MY CHRISTMAS ROMANCE

CHAPTER 18: OLD DREAMS AND NEW WISHES

This chapter is dedicated to the sweet @boekenworm100 and her little Snuffle 😉🐰 You two are so cute, and I know you like Holidays romances too 😉 So this is my little gift for you, I love you 😘❤🎄

"Penelope!"

Finally, someone talks to me, and it's not just anyone. I'm happy to be met by sparkling blue eyes after what feels like hours of being alone with my glue gun, but maybe it's just been minutes; I don't really know because I've been too lost in the chaos of my thoughts.

One of the many knots in my stomach untangles with Lilly's smile. At least, she isn't mad at me after Theone's rudeness earlier, and she doesn't even seem upset, keeping her tiara high on her small head. I've kept mine too, though I surely don't look as gracious as she does.

"Theo needs you."

I widen my eyes. She definitely never gives up, and I doubt he even wants to see me, but she adds, "He said he needs help in the cold room."

"Why?" I frown, but of course, Lilly doesn't know, so she just shrugs as I ponder if I should leave my table centerpiece half-done.

I decide to get up quickly because I don't want him to make another scene and ruin the little Christmas spirit I have left.

I'm simmering so much in my thoughts that I'm in front of the cold room before I realize it, a shiver down my spine reminding me how dark and empty the hallway is. Theone wouldn't murder me, would he?

I enter the cold room before picturing stupid scenarios, when there are actually more chances that I murder him.

"Theone?" I call, and I quickly spot him in the narrow cold room.

He is crouching down, putting a few food assortments we've received for the tombola on a shelf.

"What?" He doesn't even lift up his head, and his annoyed tone reawakens my boiling anger, forming goosebumps with the contrast of temperatures on my skin.

"I don't know. You tell me, since you're the one who called me there."

He finally snaps his wide eyes towards me. They're less sharp than before, as confusion lifts up his eyebrows, yet they still miss their usual playful sparkle. "What? I've never called–"

The loud bang of the door closing cuts him off, and I suddenly take in the coldness of the room with a chill spreading throughout my whole body. 

I rush to the door with a bad feeling spreading as fast as the cold on my skin. I haven't watched a lot of horror movies in my life, but I know this is often how they start.

"No! No! Please no!" I plead frantically as I try to push the door with all my strength, but it doesn't open. "No! No! No!" I repeat as fast as the loud thuds of my heart.

"Who told you I called you?" Theone asks way too calmly.

"We're stuck, Theone! Do you think this is the most important?!" I groan, still pulling and pushing on the door handle while his questioning gaze doesn't falter, and I sigh, "It's Lilly."

"Lilly?!" I hear his cocked eyebrow through his voice, and I cut him off before a smirk can follow.

"We're stuck! So it's not our main preoccupation!"

"We can't be stuck, there's a safety so we can open it even from inside, and there isn't even a lock." His smirk is back in his knows-it-all tone, making my panic turn back into irritation.

"Wow! I didn't know!" I reply with the roll of my eyes, letting him try the handle by himself, and guess what?

Surprisingly, Mr. Knows-it-all can't open it either.