For What It's Worth

Chapter Forty One : Nightmare Before Christmas

N I G H T M A R E B E F O R E C H R I S T M A S

Thomas

I adjust my shoulders back into the pillows, one arm bent above my head, the other scrolling through the emails of my phone. Every now and then, I glance up to see Isabelle whizzing around the room, tidying up. I chew on the corner of my mouth, watching her move around in just a white crop top and thong.

She's frantic, running her hands through her fly away hairs, her breath almost panting. I put my phone face down, starting to feel stressed out that she's stressed out.

"Baby." I say to get her attention. She ignores me, continuing with whatever she's ducked down into her drawers to do. "Just calm down a little."

"I am calm." She returns sternly. She is absolutely not calm.

"Come back to bed." I beckon as she stands but doesn't look at me.

"I can't." She shakes her head.

"You can. You're just winding yourself up." She carries on pacing back and forth around the room.

"I need to keep myself busy. If I do nothing then it just lets my mind run away and I don't want that."  She explains and I let out a sigh.

"You're consciously trying to distract yourself which means all you're doing is thinking about what you can do to not think about the thing that you don't want to think about which means... you're thinking about it." She stops, dropping her shoulders in defeat.

She tilts her head back and groans, almost through a frustrated laugh. Eventually, she crawls up the bed and into my arms. I cradle her warmly and she relaxes into me.

"You're so annoying." She complains, her voice is muffled into my skin. I stroke the back of her head as I let out a chuckle. We lay there together for a while.

"I'm going to call Mom later and let her know that we're coming earlier than planned." I say. "I've also got a rental I'm picking up later if you want to come with me."

"I don't know. I think I should probably start getting things ready for your Mom's, especially if we're staying longer than we thought. I'll have to make sure I'm packing enough."

"Okay." I plant a kiss on the top of her forehead, then on the end of her nose and her cheeks and finally a bunch of times on her lips.

It manages to make her laugh and I bury my head into the crook of her neck. She starts wriggling away, calming her laughter down to softly stare at me. She fondly strokes my cheek with her thumb, flicking her gaze over every feature of my face.

"I love you." She whispers.

"I love you too." She leans forwards, pressing another kiss on my lips and then rests her head on my bare chest.

She starts swirling her fingers against my skin, travelling down my side and skimming along the waistband of my sweatpants. It makes me flinch several times and then she stops.

"Your heart is beating really fast." She murmurs.

"Yeah. I wonder why." I laugh, moving her hand up and kissing the back of it.

"I wish we could stay like this forever." She mumbles quietly.

"Well you've got about twenty minutes before I'm going to have to go." She lets out a groan of complaint, holding onto my tighter. "Better than nothing huh?"

"Better than nothing." She agrees.

**

I pull back up in the parking lot in the silver Mercedes C class I've got as a temporary car. It's nice but nothing compared to my Audi. I get out, carefully closing the door before locking it. I scan my surroundings before leaving it.