Cosy Christmas ✓

4 / deck the halls

Halfway back to Posy's house, she turned her head to the side, away from the window she had been gazing out of, and looked at Connor. He had his eyes on the road, focused on driving steadily on the freshly gritted roads, completely oblivious to her watching him as he flexed his fingers around the steering wheel and made sure he avoided every pothole and didn't make any sudden turns. Driving was not something he enjoyed, evading the car any time he could, especially when the weather turned. The roads were dangerous, and he knew that well enough without becoming another statistic.

The silence was comfortable, though it wasn't really silence when the radio quietly played a song that Connor couldn't quite hear, only just loud enough for him to realise that it was on at all. He felt no pressure to talk, something he had realised when a moment after getting into the car, Posy had rested her head back against the headrest with a sigh and she had closed her eyes. It was cold outside, and not much warmer inside the garden centre, so the heat of the car was a welcome change and it seemed to have gone straight to her head. At one point, he had thought she had fallen asleep, but she had assured him she was merely resting her eyes. After all, the drive was less than ten minutes and if she had slept, it wouldn't have been long before a rude awakening.

Once Connor turned into Posy's driveway, pulling up alongside her old car, Posy yawned and dug her keys out of her bag, handing them to him.

"You'll be glad to know the back door is locked," she said, "and I remembered my keys."

Connor grinned when he took the bunch, separating the house key from the others. "Good," he said. "You need to stay safe." With that, he turned off the engine and went to open the house. They had left the heating on before they had headed out to the garden centre, and it was deliciously warm inside when he unlocked the door and jogged to the kitchen to put the kettle on before he returned to Posy.

"You'd better be careful," she said as he took her hand and steadied her. "I'm going to end up depending on you."

"I don't mind," he said. "That's kind of the point." He linked his arm with hers, slowly edging towards the front door. "I'm completely free until the thirteenth of January. Back to the daily grind." He looked down at her and smiled. She was easily a foot shorter, the top of her head not even coming to his chin. "Until then, I'm all yours."

Posy beamed and let out a long exhalation as she made it to the house, waddling inside with her arm gripped around Connor's, and she paused. "That sounds good to me."

It was only after he had set her up on the sofa with a mug of hot coffee that he returned to the car for the two bags full of decorations she had bought, and he took a moment to lean against the car door and steady himself before heading back inside. His hand went to his forehead, massaging his temples with his thumb and two fingers, and he screwed up his eyes. One thing he had learnt over the years was how to control his breathing to suppress impending panic, and his fingers whitened as they tightened around the bag handles and he tried to wrap his mind around what was inside. Standing straight, he composed himself and returned to Posy. At some point, he would have to tackle the tree, but that could wait.

It would have to, else he had a strong feeling he might collapse.

Posy smiled up at him when he joined her once more. "I was beginning to think you'd knocked yourself out or something. Everything alright?"

"Mmhmm," he hummed, with a short nod, and he passed her the bags with a heavy heart and a lump in his throat that he struggled to swallow to let out the words that needed to be said. It constantly amazed him how fast his mind could change, racing from the joy of hanging out with Posy to the nausea that flooded his stomach when he thought about what he had signed up for. "What needs doing?"