in my car, and I was almost on my way to start digging through it. Thanks, Anna.”
He quickly took his phone back from her. As his fingertips brushed against hers, he found them icy cold. A few other notable realizations started slotting into place. The first involved some common decency.
“Do you want to come inside? It’s so nasty out here.”
That led him to his next one. “Wait. You came after me? In this blizzard?”
Anna blushed, though it could have just been because of her body’s desperate attempt to keep some heat in her face. She didn’t come inside as he’d offered.
“I… yes. Avril started up about our… hug immediately after you all left. When I found your phone sitting on our couch, I… decided I should come bring it back to you.”
At first, he just stared at her, unable to fathom the cause and effect she’d just explained. For both their benefits, the dials in his mind twisted to life after only a few seconds of addled confusion.
“You mean you decided to use returning my phone to me as an excuse to avoid Avril’s teasing.”
Anna’s blush deepened, and he knew now that it couldn’t be fully because of the cold.
“Y-yes.”
It was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Ithadto be the stupidest thing Annabelle Royce had ever done—and they both knew that. Chasing him after him into ablizzardall because her roommate had started teasing her over a meaningless hug was the kind of childish impulse he would never have expected her to fall victim to.
Yet, he couldn’t find it in him to ridicule or condemn her for her actions. If anything, it humanized her a little more. Something that idiotic, that ridiculously impulsive—everyone had at least one or two times where they’d pulled a stunt like this in their lives. It was strangely comforting to realize that she was susceptible to making bad decisions like the rest of them. Maybe notassusceptible, but still susceptible.
“I—”
His phone buzzed in his hand, cutting him off. Glancing down, he found his phone exploded with messages, all from a single source. The first explained how, “like a dumbass,” Anna had decided to go after him with his phone. After that, they pretty much read the same. The most recent one, the one that had vibrated his phone in his hand, reiterated what most of its older siblings had said.
One of you better let me know the second she gets over there! Don’t you dare let her fucking try and drive home tonight.
It was a group text, and Tess’s number was included in it.
“You worried her,” Liam said, lifting his gaze from his phone. “It might be best to send a sign of life before she yanks all her hair out.”
Anna reached her final evolution of crimson, and she hurriedly located her phone in her coat pocket, saw all the messages on it, and typed out a response letting her know that she’d made it to his place safely—and that she wouldn’t be foolish and try and return home.
Avril, either because she was busy contacting emergency services or because she was pissed as all hell, didn’t immediately reply.
Strangely, Tess hadn’t either, which he believed without a shadow of a doubt was because she just hadn’t noticed the text chain just yet. There was no way she wouldn’t have otherwise.
Now, what to do?
The answer was incredibly obvious.
“We should get you over to Tess’s. She’ll let you stay over with her.”
Anna hurriedly nodded, and the two trudged to the house next door through the blizzard, arms up to defend their faces from the biting cold.
Just as he’d received his unexpected evening caller, Tess soon received hers. After he pummeled on her door, they suffered for what felt like an eternity in the frigid cold. By the time Tess finally opened her door, confusion written plainly across her beautiful face, the snow had seeped into his shoes and soaked his soaks. Toes curling because of the unpleasant cold assaulting them, he smiled meekly.
“Hi, Tess. Uh, Anna needs somewhere to stay tonight.”
Staring at the two of them in complete bafflement, she ushered them inside. Soon enough, she understood the story. Compared to him, Tess was not so swift to dismiss admonishment of Anna’s actions.
“That was an incredibly dangerous thing to do, Annabelle. This is very unlike you.”
