Page 8 of Snowed In With You

There was a pause on the other end of the line and Rob sounded both apologetic and confused, likely because I’d never sounded more hopeful to see him in my life. ‘Um, I’m guessing you haven’t looked outside recently?’

‘No,’ I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and walking over to the heavy-curtained windows. I gasped as I pulled them back and saw the amount of snow outside. ‘Fuck.’

‘Yeah,’ Rob said and lightly cleared his throat. ‘Our flight was grounded. They’re saying it’s supposed to be one of the worst snow storms they’ve had in the bay for years.’

Naturally. I had the worst luck, it was genuinely unreal. ‘You’re still coming right?’

‘Well…’

‘Rob, you invited me to come on this holiday and you’re now not planning on attending?’

‘No, no,’ he said quickly and I let out a breath of relief, ‘we willbe coming, but the storm is supposed to last for a few days, so it might be a little while until we can get a new flight out.’

I rubbed the bridge of my nose between my middle and forefinger with a groan, ‘Okay well, keep me updated.’

‘Ye–I–Fletch–safe–’

‘What? Rob?Hello?’ I waited a beat but all that answered me was static and I cursed as I hung up and threw the phone back on the bed. Great, no signal and snowed-in with the world’s most tempting poisoned apple. Speaking of whom, I probably needed to break the news to Fletcher about Rob and Tanya – and then immediately run back up to my room and spend the rest of the trip in bed with my e-reader. Maybe I could delay that conversation for a little while.

I settled down into the plush bedding again and gave a groan of satisfaction, at least one thing was good about being here – this mattress was to die for. Ugh, I already felt old at twenty-seven. It wasn’t fair. The bed was way too big for one person though and I star-fished in it for a second before my thoughts took me back to the one person available to adequately fill it.Not happening.

I curled on my side and tried to read but when ten minutes had passed and I hadn’t taken in anything I’d read, I sat up abruptly.What if Fletch doesn’t know about the big storm?Surely my outburst in the shower rooms hadn’t scared him off that badly, but what if it had and he was now out there stranded in his stupid shiny SUV being swallowed by the snow?

No, the car doesn’t work.I let out a breath of relief, he definitely hadn’t driven anywhere then and I was pretty sure Uber wouldn’t be picking up right now, even if we did have signal. But what if he’d gone for a walk, toget some airorclear his headas guys were so often fond of doing?

I cursed my brain and rolled begrudgingly off of the bed, pulling on some extra thick, comfy socks and poking my head out of my bedroom door. ‘Fletch?’

Nobody replied and I wondered if he was mad and ignoring me.

‘Fletcher? Rob called.’

Still nothing.

Starting to feel a little worried now, I walked down the stairs, thinking maybe he was in the sauna again or one of the downstairs bedrooms and couldn’t hear me. Both were empty and I was out of breath by the time I ran back up the stairs to the ground floor and scanned the lounge. My eyes snagged on the coat hook and fear spiked through me, where was his coat? His boots? Oh God, Rob had told me to be nice to him, what if he had left and I had to break the news to my brother that his friend had gone out in a snowstorm and become an icicle? Plus, yes, I was mad at Fletcher but I didn’t want him to be hurt.

He’s fine, he’s probably just… on the balcony!

I ran to the back of the lounge and looked out of the floor to ceiling windows that led out to a balcony. Nothing.Shit.Where was he? If he wound up hurt just because I’d yelled at him...

I hurried over to the front door and tugged on my coat and boots. I peeked out of the long window next to me and grimaced. There was snow as far as the eye could see. It swirled through the air with an increasingly audible moan, the sky thick with white flakes. Fletcher’s car sat safe underneath a ledge and I wanted to laugh as I realised he had been right, if we’d left it uncovered at the bottom of the drive it definitely would have been snowed-under. I took a deep breath and jumped on the spot slightly before flinging open the door and falling short as I was about to plunge outside.

‘Where the hell have youbeen? I’ve been looking all over for you!’

Fletcher stood on the other side of the door, only his eyes were visible above the scarf he’d tugged up and over his mouth and nose, and they were comically round as they looked at me. ‘You have?’

‘Yes! Rob called, their flight has been grounded because of, well, all that,’ I said, gesturing behind him and Fletcher nodded, an odd gleam in his eye that made me step back suspiciously. What was he up to? He gave a light shiver and I retreated further into the entryway to let him in, he closed the door behind him and immediately shucked off his boots with a low groan.

‘Are you okay?’

He panted a laugh as he unwound his scarf from his face and a swooping sensation started in my stomach as I saw his sweetly pinkened cheeks. ‘Yeah, I will be as soon as I can get the snow out of my socks. My feet are freezing.’

I stifled a giggle, not wanting to laugh with him when I was still mad – near-death by popsicle incident aside.

‘What were you doing out there?’

Fletcher gave a light shrug, as if being out in the middle of a snow storm was no big deal. ‘I had a feeling there was a storm coming in and we didn’t have any supplies, there’s a supermarket about a twenty-minute walk away so I headed out.’

I stared at him, ‘You must have been gone for longer than an hour though.’

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