Page 45 of Avalanche
My stomach flips, nervous anticipation and excitement swirling like snowflakes caught in a storm. I slow my steps, lingering on the last five stairs that lead up to our landing. I tell myself that it’s just my tired legs, that it’s my muscles burning from a day out on the snow.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about what Tessa said. About those heady moments yesterday when I’d spilled out my truth, thrown out my ‘I love yous’ with all the blind eagerness of a pre-teen with her first crush. About crying into my pillow in the early hours of the morning, certain I was fucking everything up.
But I’m not. And it’s okay that Liam and Antoine didn’t say it back.
Love isn’t some synchronized dance, with everyone taking the same steps at the same moment, following some music only they can hear. It’s messy. It’s chasing each other through snowdrifts and trees, calling out, laughing, then bursting with gratitude when you finally manage to tumble into each other’s arms.
And the soundtrack isn’t song, but a thousand awkward conversations.
Which is why I’m lingering on the landing outside the door, my eyes stinging from more than the cold, my heart racing. I’ve been avoiding those awkward conversations all day. And it’s time I face them.
I draw in a deep breath, gather up my courage, and step inside.
The first thing that hits me is the warmth, the welcoming embrace of heating turned up a little too high and too many bodies packed into a small living space. I relax instinctively at the feel, at the sense of coming home, and pull the door shut behind me, blocking out the evening cold.
It’s only when I bend to untie my boots that I notice everything else.
There’s soft music playing—not the usual drum and bass that Eddie likes to listen to, or Seth’s lulling indie rock that he puts on while he cooks—but something sweet and instrumental and completely out of place. Candles flicker, dancing merrily as Christmas lights on every surface, interspersed with water glasses brimming with bouquets of flowers. The condo smells sweet too, like a mixture of citrus cleaning products and rose petals.
“Let me get that for you.”
I start in surprise when Liam appears from literally out of nowhere to help me out of my jacket, pulling it off my shoulders with the reticent look of someone acting under duress.
“Thanks?” I try not to smile, but a small chuffing laugh slips out anyway, earning me a narrowed-eyed look.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I hear Eddie hiss at someone from the kitchen. “It’s a bottle of champagne, not a schooner of beer.”
I look up, then blink in confusion when I find I can see all the way into the kitchen. To where Eddie, Seth and Antoine are huddled at the counter.
“What happened to the wall of beer cans?” I ask Liam with alarm.
They’d been so proud of that monstrosity when I first arrived, carefully stacking new cans every chance they could get, turning them so the labels showed. Eddie had even taken the whole thing down once and rearranged it so the cans made a sort of pattern.
“Well, why don’t you open it?” Seth snaps back at Eddie, the tone a stark contrast from his usual steady cadence. “Since you’re apparently the master sommelier.”
“Simmer down mate, simmer down?—”
“Shh,” Antoine cuts in, casting a frantic look over his shoulder, meeting my eyes with a sort of guilty panic. “She’s here.”
She’s here?
“Fuck. Just let me pour it. Give it here.”
“Someone needs to go get Matty.”
“Nah, mate. Turn the music up, remember. That’s his cue.”
I straighten, my back pressed against the closed door and slowly kick off my unlaced boots. I look around the condo again, this time more carefully, my mind racing as the meaning of what I’m seeing settles over my skin.
A champagne cork pops. Glasses clink. Music gets louder.
“Where is he? I turned the music up.”
“Just wait.”
“I think you should go get him.”
Beside me, Liam throws my jacket unceremoniously onto the pile of coats in the corner, pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a long-suffering sigh.
