Handle With Care

17. With care, please

HANDLE WITH CARE

17. Happy.

L U K E

*swipe for featured song*

Annie understood Luke's undying hatred of vehicles, but in weather like this she really wished he would just allow her to call an Uber. Luke admittedly felt bad for somewhat making her wonder in this freezing, snow covered weather, but technically she was the one who broke their make out to get his dog.

She was wrapped in in a coat, scarf, gloves and a hat, and yet Luke was only in a coat, he didn't think he would be leaving Annie's house, at least not to get a dog. They had only been walking for 40 minutes and the shelter was another hour away.

Even in this time he had already felt as though his fingers were about to fall off, his ears had gone numb and his nose was brighter then Rudolph's. He couldn't help it, his right hand reached for her glove-covered one, squeezing it tightly to try and get some feeling back into his hand.

Annie shivered at his icy fingers in which she could feel through her woollen gloves. Her other hand rubs his hand in between both of hers, her feet walking a little quicker as she just wanted to get to this place.

They hadn't talked very much since the incident which occurred on Annie's couch. Annie was never speechless, she was, however, very awkward in high school, and that doesn't just go away. She wasn't that popular in high school, but she wasn't unpopular too, she was kind of irrelevant, people knew her but no one really cared about her friend group.

It didn't bother her, she loved her friends then and she was luckily to still be friends with Nina, but she did still have her awkward, shy tendencies sometimes, like now for instance.

She didn't know what to say to him, if anything, so she just stayed quiet, wading her way through the snow. After around 20 minutes of silence, Luke finally built up the courage to say something.

"Are you ok? With everything that just happened I mean..." He chattered, his lips feeling so dry and numb now, not like how they were when they were on Annie's.

"Yeah, we're just not supposed to, y'know, so it's a little weird." She commented, shrugging her shoulders as she felt his hand squeeze tighter onto her own. They weren't supposed to be doing that either, and yet here they were, walking together and holding hands on their way to get a dog, on Christmas.

"Do you think it's weird?" He asked, stopping momentarily and tugging Annie's hand so she would look at him.

"I think, ugh, I don't know what I think. I think it's wrong, it's inappropriate, it's-it's unprofessional and I don't know what to think Luke." She sighed, rubbing her eyes before dragging him forward to get out of the cold.

"Annie-" he breathed, jogging up next to her and noticing how she couldn't meet his eyes, she couldn't look at him right now. "Are you mad at me?"

She shook her head, stuffing her hands in her pockets as she continued to walk. "No, I'm not mad, let's just stop talking about it." She shrugged, shaking all those thoughts from her head and focusing on what was happening now.

"You're right..." he nodded, walking slower than he normally did so she didn't have to rush to keep up with him. "But you have to admit," he continued anyway, he couldn't help it, his mind was a constant cycle of Annie > therapist > "unprofessional" > happy > Annie, and he had no way of expressing this.