Synonyms For Better

Chapter 22 - But, Babe

"MADAME VIVI? Seriously?"

I'd been explinaining to Finn about all the crimes that had happened to me since the morning. "Yes! She called herself Madame Vivi, and it was so weird and strange and surreal but I promise I'm not high."

Finn shot me a look sideways. Amusement danced behind his eyes as he scrunched his eyebrows, shaking his head. "Only you, Almond. Only you."

I sighed. "I know, right?"

"No, left."

"What?"

Finn smirked. "We have to turn left here, Sherlock."

I blushed, nodding like I knew the way as we turned a corner.  I could feel Finn's eyes on me, amused and knowing, and I didn't need to look at his pretty face to know that he was no doubt enjoying every second of my embarrassment. I crossed my eyes and elbowed him half heartedly, to which he just grinned. 

We stayed close together as we walked down the hallway. Close. Too close. Not close enough. The back of his hand brushed mine, our arms just barely touching, and my pulse sped up, breath catching in my throat. I mean, it hurt the tiniest bit knowing that my feelings — these butterflies, these pterodactyls, whatever — were all one sided and that the touch probably wasn't even intentional. But still it was a sweet pain. I could handle the way my heart hurt, I could. 

Or maybe I couldn't because as soon as his hand found mine again, leading me around another corner, my face was heating up like I was some fricking Bunsen burner or something. And unfortunately, Finn caught sight of me casually turning pink in the background. 

"Are you blushing?" Finn asked, amused, stating the obvious. 

"No, I'm not," I retorted, appalled, denying the obvious. 

Finn laughed silently, a soft smile on his face. The sound of his chuckle was low and warm and did absolutely nothing to help my composure. I was melting, and I knew it. 

I mustered up a glare. "Can you just focus on, like, where we're going?"

"I am focused, Miss A.B.," he insisted, but his eyes weren't on the hallway ahead, nope. Ohhh my gosh. My hormones were all tap dancing inside my veins, I could feel it. 

We walked down the hallway, and before long, we found ourselves doing this crazy hop-skip-jump routine and seeing who could do it for a longer time without stumbling. We pushed through a set of doors, continuing down a winding hallway.

"Wait," Finn suddenly said. I didn't stop, knowing that he was just trying to win, but after a few solo hops, I tripped to a stop.  And then I looked up and had no clue where we were. 

The place was an extra room of sorts, a storage or prep kitchen, maybe, and it must have been from the main hotel. I turned and saw Finn looking around, eyes slightly wide. "This isn't it," he muttered, face scrunching up as he stared at a painting near a large steel refrigerator of Napoleon on horseback. 

I walked back and stood next to him, staring at the painting as well. "Yeah," I coughed. "This definitely isn't it." 

"Where— What is this place?" he muttered, almost to himself, and he absently started to look around, running a hand through his hair, when he caught sight of me again. I must have had some wide-eyed, shocked- still look on my face or something because as soon as he saw me his expression softened. "Almond— Cora. We'll get out of here. Trust me." 

Suddenly I felt myself magically transported back to just over a month ago, when those words had first etched themselves into my heart, in that train station at four o'clock in the morning. Now, in that strange room we were lost in, those words washed over me like the smoothest honey, and a new but wholesome feeling settled in my chest.