Winter's Kiss (Summer Rain #2)

XX ~ Escapists

{The Night We Met ~ Lord Huron}

...I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you, take me back to the night we met, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you, oh, take me back to the night we met...

----

9th November 

ELLIOT

     Despite my protestations and attempts to stop her, Ava Bennett was not a woman to be stopped. She didn't care to hear anything about turning back. She only asked for details of where we had to meet Benjamin, which I knew to be across town. Her teeth chattered, and her nose turned a cute shade of pink in the unforgiving cold, but on she walked as I kept up with her, both of us leaving nothing behind us but the billowing of her curtains and the open window as an indication of where we had disappeared through, an accusing finger pointing at us, a target on our backs. 

  "Are we any closer?" She asked again. 

   "Just around this corner," I laughed, as she sniffled, hugging her arms around herself. 

     No sooner had the words left my mouth than we rounded the corner to see Benjamin, leaning against a black, shiny convertible. He stared down at his phone, a long-dark trench coat covering his shirt and tie get-up. Black leather gloves covered his hands. Everything about the picture of him seemed to coordinate, like a neat little package. 

     I let out a whistle, jolting his head up from his phone. 

   "I was starting to think you weren't going to..." He said, his voice slowing to a stop as he saw Ava beside me. "Show." 

   "Blame me," Ava told him. "It's entirely my fault. I forced him to bring me with him."

   "Well, well, well, I didn't think I'd see the day," Benjamin smiled wryly. "Ava and Elliot, double trouble, back in action." 

     Memories of Benjamin's talk the last time I had seen him sprang to mind, and I suddenly realised he might have grabbed on to the wrong end of a very innocent stick. 

   "Yeah, I dropped in to give her back her scarf," I explained to him. "And had dinner with her family, and her boyfriend." 

     I finished my sentence definitively, which gained a slight nod from Benjamin, who caught the bone I had thrown to him. Ava stood, shivering in the cold. 

   "Sounds perfectly dreadful," Benjamin replied to me curtly, before turning his attention to Ava. "No offence." 

   "None taken," Ava chuckled lightly. "It was awkward with a capital A."

   "So it wasn't just me?" I asked suddenly, the words forming the question before I had the chance to stop it. 

   "We climbed out of a window, Elliot," Ava looked up at me. "I think that about sums up the evening." 

     I couldn't help but laugh, the tension that had seized my muscles and made me second-guess my every word from the apartment now long gone, dissipating with every breath I exhaled. 

   "Well, we could stand here in the cold all night until our fingers fall off," Benjamin interjected before I could respond. "Or we could get in the car and drive while you two make observations on your dinner party along the way." 

     We couldn't argue with him, nor did we want to. The thought of warmth was something I would have given anything for, to be away from the merciless wind. I held the car door open as Ava clambered into the back seat, Benjamin rounding to sit in the driver's seat, his coat tail flapping in the wind. I took a glance at Ava as I sat down, her phone ringing incessantly beside her, as she declined the call. It had to have been the tenth call since we left.