Page 56 of Snowed In with You

‘Yes,’ said Lucy, keeping her voice strong and confident so Nate couldn’t hear her lack of resolve. ‘There is no me and you, there can’t be. We both know that.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, swallowing hard. ‘So just work friends, then?’

Lucy forced a smile and nodded emphatically, determined not to let him see her wavering. It felt like her heart was already starting to unravel at the edges, like Nate had tugged on its strings and set something in motion that she couldn’t stop. Clearly the sooner she got off this mountain and back to the safety and familiarity of her flat in Bristol, the better.

And yet somehow, the thought of that made her feel more lost and stranded than ever.

CHAPTER TWENTY

When Lucy and Nate returned downstairs, the front door to the Guntherhütte was open and everyone was already gathered in the space they’d dug out yesterday. The throbbing diesel engine of the snowplough sounded like it was just on the other side of the first row of trees, so Lucy grabbed her clothes from the drying rack and darted into the bathroom to change. It felt wrong to re-enter civilisation in giant knickers and purple stirrup pants, so she left Monica’s clothes in the washing machine and found a plastic grocery bag hanging on the back of the door for her jumper, deciding to keep Nate’s sweatshirt on. He was wearing a spare sweater of Alex’s, so they could all swap back to their original clothes later.

By the time she joined the others outside, the approaching snowplough was shaking the snow from nearby treetops. She looked for Nate, who was chatting to Andrea and Felix on the other side of the terrace, determinedly looking the other way. Willem and Alex were eyeing them both with interest, so Lucy resolved to keep her distance from Nate for the time being – they’d have to travel back to Bristol together, but there was no need to make this parting any harder than it needed to be. Instead she watched with Willem and Alex as the cab of the snowplough appeared through the trees, then the wall of snow at the end of the terrace cracked and crumbled. The huge yellow shovel pushed all the snow to the sides with a deafening roar that echoed through the mountains, then dug a further path over to one side so that Ulrich’s bus could drive in alongside him. Both drivers killed the engines, and everything was silent again.

‘And now you can go home,’ said Monica, putting her arm around Lucy’s shoulders. It felt like a bittersweet relief – Lucy was happy that they were all safe and going somewhere where she could have a bath and change her clothes, but she was sad to leave Gunther and Monica behind. Even Chantal had been tolerable on occasions.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’ve all been amazing.’

‘It has been an adventure,’ said Gunther, pulling Lucy into an unnecessarily full-contact hug. ‘Come and visit us; you will always be welcome here. Free glühwein for life!’ In contrast, Chantal gave Lucy a zero-contact hug and a watery smile that lived somewhere between I want to be your friend but also I hate you with the force of a thousand suns.

Lucy looked up as Monica said her goodbyes to Nate. ‘You have such talent,’ she said, her hand on his shoulder. ‘Be sure to follow your dreams.’

There was a flurry of activity and shouting in German as Ulrich and the snowplough driver helped Gunther unload a generator from the back of the bus and carry it to the shed. Then another few minutes of ferrying bags of provisions, and Ulrich updating his family on everything that was happening down in the village. Alex videoed everything, turning his camera on Lucy and the others so they could wave and look excited. She took in the beautiful vista of mountains for a final time, wondering if she’d ever come back here, before picking up her plastic bag and getting ready to board the bus.

‘We should all have a photo together before we leave,’ said Alex. ‘The Guntherhütte crew. Can you take it?’ He thrust his phone at Ulrich, then waved his arms to organise everyone into a group under the Guntherhütte sign. Nate fell in beside Lucy, and put his arm loosely around her shoulders. He felt warm and solid and safe, and for a moment Lucy really didn’t want him to let go. What he’d said about Leo had been a punch in the gut, but it was too huge and painful to think about now. Maybe they could go and get a drink down in Zermatt, just the two of them? There was no harm in that, and she absolutely, definitely wouldn’t sleep with him again. Just friends from now on.

‘One more,’ said Ulrich. ‘Everyone say “Guntherhütte!” ’

They all shouted in response, like a ramshackle crew of intrepid explorers who had conquered the mountains and lived to tell the tale. A final round of goodbyes to the family, and within minutes they were all bundling onto Ulrich’s bus.

Lucy got on first and sat at the back, followed by Willem and Alex, who took the seats in front of her, Alex staring at his phone like he was willing it to be back within range of some phone signal. Nate was outside helping Andrea and Felix load their instruments into the luggage compartment at the back, then he followed them onto the bus and took the seat at the front. Lucy felt a flash of disappointment, then reminded herself that she was the one who had insisted on the distance between them, and he was probably already glad to be getting back to Sasha. There was a minute or two of ploughing and turning so both vehicles could get back on the piste in the other direction, and then they were on their way.

In the end the journey back was considerably less perilous than the trip up – the snowplough had created a deep channel through the powdery snow so it felt like driving down a toboggan run. Also Ulrich could only drive at the speed of the plough in front of him, which really wasn’t very fast at all. Presumably by tomorrow this would all have been properly cleared and he would be able to come and go like a maniac again, but right now Lucy was grateful for the sedate and careful drive down. She kept one eye on Nate, who was in his own little world, looking out of the steamy window, but didn’t seem to be struggling. Her thoughts drifted to his hands on her body this morning, and her thighs clenched with desire. There was a lot she needed to unpick about this weekend – what had happened, what had been said, how she felt – and Nate seemed to be at the heart of most of it.

‘Who are all those people?’ asked Willem, using his hand to clear the condensation from the window as they reached the bottom of the piste and the village. It was already starting to get dark, but there was a crowd of twenty or thirty people bundled in coats and hats waiting by the bus stop. Some of them were holding cameras and microphones with huge foam covers.

‘Holy shit,’ said Alex, tapping frantically on his phone. ‘Oh my fucking JESUS.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Lucy, not sure she could cope with any more drama today. Nate, Andrea and Felix all turned to look at Alex.

‘We’ve gone viral,’ he said.

‘Who has?’ asked Willem.

‘I have. I put a load of videos on my TikTok and Insta first thing this morning, when the Wi-Fi came back, and now everyone’s talking about them. Like, hundreds of thousands of shares.’ He kept swiping and tapping, his screen a flickering blur of videos and comments.

‘So all these people, they’re here for us?’ asked Felix, waving through the window at a man holding a camera. ‘Are we famous? Is now the time to change our name to the Refubeegees? Come on.’ Ulrich opened the door to a blast of cold air and a cacophony of excited shouting, and Felix grabbed Andrea’s hand and dragged her off the bus behind him. They were quickly swallowed up by the crowd, as Ulrich opened the luggage compartment to retrieve their instruments.

‘If they’re here for anyone, it’s Alex,’ said Willem, looking somewhere between bored and exhausted. Lucy tried to imagine what living in the shadow of a famous influencer must be like, and decided it was probably kind of tiresome.

‘No,’ said Alex. ‘Oh shit.’

‘What is it?’ asked Lucy.

He looked up, pressing one hand over his mouth as the other continued to tap and swipe. ‘I think they’re here for Nate.’

‘Wait, what do you mean?’ asked Nate, shaking his head as everyone turned to look at him. He stood up and made his way down the bus, sitting down on the seat in front of Lucy, fixing Alex with a narrow-eyed glare.

‘I uploaded a video of you singing,’ said Alex, glued to his screen excitedly and oblivious to Nate bearing down on him. ‘I’d done a really nice edit, because I was bored. So it had Ed Sheeran from Friday, then a bit of Elton and George Michael and the other guy from yesterday.’