Lights Out

5 - The perfect date?

Thea arrived and was somewhat disgruntled that Finn was nowhere to be seen. Until she realised he was, she'd just been looking in the wrong place. 

Finn was standing beside a sleigh, two steaming hot chocolates in hand and smiling at her.

"I didn't know if you'd turn up to be honest," he said as he handed her the drink. 

"I'm not one to stand someone up," Thea said, "if I didn't want to come I would have told you. This is amazing. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this."

Finn smiled and helped her into the sleigh before nestling in beside her and handing her a fur blanket. 

The sleight meandered through the snowy roads while Finn and Thea talked, and she had to admit, it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her. 

Finally, they stopped beside a frozen lake. Finn helped her down from the sleigh and took her to table where fondue had been set up.

"Finn!" Thea exclaimed, "this date is crazy, I was expecting a glass of glühwein and a walk down the street. Not sleighs and fondue and all of this."

Finn laughed and replied with a shrug, "what can I say, I guess I like planning and I'm prone to going a bit over the top."

The date was going really well, but Thea felt as if Finn kept steering away from personal questions. However, she figured that this was nothing more than a winter holiday romance so maybe it made sense. Why find out all about someone's left when you won't see them again after a few days?

After the fondue and some glühwein, they wandered around the banks of the lake. Thea thought it was a pity that they didn't meet in different circumstances. There was something about the mysterious Finn that drew her in beyond his rugged athletic looks. But they were just two near-strangers in the snow who would go their separate ways once their ski trips were over. As they neared the fondue picnic once more, Thea realised that she had been gone a few hours and hadn't reassured her friends that she was alive. Esme was sure to have decided she'd been murdered. She looked at her phone and was shocked to see 115 unread messages and 30 missed calls but not asking where she was. "What the hell is going on?" Thea exclaimed. "I have so many messages." 

Finn looked concerned and took out his own phone and frowned. "Shit.." he muttered under his breath.

Thea looked at her messages and gasped. Vivi had sent her screenshots of a post from Deuxmoi. "Spotted: Oliver Taylor and a mystery brunette on a cozy sleigh ride in Verbier." A picture was attached and Thea was shocked to be confronted with a photo of herself and 'Finn' in the sleigh only an hour earlier. 

"What's going on?" Thea asked Finn. "I think people are making the same mistake I did. Some photo of us is circulating from a gossip page."

Finn just stared at her. "I'm sorry," he said quietly "I didn't want you to find out like this, paparazzi photos are illegal in Switzerland so I thought we'd be safe."

Thea stared at him blankly. "I'm going to need a better explanation."

"Ummmm, remember when you said I looked like Oliver Taylor?" Finn said sheepishly, "well, you were right because, I um... I am."