Page 22 of Snowed In With You

‘Lying to us was you trying to help?’

‘Hello – pot, kettle,’ Rob said, gesturing between me and Fletch.

I shrugged off his words even if he did have a point. ‘How did you even know about it if neither of us told you? You and Tanya left the reception earlier than we did.’

‘Fletcher told me what happened between you two almost as soon as it happened.’

I shot an outraged look at Fletch but he was already shaking his head, ‘No, I didn’t.’

My brother pinched the bridge of his nose and Tanya looked like she was maybe trying not to laugh and I nudged her, ‘Yes,you did, Fletch. You were passed out in front of the elevator and I woke you up. I figured you didn’t remember our conversation when you never brought up what happened again with me.’

It was a sweet relief to have that final confirmation from Rob that Fletch’s story had been true –I’d believed him, but it was a comfort all the same.

‘I don’t remember talking to you,’ Fletcher said, his blue eyes meeting mine in a panic and I gave him a reassuring smile to show I trusted him.

‘I asked you why you were asleep outside of the lift and you said it was because you had slept with Sara but needed to talk to me before you could ask her out,’ Rob rolled his eyes and to be honest, I was with him on that. What sort of assbackward– ‘You were obviously still ridiculously drunk and of course I was shocked and maybe a little mad that you hadn’t told me you liked her beforehand, but to be honest, in hindsight it made sense. Whenever she was in the room your eyes would gravitate to her and at every opportunity you were whisking her off to dance or touching her. You were head over heels.’

Fletcher was blushing and I was baffled, had I really been so clueless? It honestly hadn’t been until near the end of the night that I’d got up the courage to ask Fletcher to bed and even then I’d been half-sure he was going to say no.

‘But then you never brought it up again and Tanya told me that she had seen Sara running to Kate’s room in floods of tears that morning, obviously I put two and two together and realised Sara thought she’d been ditched–’

‘Well to be fair, he did leave a note,’ I said defensively and Tanya nodded her head empathetically after looking at me with wide eyes, her fingers reaching out and squeezing mine tightly, and I considered that maybe she’d felt a little hurt that I hadn’t confessed any of this to her either.

‘I watched you both mope for almost a month and then I decided to book the lodge.’

I felt like my eyes couldn’t get any wider at this point, ‘So instead of speaking to the two of us and explaining the full-story, you tried to meddle in our lives and force us to get together?’

Tanya was looking a little nervous now as she patted my hand faster and faster, ‘Well, you’re not always so easy to talk to, we thought it would be easier to simply give you two the opportunity to work things out in a supervised setting. Then when we heard about the storm…’

‘It was a gift horse,’ Rob finished and I shook my head in disbelief.

‘I can’t believe you manipulated us like that, you–you’re fuckingcrazy,’ I could feel my skin flushing in anger and Fletcher looked at me in concern. For a second I was worried he was going to take their side too but he just shook his head.

‘You shouldn’t have messed about with us like that, man. We’re not puppets.’

Rob half-shrugged, ‘Well it seemed to work out alright for the two of you in the end though, didn’t it?’

Outraged, I flew to my feet, ‘The only thing you directly accomplished here was making me trust you even less than I already did. And I can’t believeyoulet him go ahead with this!’ Tanya and I had become somewhat close while I helped her with wedding prep and to know that she’d gone behind my back to try to control us like this was just…

Rob opened his mouth but I shook my head. ‘This just proves more than ever what you really think of me. You’re so full of shit, Rob,I didn’t know I made you feel like that–I›m calling bullshit, otherwise you wouldn›t have tried to set this all up. You›d have just come and talked to me like a normal person.› I waved away his protests and stomped upstairs to collect my stuff.

A moment later Fletch came into my room and almost got hit by a bra that was thrown in my packing frenzy. He caught it and gave me a wry smile before it fell away, leaving a more serious expression in its place, ‘I’m coming with you.’

A wave of relief swept through me so fiercely that for a second all I could do was stare at him before I walked over and he swept me into a tight hug.

‘I’m sorry–’

‘Rob’s an ass–’

We stopped and laughed quietly together for a second before I pulled back to look at him.

‘Will you come back to mine with me?’ he asked hesitantly, lower lip caught between his teeth as he waited for my answer.

‘I’d love that,’ I smiled, I felt like I didn’t know nearly as much as I wanted to about him yet and as we were cutting this trip short I still had a couple vacation days left off of work. ‘There’s no place I’d rather be… but maybe we could stop at mine so I can grab some panties?’

Fletch’s eyes instantly heated, ‘Oh, I don’t think that’ll be necessary.’

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