Let it Snow-Secret Santa for obsessed-M

[Sneesee]

This is for obsessed! Hope you enjoy it!

Secret Santa for obsessed

Title: Let it Snow

Prompt: Original, male, cold, friendship-romance, perhaps.

“Here’s some money to pay Josh when he’s all finished with the driveway.”

Meredith glared at her mom, who was holding out a wad of cash in front of Meredith’s face.

“You want me to pay him?” Surely, she couldn’t be serious.

“Yes, I’m heading out with Cybil to go shopping. She’ll be here in a few minutes to pick me up. Josh won’t be done for at least another half hour or so,” her mom said, pushing the money even closer to Meredith’s’ nose.

Damn! Leave it to her mom to embarrass her without even knowing it. Josh was the really hot guy from two doors down. Meredith had a huge crush on him, but never really talked to him. He was even shyer than she was, and some days at school, she was lucky to even get a “hi” out of him. Why couldn’t her mom just pay him on her way out?

A car horn beeped, and Meredith glanced out the window. Sure enough, Cybil’s Mercedes was sitting in front of the driveway, clouds of white smoke from the exhaust billowing in the front yard. Meredith took the money out of her mom’s grasp.

“I gotta run, kiddo! See you in a couple of hours! And don’t forget to pay Josh!”

Meredith watched her mom get into her full-length black coat and then slip out the front door. She moved to the window, and glanced outside as the Mercedes drove off, more smoke spewing from the exhaust pipe. As she followed the smoke as it traveled, she laid her eyes on Josh.

He was just heaving a huge pile of snow off of the driveway when she spotted him. Even all bundled up in his winter coat, hat and scarf, he made her insides turn to mush. His head tilted towards the front window, and with horror she realized he’d caught her staring. She quickly backed away from the window and retreated to the kitchen.

With her heart pounding a rapid beat against her rib cage, she leaned against the counter to try to calm down. A drink, she needed something to drink to settle down. As she popped open a bottle of water, she couldn’t believe that she was stupid enough to let him see her. The water went down way too quickly, because she was nervous and jittery, and always drank fast when she got like that.

“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself, and then headed out to the garage to throw her empty bottle into the recycling bin. She opened the door leading to the garage, and was met with a blast of icy cold wind. “Brrrrrrr.”

She looked up and realized that the overhead garage door was wide open. No wonder she was freezing. She stepped over to the recycling can in her stocking feet and tossed the bottle into it. It banged against the wall of the plastic can, thudding several times before bouncing along the bottom, and echoing through the garage. She never realized how much noise one little plastic bottle could make inside the empty bin.

As she was about to step back inside, she felt someone watching her. Slowly, she turned her head around and saw Josh peeking at her through his scarf. Damn it, he must’ve heard her making all that noise. His shovel was propped up in one hand, and he raised his right hand to wave at her. The new blush that she felt went from the very top of her head all the way down to her toes. She meekly waved back, and was about to go inside the house when she noticed something about Josh.

She realized dumbly that he wasn’t actually waving at her. His hand was held at an angle just underneath his nose, which was barely visible above the dark gray scarf. His head fell backwards slightly, and then dropped forward as he covered his nose with his gloved-hand. She didn’t hear any sound, but she was pretty sure that Josh had just sneezed. Anyway, it definitely resembled a sneeze in her opinion. As if to confirm her thought, Josh repeated the same action over again. Still, she heard nothing. Then he dropped his shovel, turned towards the street, and his whole body shuddered with a barely audible, “Eh-chush!”

Meredith sighed. The poor guy, the least she could do was bless him. Even though her throat went dry and she felt her face flush again, she felt she had to say something to him.

“Bless you.”

He slowly turned around to face her, pulling his scarf down to reveal a half-smile.

“Thank you, Meredith.”

Her blush deepened at the fact that he knew her name. She shuffled her feet as they both stood there with nothing more to say. As Josh finally bent down to retrieve the shovel, he paused and sneezed harshly into his fist. He shook his head and mumbled, “Excuse me.”

“Bless you again,” Meredith said. She would have ventured closer to him, except that all she had on were socks, and no warm clothes on. She had a feeling that Josh’s sneezing might be due to a cold or something, but she was far too afraid to ask him. But, she felt okay offering him something warm to drink.

“Hey, would you like a cup of hot cocoa, or something, Josh?”

Josh perked up as Meredith said his name. Even though they had been neighbors for a while, went to the same school, and said “hi” to each other on occasion, she’d never said his name before. He loved the way it sounded coming from her, as well as the way she had blessed him.

The hot cocoa sounded like a really good idea, too. The warmth would probably do wonders to sooth his sore throat. He woke up feeling like crap, but because of his snow shoveling business, and the several inches that fell the night before, he couldn’t very well take the day off.

“That sounds really nice, Meredith, thanks.’

He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination, or possibly from the cold air, but Meredith appeared to blush every time he used her name.

“Would you like to come in and warm up? I mean,” she stammered, face becoming even redder. Josh thought it was pretty cute.

“I could finish the driveway while you make the hot cocoa. Then I’ll come in and have some, if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, and then disappeared inside the house.

Josh felt kind of bold for once, and he wasn’t even sure why. He’d never had the guts to say more than “hi” to her. He’d always thought she was a bit stuck-up, because she never really spoke to him either. He began to see that maybe she was just as shy as he was.

Since he knew she was inside working on the hot chocolate, he decided to kick it into high gear and finish off her driveway. There was still a light snow falling, and the below zero temperature wasn’t helping him move as quickly as he would’ve liked to. Between the weather and how achy he felt, he was shocked he could lift and throw the snow at all. He was working hard to save for a really nice snow-thrower, which would allow him to get more driveways done in less time. Then perhaps on days he felt like this, he could get done and go home and back to bed.

The harder he worked, the more he sniffled and wiped at his nose with his glove. He regretted not grabbing any tissues before he’d left the house that morning. His nose was beginning to feel a bit raw underneath from the constant rubbing. And the sneezing wasn’t helping either. He had to stop shoveling several times, as the constant tickle would suddenly grow stronger, forcing him to just give in and sneeze. And he never sneezed just once. It was usually three or four in a row.

He pushed his aching body to the limit, and completed shoveling Meredith’s driveway. Her mom always paid him really well, usually throwing in a few extra dollars. But that wasn’t the main reason he shoveled their driveway. Mostly it was because he got to see Meredith, wandering around her house in pajama bottoms and a tank top, with her hair up in a ponytail, which was probably his favorite look on her.

He set the shovel in a deep pile of snow, walked up to the garage, but stomped the snow off of his feet and legs before walking up to the entrance to her house. He didn’t want to track wet snow even on the garage floor. The closer he came to actually being inside her house, the more his nerves started to act up. She invited him in, so it wasn’t as if she didn’t want him to be there. He was honestly more worried about his cold, and appearing weak and helpless in front of her. Gosh, he was such a baby sometimes, especially when he was sick.

He knocked on the door firmly, the insecure part of him hoping she wouldn’t hear him and he could just move on to the next client. Then he heard the soft padding of her feet, and the next thing he knew, the door was open, and she was smiling at him.

“Come on in.”

Meredith watched as he carefully undid each of his boots, and walked up the two wooden steps to the doorway. She stepped back a couple of feet so he could enter her house. He crawled out of all of his snow gear. Meredith took it from him, folded it as neatly as possible, and then on top of the washer and dryer. He grinned at her, and his brown eyes smiled, too. That was when her insides turned into mush again.

“You must be really cold out there,” she said as casually as she could.

“A little.”

“The hot chocolate is ready in the kitchen, come on in.”

He followed behind her, but then paused in the doorway of the kitchen. She turned around to see why he stopped, only to find him caught in the throes of an oncoming sneeze. He turned to his left side, throwing his arm over his nose and mouth, and sneezed into his elbow. Meredith was about to bless him, but he tilted his head back and sneezed a second time. She cocked hr head, watching him and waiting for him to finish before saying anything. A smile tilted on her lips, because even though the poor guy looked miserable, she thought his sneezes were kind of cute. On the last sneeze, he stood there, frozen for several seconds, and then finally the sneeze took over his whole body, thrusting his head and shoulders forward so far he almost hit the wall.

“Bless you, Josh!” Meredith exclaimed.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice clogged with congestion. She led him to the breakfast bar where she’d put out two mugs full of steaming hot cocoa. Josh sat down on one of the stools. Then, without a word, she disappeared into the guest bathroom and came back with a box of tissues, which she set in front of Josh.

“Um, thanks,” he said as a touch of pink tinged his cheeks.

“No prob,” she said, sitting down next to him.

He grabbed a tissue, turned completely away from her, and blew his nose kind of softly.

They sipped their cocoa, and Meredith decided she was going to ask him if he wasn’t feeling well, since they were finally on a first-name basis with each other.

“Josh, are you okay?”

Josh was stunned. Meredith was being so nice to him. He couldn’t believe he’d thought she was stuck up. He felt bad he’d been wrong about her. And he couldn’t believe he was about to admit he wasn’t really okay.

“I think I have a cold. It isn’t a big deal, though,” he said, trying to muffle a cough.

“You really shouldn’t be out in this weather, then, should you?” she said knowingly, cocking her head to one side and half-smiling at him.

If it was possible, she was even cuter when she was scolding him than ever before.

“Probably not, but I need to get these driveways done today. People are counting on me. I can’t exactly call in sick, ya know?”

“I get it. I do. I was just thinking, though…”

“Yeah?”

She hesitated, and he was really curious about what she was thinking. Only, his nose had other plans.

“Hup-tschuh.”

In vain, he tried to stifle his sneezes, but two more forceful ones followed the first one.

“Bless,” she said, still smiling at him. “I was thinking that after I made you some chicken soup for lunch, I could help you with the rest of your shoveling.”

He peeked up at her from the tissue he was holding. The urge to sneeze dissipated as a warm and fuzzy sensation he hadn’t felt in awhile washed over him. She wanted to not only take care of him, but also help him?

“You’d help me?”

“Definitely. Before you started doing our driveway, I always helped my mom do it. I can handle a shovel full of snow.”

“Wow, Meredith, I don’t know what to say.”

“Say that you’ll let me help you. But first I need to see if we have any chicken soup,” she said, hopping off of her stool and rooting around in her pantry. “Ah, yes, a couple of cans. Sorry, that’s all we got.”

“Thanks,” he said, giving her a sheepish grin. They stared at each other for a few seconds, until he broke the silence by sneezing three times in quick succession.

“Bless you, sneezy boy! Let’s get you feeling better and then get your work done so you can go home and rest.”

Josh saw Meredith in a whole new light as she stirred his soup. In fact, he thought this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The End.

[LeapYearKisses]

Awwww.... This is so adorable!

[tma]

YAY!!! I was waiting to get to see this up here. I your writing and your characters. You are SO awesome and write the sweetest things.

[obsessed]

... FOR ME?!

Wheeee, you don't know how excited I was when I saw the title.

And then, the cuteness. Oh gosh, this was adorable.

I love how shy they both are, and the weather, and the everything. And Josh sounds pretty adorable to me, a shy boy who can turn insides to mush? Oh yes please, I would be quite okay with that.

Thankyouthankyou. <3

[Ciuty80]

gyyyaaaahhhhh soooo damn cute

well done!

[dumpling]

Awwwww this was so cute

[TheCakeIsAlive]

*insides have turned to mush*

Hmmm.... I like Josh. That scene in the kitchen positively melted me.

[ooo]

Aww, adorable! I love how cutely embarrassed Josh is, and how they're both all shy around each other to start off with. And I really love the cold snowy setting!

[lalaland~]

Oh this is so cute! loveit!