MY CHRISTMAS ROMANCE

CHAPTER 19: ELF'S STUNTS

"Here, the pins." Aden pulls me back to him, and his warm eyes that usually make me forget any doubt aren't enough to erase the worried green staying like a clear shadow in my mind.

"Thank you, can you pass me the tinsels?"

"Are you sure you wanna do it?"

Oh no! Not him too?! 

His frown isn't as deep as Theone, but Aden still adds, "I can hang them if you want?"

"No, I'm fine, don't worry." I feel like a Christmas music box repeating always the same thing. "I'm more used to hang tinsels, and you have to be careful with your wrist."

I climb up the stepladder, hanging my tinsel quickly. I'm not careless; I don't want to fall with sharp pins in my hands.

Yet once my hands are empty, well except for some sweat slowly appearing, I still don't move. This is the moment, I know. But my mind keeps replaying Theone's worried eyes, and of course, I hear his voice in my conscience.

Aden's arms are just right there. I shouldn't be scared. I can trust him.

I try to find back my determination, remembering my plan, but the fast thuds of my heart are making it impossible, and I do the mistake of glancing down.

"Aden! Aden! We need your help!"

I hear the vague sound of voices calling as I try to step down the ladder, yet everything is spinning, and I don't know what's happening until I feel my foot step into nothing.

I try to catch hold of something, but the tinsels of light ribbons aren't enough to save me, and they follow me in my fall. So I just close my eyes, waiting for the harsh crash on the floor as I tumble backward. 

This is not what I've planned, and now I can only pray for a Christmas miracle, or at least, to not crash too hard.

However, there's no collision with the hard floor. I end up falling on something hard, but still soft, as two arms catch me just in time, and the way they hold me makes me feel like they would never let me down.

My heart, which has stopped, leaps and bounces as if falling over and over again, yet I feel safer than ever.

"Fuck! Penny! I told you it was a bad idea."

I open my eyes wide, my heart doing one last rebound, higher than all the ones before, in front of the green eyes I would have never expected. 

I don't know whom I've expected though. The warmth of his strong arms around me is unmistakable, just like the feeling of his whole body. It's cozy like home on Christmas night, yet it keeps my nerves restless like the countdown before New Year's Eve, or like discovering a new place for the first time, and I feel it acutely as my body is sprawling on his.

This brings me back to reality, hearing my heart thumping again. "Oh my god! Are you okay?!" I rake my eyes over his face.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." He chuckles, and I know he is when his dimple slowly indents on his left cheek. "But you're crushing me down there."

I do the mistake of following his gaze 'down there', and I realize my knee is pressing 'down there'.

I immediately jump away, yet I don't go far as I hit my head in the baubles hanging from a fallen tinsel, and of course, more tinsels soon follow, making Theone's laugh resonate in all my nerves with the vibration coming from his chest so close.

"And you? Are you okay?" He pushes the ribbons away from my hair.

"Yes, thank you." I look down, my fingers tracing the words 'Let's get baked' on his sweater as my stomach is twisting more than if I had swallowed any eggnog.