Almost Cinderella

Chapter 18

The bet, it would turn out, was won by Kavin who guessed that Tine would arrive at the exact time that the grooms would throw the bouquet. He also guessed that Tine would be the one to catch it. It was a horribly specific timeframe and he guessed it just for kicks, but hey, luck was apparently on Kavin's side on his big day and he came out of it a few hundred baht richer.

The shocked look on Thyme's face, however, was comical and a photo capturing it would be one of the F4 gang's most precious treasures years later. Eyes wide and mouth hanging open, Thyme gaped at Tine as the latter stood stiffly in the middle of a clapping crowd, a bouquet of hydrangeas in his hand. Tine, having finally noticed where Thyme stood, silently mouthed 'help', waking Thyme from his stupor.

In a few seconds, Thyme was in front of Tine, grabbing his wrist and dragging him away from the assembly. The cheers of the crowd (where the loudest are from Thyme's friends) were so embarrassing, Thyme had to fight the blush crawling up his cheeks. He accepted it as a losing battle, though, when Tine slipped his wrist out of Thyme's grasp only to interlace their fingers together.

For a while, they walked in silence around the vast garden, which was Kavin's wedding venue. The place looked straight out of a fairytale with it's stone fountains and willow trees adorned with fairy lights and never-ending bushes of flowers.

"This place is breathtaking, isn't it?" Tine whispered in awe. "Kavin and Day really outdid themselves with this venue."

"Yeah?" Thyme replied, leading Tine into a secluded alcove. "I bet ours would be much better." As soon as Thyme said this, he wished he could take it back. True, he and Tine had made so much progress in their relationship in the past months but, at this point, they weren't even officially together. As far as Thyme knew, Tine was still working on moving on. He looked at Tine, nervously, trying to gauge his reaction.

To Thyme's surprise, Tine's face broke out into an easy grin. "Oh, I'm sure ours would be so much better, what, with you being so nitpicky about the littlest detail!" He said, dragging Thyme to sit down beside him on the alcove's stone bench.

It was like a weight had been lifted off Thyme's chest. This wasn't a proposal by any means, but the fact that Tine was willing to talk about this with him, albeit in passing, filled his heart with joy. He felt his lips turning up into a shy smile and he buried his face on Tine's shoulder to hide it.

"What?" Tine asked with a laugh as Thyme continued to rub his face against Tine's sleeve. "Why are you hiding like that? Are you shy? You're the one who brought up our wedding."

Our wedding. Oh, how the thought filled Thyme's stomach with butterflies and how it flooded his heart with an unimaginable warmth that spread up to the tips of his toes. "Stop itttt," Thyme groaned.

"Why?" Tine asked, as he lifted a hand to caress Thyme's soft, curly hair. "Don't you want to get married to me?"

"Shut up, you know I want to. I'll marry you right now and upstage Kavin if you want. That serves him right for joining a bet that involves you."

Tine turned around and planted a soft kiss at the top of Thyme's head. "Thyme, it's obvious to me now that you're really not in trouble and this was some sort of extravagant prank planned by your friends. I'm really sorry. You're not comfortable with me being here, are you?"

Thyme raised his head at that, scandalized. How dare Tine imply that Thyme feels discomfort when Tine is involved? At the top of his head, Thyme can remember only one time that he felt discomfort in a situation that involved Tine, and that was their first night together when Tine was shoving his hard - ahem. Thyme quickly shrugged off that line of thought with a blush. This is supposed to be a sweet and tender moment!